Woof woof! Oh hey...meow meow. I meant meow.
June 21, 2011 5:24 PM   Subscribe

Secret Agent Cat barks when you're not looking. Housecat is caught barking and goes back to meowing when caught by his humans. Single link Tosh.0.
posted by sweetkid (68 comments total) 38 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is just like how all the French speak English when we aren't around.
posted by TwelveTwo at 5:25 PM on June 21, 2011 [42 favorites]


I woof like to buy a hamburgrrrrrr.
posted by maryr at 5:29 PM on June 21, 2011 [5 favorites]


I've heard cats make that barking noise before, but it's something I tend to associate with severe kitty distress (panic or illness) instead of voluntary behavior. I was glad to see the return to meowing that indicated he was OK.
posted by immlass at 5:33 PM on June 21, 2011 [5 favorites]


Ha!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:33 PM on June 21, 2011 [1 favorite]


I WILLGET YOUGETYOGETYOU!
Oh, hi, yeah, hi...waterbowl is low, yeah.
posted by clavdivs at 5:34 PM on June 21, 2011 [6 favorites]


The look on his face when he realized he was caught was pretty funny.
posted by winna at 5:34 PM on June 21, 2011 [1 favorite]


The cat was just messing with the neighbor cats. Prankster cat.
posted by TwelveTwo at 5:35 PM on June 21, 2011 [1 favorite]


Would you say the cat's bark is worse than its ...
posted by TwelveTwo at 5:35 PM on June 21, 2011


What barks at windows and chews on pencils? the sys-admin a cat!!!
posted by TwelveTwo at 5:37 PM on June 21, 2011 [7 favorites]


Double.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:38 PM on June 21, 2011


Would you say the cat's bark is worse than its ...

Hairball! What do I win?
posted by katillathehun at 5:38 PM on June 21, 2011


I've heard cats make that barking noise before, but it's something I tend to associate with severe kitty distress (panic or illness) instead of voluntary behavior.

Yeah, in my house this is usually the countdown-to-kitty-barf. Sometimes I can even manage to whip a paper towel under their noses just in time...
posted by vorfeed at 5:38 PM on June 21, 2011 [3 favorites]


Left-wing propaganda.
posted by grobstein at 5:39 PM on June 21, 2011


What sounds like a dog but is a cat? a cat!!! wait, actually, yess a cat!!!!
posted by TwelveTwo at 5:39 PM on June 21, 2011 [2 favorites]


Hairball! What do I win?

A hairball.
posted by Tomorrowful at 5:43 PM on June 21, 2011 [18 favorites]


no, he was calling for boiling oil.
posted by clavdivs at 5:44 PM on June 21, 2011


So this is the cat's clever way to get the neighbour's dog evicted for excessive barking, I gather.
posted by jeather at 5:47 PM on June 21, 2011 [16 favorites]


Video: Fairly cute.

Tosh.0: Fairly lame.
posted by JHarris at 5:48 PM on June 21, 2011 [3 favorites]


So this is the cat's clever way to get the neighbour's dog evicted for excessive barking, I gather.

The "cats do not bark" defense is a bulletproof play in the courts.
posted by TwelveTwo at 5:50 PM on June 21, 2011


Double.

wat? maybe "previously" or "also" but linking to a comment inside a thread is not evidence of a double post, sir.
posted by chimaera at 5:52 PM on June 21, 2011 [5 favorites]


I loved this video, the cat is like "whoa, busted" and goes back to meowing, but the consensus on the webs is the cat is in heat and calling for a mate and this is typical cat behavior.
posted by Ad hominem at 5:58 PM on June 21, 2011 [2 favorites]


This is in the wrong section. You should have posted it to cat.metafilter.com.

I checked. There is no such thing, but there definitely needs to be.
posted by JHarris at 6:01 PM on June 21, 2011 [8 favorites]


Norma barks on a regular basis.

She also quacks and grunts.



We kind of suspect that Feline Rescue constructed her from spare parts.
posted by louche mustachio at 6:05 PM on June 21, 2011 [12 favorites]


Tosh.0: Fairly lame. SSSUUUUUUHHHUUUUHHHUUUUUUCCCKKKS.
posted by louche mustachio at 6:07 PM on June 21, 2011 [5 favorites]


The look on the cat's face when caught is exactly the same look you get on your face when caught enthusiastically singing a song you claim to hate.
posted by bwg at 6:09 PM on June 21, 2011


This is too cute. How much more cute could it be?

The answer is none. None more cute.
posted by The Whelk at 6:10 PM on June 21, 2011 [11 favorites]


siamese cats can meow better than any other kind of cat
posted by tehloki at 6:11 PM on June 21, 2011 [3 favorites]


, but the consensus on the webs is the cat is in heat and calling for a mate and this is typical cat behavior.

Huh. I know that cats only really meow to humans and kittens and communicate in other ways with other cats and even other animals - the meowing is mostly for our benefit - so I wonder, was the cat going YES! YES! YES! CAT TALK! BREEDING! IN HEAT! YES, then sees the human and switches to "NO! Nothing, human talk, huuuman talk, for humans ..."

Cause that would be excellent.
posted by The Whelk at 6:13 PM on June 21, 2011 [15 favorites]


This is in the wrong section. You should have posted it to cat.metafilter.com.

> cat cat.metafilter.com > metafilter.com
posted by loquacious at 6:23 PM on June 21, 2011 [7 favorites]


the look on the cat's face when caught is just priceless. who said animals have no sense of self-awareness or even shame :D
posted by liza at 6:27 PM on June 21, 2011


Animals make all sort of noises.

The most alarming thing I ever heard was a frog being stalked by a cat. It woke me up, initially I thought a member of my family was being tortured. Eventually I traced it outside and saw a tiny frog squaring up to the neighbourhood cat. I can't describe the noise it was making, but it was huge, human-like and extremely unsettling
posted by fire&wings at 6:41 PM on June 21, 2011 [5 favorites]


Fire&wings That reminds me of catching a bullfrog when I was young... Using a fishnet... The frog "screamed" MAMA MAMA MAMA... I let it go in terror. I never tried to catch another frog of any size in my life again. I now live on a piece of land that you have to raise your voice because of the spring peeping and the only thing that keeps me safe is that the frogs know I let that bullfrog go thirty ought years before... I swear.
posted by mrgroweler at 6:54 PM on June 21, 2011 [29 favorites]


But can barking kitteh play air harp?
posted by nickyskye at 6:57 PM on June 21, 2011


Guy goes to apply for a secretarial job with a dog. Screener says "Sir, you can't bring your dog to the job interview." Guy says, "No, my dog is applying for the job."

Screener says, "Well, we ask for sixty words per minute typing speed." Dog jumps up to the keyboard, glances over the copy to be retyped, and bangs it out at better than 60 WPM. Screener says, "We're also looking for familiarity with Access." Dog opens up Access and sets up a database quick as you please. Screener says, "The ad also stated we're looking for someone bilingual."

Dog says, "Meow."
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:13 PM on June 21, 2011 [29 favorites]


siamese cats can meow better than any other kind of cat

Because Siamese cats practice, practice, practice.

"Hello, I am pleased to see you, though from my tone you would think that I am currently on fire."

"A human! Let us make noises like we are being fed into paper shredders until it turns on the kitchen faucet for us!"

"It is a lovely day. FOR SCREAMING."
posted by BitterOldPunk at 7:13 PM on June 21, 2011 [139 favorites]


This is a cool kitty even if it's under stress!
posted by Meatafoecure at 7:14 PM on June 21, 2011


I liked the video but nearly didn't click it because I was afraid it was "Women get raped because they dress like sluts, amiright?" stuff he usually does.
posted by munchingzombie at 7:19 PM on June 21, 2011


"Hello, I am pleased to see you, though from my tone you would think that I am currently on fire."

Yes, I remember the summer night I ran out into the street to figure out why a six year old girl was screaming. It was a neighbor's Siamese cat.
posted by sweetkid at 7:20 PM on June 21, 2011 [1 favorite]


Yes, I remember the summer night I ran out into the street to figure out why a six year old girl was screaming. It was a neighbor's Siamese cat.

What was the cat doing to the six year old girl?
posted by TwelveTwo at 7:20 PM on June 21, 2011 [13 favorites]


One of ours is half siamese we think, being a standard issue tabby with black points. He has a mouth on him and when he is lonely he fires up a McCullough quality mesa de voce rrreeeoooooowwwwww. Also, he snorts. Loud. Snkkkk! And snores both asleep and awake, and wheezes, and blerts and burbles and prt! and ngow?. Full of sound. And furry. Signifying nothing.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:30 PM on June 21, 2011 [23 favorites]


This caused my cats more than a little concern. Well, two of them; the third is deaf and didn't notice.
posted by rtha at 7:32 PM on June 21, 2011


One of my cats has learned to mimic a) the other cat's distress meow and b) my toddler's distress cry. So I never know if someone's in distress and locked in a closet or if my cat is fucking with me. Again.

(And yes, he's half Siamese.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:34 PM on June 21, 2011 [8 favorites]


When I had my Siamese cat Squish, I had to take him to the vet twice. Now normally, he was pretty chill and quiet for a Siamese - until you put him in the carrier. (I'd put said carrier on my back, as the vet was only 4 blocks away, and I walked there.) Then, Squish reached DEFCON 1 in about 2 seconds, and this included a howl that could blister paint.

Both times, people came running up to me asking if I was OK, should they call the police, what was wrong with my baby, are you sure you're not hurt, etc. And both times, I just pointed to the carrier, they saw the freaked out Siamese in the back, and they visibly relaxed.
posted by spinifex23 at 7:43 PM on June 21, 2011 [3 favorites]


One of my cats hisses & makes a deep menacing growl that sounds like a dog growling when the other cat visits his hiding place. He also has a very loud & deep MEOW when he wants to go out or wants attention. Unfortunately my other cat is learning to imitate his deep meow.
posted by mike3k at 7:48 PM on June 21, 2011 [1 favorite]


Our Persian Shorthair is a particularly effective communicator. They're know to be conversational as a breed.

Not only does he meow, but he's figured out that daddy's ears are well attuned to the sound of claws on curtain. One slow drag of the curtain will wake me from the deepest sleep in a second and guarantee getting some fuss from a sleepy owner.
posted by arcticseal at 8:05 PM on June 21, 2011 [1 favorite]


At this point I am convinced that Siamese cats are actually demon-spawn sent to this plane of existence to punish us for our transgressions, and that the unearthly utterances that issue forth from them are the appropriately sepulchral wailings as to befit such a wraithlike supernaturally evil entity.

And mine is the best little impy kitty-witty in the the whole of the underworld.

*skritches cat belly*

*bandages finger wounds*
posted by quin at 8:58 PM on June 21, 2011 [4 favorites]


Such an assertion is meaningless without photographic evidence.
posted by winna at 9:04 PM on June 21, 2011


They do know how to make you feel on edge. Current catch phrase in our house was coined by our ayi last month - "Ticky, why you eyeballing me?".
posted by arcticseal at 9:05 PM on June 21, 2011


Animals Being Dicks was last week.
posted by Chuffy at 10:10 PM on June 21, 2011


During the transition from bark to meow, my cat woke up from a dead sleep near my feet and bolted across the room. I'm sure whatever the video cat was saying wasn't very pleasant.

Now I have to go find and reassure my cat.
posted by narwhal bacon at 10:13 PM on June 21, 2011 [1 favorite]




During the transition from bark to meow, my cat woke up from a dead sleep near my feet and bolted across the room. I'm sure whatever the video cat was saying wasn't very pleasant.

Now I have to go find and reassure my cat.


My cat did the same. After I played it about ten times, he now starts meowing when the cat in the video does.
posted by sweetkid at 10:47 PM on June 21, 2011


My cat had a secret dream to be a big cat on the Serengeti. I know this because occasionally at night if no lights were on and he thought I was sleeping he would run around the apartment at breakneck speed and leap onto his cat tree and ROAR. At least he would try to roar. It came out sounding pretty much exactly like Baby Simba's baby roar in The Lion King. But the intention was there.
posted by Justinian at 11:47 PM on June 21, 2011 [5 favorites]


My cat makes a noise like that when she loses her mind over being in the car on the way to any place, or simply while in her carrier. She's a white and black short-haired cat, sort of looks like a cow. She will make that terrible noise until her voice is hoarse. And nothing will console her except taking her home and letting her hide underneath a bed or couch.

She almost sounds like some kind of goose honking. It's very heartbreaking to hear her in distress but in retrospect, it's such a strange noise to come out of her (she's usually chirping) that it's kind of funny.
posted by autoclavicle at 12:08 AM on June 22, 2011


This is a cat that has become bilingual in Canine solely for the purpose of fucking with the neighbor dog.

"Hey, DOG! You! Yeah, YOU! You're ADOPTED!"
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:34 AM on June 22, 2011 [8 favorites]


Nothing will ever top my (RIP -- deceased) Siamese Wolfgang. The dachshund decides she's going to sit in front of him and bark in his face. For AGES. Finally, the ol' Siamese reserve breaks down and he calmly slaps her across the face and walks away.

Wolfgang would also slap your hand if you were eating French fries or tacos, in hopes of fallout. I loved that damn cat. Our current (all black, but clearly part Siamese) Giles is equally hilarious, although a lot more fraidycat.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 7:28 AM on June 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


Okay, look. I know I should flag and move on, and that I should probably take this to MetaTalk, but this thread is full of such egregious violations of the site's fundamental guidelines I'm going to drop my callout right here, right now:

If you mention your adorable kitty, you post a picture of the damn kitty.

Come on, people. We're better than this.
posted by Zozo at 8:16 AM on June 22, 2011 [9 favorites]


sweetkid: "Yes, I remember the summer night I ran out into the street to figure out why a six year old girl was screaming. It was a neighbor's Siamese cat"

When we were (humanely) trapping the feral colony to get them their boosters, we were worried that one of the cats would get Child Protective Services called on us. He sounded like an infant screaming, wailing, for hours at a time, in our barn. We'd go out to check on him, and he'd be sitting comfortably (as possible) in the crate, food and water available, otherwise fine, just making those terrible and worrisome noises nonstop.

We got him in to the vet as quickly as we could. We paid extra to go earlier.
posted by galadriel at 8:43 AM on June 22, 2011


I liked the video but nearly didn't click it because I was afraid it was "Women get raped because they dress like sluts, amiright?" stuff he usually does.

You were afraid of that based on the post's description? Really? I've seen a few episodes of the show, but I clearly must be watching the wrong ones because I've yet to see the good stuff you refer to.
posted by yerfatma at 8:46 AM on June 22, 2011


My parents' cat (Tonkinese = half-Siamese) can do a perfect imitation of my mother's aggrieved tone when she orders it off the countertop. The imitation is always produced after the aggrieved order, like so:

MOTHER: Mori! Get down!
CAT: Myaah! Mya-rowr! (Jumps down with a sarcastic flick of the tail)

It's like being in the room with a sardonic teenager.
posted by Acheman at 9:09 AM on June 22, 2011 [12 favorites]


This video shows similar behaviour, although there, rather than matching an annoyed voice, the cat is doing a beautiful imitation of the woman's pleading/imploring tone and phrasing. I've seen my parents' cat do this kind of 'conversation', too, where it doesn't get down off the counter immediately, but engages for a few minutes in a dialogue in which it closely mirrors the intonation of the preceding utterance. It can be really uncanny.

Cats, man.
posted by Acheman at 9:19 AM on June 22, 2011 [2 favorites]


If you mention your adorable kitty, you post a picture of the damn kitty.

My Siamese demon spawn. Complete with horns.
posted by quin at 9:25 AM on June 22, 2011 [2 favorites]


When the barking started, Bella ran across the room to see what was happening. And the most recent talkative Siamese video above got Penelope to get down from the cat tree to investigate.

Bella's a little toughie (tries to face off against the neighbor cat, even though she's inside and the other cat's outside and three floors below us, in the parking lot) and when she was heading towards me she had a definite air of "A dog? In my apartment? This shall not stand!"
posted by Lexica at 9:36 AM on June 22, 2011


When I had my Siamese cat Squish, I had to take him to the vet twice. Now normally, he was pretty chill and quiet for a Siamese - until you put him in the carrier. (I'd put said carrier on my back, as the vet was only 4 blocks away, and I walked there.) Then, Squish reached DEFCON 1 in about 2 seconds, and this included a howl that could blister paint.

Zach was the same way. And he was loud.

I used to live in a fourth-floor walkup on the Lower East Side, and when I had to bring him to the vet I'd get him into the carrier and walk two blocks to the nearest biggish street, then hail a cab. One summer afternoon I wrestled him into the carrier and started the trudge down the four flights of stairs, Zach screaming at me the whole way. I got to the street and started the two-block walk to where I'd get a cab -- and then noticed that a couple cops were hurrying towards me, looking a little concerned. They looked at me, saw the carrier, heard Zach screaming, and busted up laughing.

Then they explained that they'd been a couple blocks away on patrol, had heard Zach, and come running thinking "I don't know what the hell that noise is, but that can't be good!"

(He also could kick up a fuss even during his last couple weeks -- when he was at one of his last vet visits, while were trying to pinpoint what was wrong with him, my vet at some point took him into the back room to take blood and urine samples. I sat in the main consult room to wait. Then I heard a series of very, very angry Zach screams and a couple of calls for "extra assistance". The cat and human shouting went on another minute or so more. Then, a minute later, my vet came back in, carrying Zach, and with her hair mussed and her shirttail untucked. She handed him back to me and all she said was, "Well, he certainly is...feisty.")
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:39 AM on June 22, 2011 [4 favorites]


heh. we were recently adopted by a Ragdoll (we think, tho he's part of a feral kitten lot rescued by a friend so we'll never be certain). This is Marlowe, our furry nemesis. Ragdoll indicates some sort of Birman / Oriental background, so indeed he's a talker. Although he doesn't have the true Siamese wail BOP so accurately describes, mr. lfr has compared his morning feed-me-now-dammit yowling to the Burlington Santa Fe locomotive horns on the nearby crossing, as it's similar in pitch and timbre; thankfully not in volume. He also has an impressive array of random vocalizations, from the faintest, sweetest kitten-mew to the chittering that indicates he sees a miller moth, to the full-on-spooky, I'm-stalking-ghosts-at-4AM howl. He also chirps and yes, indeed, barks. His "bark" is typically a demand for the snoozing humans who are ignoring their various iPhone alarms to wake the hell up and pet him / open the bedroom blinds so that he can bird-watch.

Cats are weird.
posted by lonefrontranger at 1:14 PM on June 22, 2011


Damn, what a beautiful cat.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:35 PM on June 22, 2011


To everyone posting a link to a photo of their furface: Y'all know about the Cats of MetaFilter Flickr group, right? Needs more photos...
posted by Lexica at 6:23 PM on June 22, 2011 [4 favorites]


Early on in his life, a vet took a look at all-black, rather small, big talker Mingus and said that his shape made her think he might be half-Siamese. Not missing a beat, I said, "Well, if he's half-Siamese, it's definitely the front half."
posted by jocelmeow at 5:45 PM on June 24, 2011


Thanks for that picture, jocelmeow. Now I finally know who watches the Planet's Funniest Animals ( teh cats)
posted by sweetkid at 7:19 PM on June 24, 2011


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