Can cats actually get mad?

persi & alley

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I have read numerous times that cats cannot have human emotions such as the human emotion of being mad at somebody. I have also read that cats have no concept of time; if you leave for work and come back ten hours later they will be just as glad to see you as if you had been gone for ten days. So the experts have always told me. But here on TCS people are always talking about their cat(s) getting mad at them.

I wonder if being mad is like the mad emotion in humans. Being normal, I occasionally get mad at my spouse. And of course there are times when she gets mad at me. The length of time that each would be mad at the other would depend on the "crime". Here is my input on the subject.

I brush and comb Persi every morning but there are still times when I hit a snag. Determined to get the snag out before it becomes worse, I continue combing/brushing until I get it out, knowing it will be worse tomorrow if I do not. This action on my part makes Persi very "mad" at me and he will in fact threaten to do me harm. Now here is where being mad and the concept of a time frame come together: When I am done with the grooming session he will head into the walk in closet where his tent is located and he will get into the tent "mad" at me. There can be no doubt in my mind he is mad at me.

The next thing on my agenda is to come down here in my office where it is very rare that Persi does not join me. Today is such a day. No Persi. He did not even come down to share my roast beef sandwich today at lunch time. You know this guy is really mad at me. He is still up there in his tent. In a few hours it will be dinner time. He has never failed to get over being mad by dinner time and will come downstairs where he will remain the rest of the evening.

Has he actually been feeling the emotion us humans call mad? Does he have a concept of time for how long he will stay mad? (When he gets mad it seems he stays mad longer some times more than others.)

So, what do you think about this subject as it pertains to your cats?
 

happilyretired

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I don't know if I would use the word "mad," but they definitely get annoyed with us--and show it. My former cat would get annoyed whenever I went away, and she showed it by greeting me when I returned but then immediately disappearing for a few hours. That was to show me that she did fine without me and would continue to do so! It was usually two or three hours before she reappeared. So they seem to have some sense of time.

Whenever I'm away, I'm always hoping that they don't have a sense of time and will just think that I've gone out for the mail. But the reaction when I return suggests that they indeed know that I've been gone more than I should have been (they probably count their feedings:-)
 

rapunzel47

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Do cats get mad?

Some do, I'm sure of that. I haven't ever seen Fawn mad -- I don't think it's in her nature. She's a funloving perpetual kitten.

Cindy is a totally different story. If she doesn't get her usual goodbye when I "Go to catch mousies", i.e. go to work, I can count on a cold shoulder when I get home 10 hours later. And she will make very sure I understand that she IS avoiding ME, by making a large fuss over Daddy. This "discipline" can go on for a couple of hours or more, but she's usually over her mad by bedtime. She also is quite capable of stomping out of a room or down the stairs -- ordinarily as softfooted as any cat, but when she's POd, she stomps, and it's audible. I swear she'd slam doors if she cared to bother with them.

Shasta (RB) was like that, too. But as I consider the rest of our clan over the years, I think these are the only two who could really be said to get mad. Everyone shows momentary annoyance once in a while, if a human does something dumb, but that's about it.
 

wine_black

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Hallo!
I disagree with this: "you leave for work and come back ten hours later they will be just as glad to see you as if you had been gone for ten days"

If i leave my cat for 10 days she will be offended for several days after my arrival, she will not talk to me and say meow!!! She will not smapts her feet on my hair and blow saliva ( sorry if incorrect spelling) for a while..

I can't say "mad", but i think cats have real emotions rather close to human ones .
 

ldg

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I think cats have a very wide range of emotions. The problem I have is when people post here saying that their cat is mad so it peed on the bed. I don't think they express their anger by peeing or pooping out of the box.

I'm not aware of any of our cats being mad at us, per se. Annoyed, definitely. Flowerbelle, when annoyed that we won't play with her when she wants to will stand on a table and push things off of it. Tuxedo, when annoyed with having his nails clipped, will swat (hard), bite (soft) and bolt - and not come back out until dinner.

I think they have a sense of time, but measure it differently. It's in relation to the routine to which they become accustomed, whatever that is. Dinner time, when we leave or come home from work, play time - whatever schedules/routines we keep in relation to them. They DEFINITELY know when dinner is late!


I read somewhere on TCS to never make a big deal about leaving or arriving, so we never did, so our kitties, anyway, never get mad at us for being gone longer than usual or in any "out of routine" kind of way. And because the few times we've had to leave town we boarded them (don't have family or friends near enough to care for them), they were just so happy to be home, they weren't mad.

But I think they ARE capable of getting mad, and I think they do have a sense of time passing.

Laurie
 

tamgirl99

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Here is a pic when I interrupted Maggie's bug hunting by taking several pictures of her. What does the expression on her face tell you about cat's getting mad/annoyed?




Isn't their range of emotions why we love them so much?
 

gailuvscats

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I would be mad at you if you continued to yank my hair out when you knew you were hurting me. there is probably a less painful way for the knots. It reminds me of my mother who used to yank my hair out when she combed it (no tame then) and she would just keep yanking at the tangles and when I would cry she would say"I/m not hurting you". What is it about hissing and squirming that you don't understand?
 

ldg

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Originally Posted by tamgirl99

Here is a pic when I interrupted Maggie's bug hunting by taking several pictures of her. What does the expression on her face tell you about cat's getting mad/annoyed?




Isn't their range of emotions why we love them so much?
That perfectly illustrates your answer to the question!


Laurie
 

cheylink

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Originally Posted by Wine_Black

Hallo!
I disagree with this: "you leave for work and come back ten hours later they will be just as glad to see you as if you had been gone for ten days"

If i leave my cat for 10 days she will be offended for several days after my arrival, she will not talk to me and say meow!!! She will not smapts her feet on my hair and blow saliva ( sorry if incorrect spelling) for a while..

I can't say "mad", but i think cats have real emotions rather close to human ones .
I went to Kansas for 8 days and a neighbor, fellow cat lover, watched Maia for me. She came by twice a day and Maia never made a peep, or let herself be seen. When I came home, Maia was crying before I entered the front door, I was calling her as I entered and she kept crying but I didn't know where she was! I panicked thinking she was in a closet or outside the backdoor, I kept calling her and she kept crying but I couldn't figure out where she was! I finally looked under the bed and there she was crying out in despair. I had to reach under and scoop her out, hug and kiss her as I kitty spooned her promising I would never leave her like that again! I have never felt so much guilt! Thank god she didn't hold it against me, once I reassured her I was really back for good, she settled down.
 

wine_black

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cheylink
oh ! poor kitty! she was suffering of your departure!
Hope she is ok now!
People say that the cats don't accomodate us, like the dogs do. I don't agree with this claim.
When I leave my cat by mum, she is "out-of-body"....

Forensic

and jealous too!!

tamgirl99
cool pic! your cat is angry that you've interrupted her so important work!!!
 

chadsgirl374

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Sunny most certainly gets mad at us
He will stay mad for up to 30 minutes. Sunny is a cute kitten and we love him dearly. He's so fluffy that we like to hold him - that's fine for 2-3 minutes. If you go over that time then put him down he goes for the ankles. We then go about our business unaware that he's still angry and 20 minutes later, we're pulling him off of our ankles.
He dive bombs the ankles until he's got it out of his system. He's sooooo lucky we love him!
 

alleygirl

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Riley definitely gets mad at me quite often
As for his sense of time, he knows when I come home from work he gets fed. However on the weekends, he will come to me at the exact same time, 5:00 and ask for his food. Same with mornings, he will wake me up on the weekends at "breakfast time". Not before, not after, but right at the same time he usually gets fed.

When I was gone for a week last year, he wouldn't have anything to do with me for days.

Xander is completely different. He's just a big mellow guy that eats when you feed him and doesn't cry if you're 10 minutes late. He also doesn't get mad or hold a grudge like Riley does. He's always happy for attention and petting no matter what.
 

mycherona

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I would have to say that MY cat definitely gets mad at me. Lucky for me, he doesn't hold grudges, but he does get annoyed. I have known some cats to hold grudges for up to a week, and it usually has to do with their owner leaving for an extended period of time.
 

mdavis1231

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I'm having a problem with Daffodil getting angry when I simply leave our apartment for any more than 30 minutes (to go to the YMCA or to run errands instead of just running out to the store).  If all I do is run out to the grocery or a store, all is well when I return.  However, if I leave for a few hours, when I return, Daffodil will meet me at the door, rub against my legs letting me know that she's glad that I'm back, and after I reach down and pet her and say "Hi, Daffodil!", the mood turns ugly.  She'll run a few steps away from me, turns to me, then hisses and growls at me.  Sometimes immediately afterwards she'll run under the table in the living room, look at me, and growl.  It doesn't stop there.  If I try to ignore her, she'll walk into the bedroom, then about 30 seconds later, come out, look at me, and hiss.  When that doesn't work, she'll jump up in the recliner on the other side of the table in the living room, and continue letting me know her displeasure with me from there.  Is there anything that anyone knows of that I could do to either make her more comfortable or keep her more calm while I'm out?  I've tried leaving the TV on while I"m gone, but no go.  Help!
 

catspaw66

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I'm having a problem with Daffodil getting angry when I simply leave our apartment for any more than 30 minutes (to go to the YMCA or to run errands instead of just running out to the store).  If all I do is run out to the grocery or a store, all is well when I return.  However, if I leave for a few hours, when I return, Daffodil will meet me at the door, rub against my legs letting me know that she's glad that I'm back, and after I reach down and pet her and say "Hi, Daffodil!", the mood turns ugly.  She'll run a few steps away from me, turns to me, then hisses and growls at me.  Sometimes immediately afterwards she'll run under the table in the living room, look at me, and growl.  It doesn't stop there.  If I try to ignore her, she'll walk into the bedroom, then about 30 seconds later, come out, look at me, and hiss.  When that doesn't work, she'll jump up in the recliner on the other side of the table in the living room, and continue letting me know her displeasure with me from there.  Is there anything that anyone knows of that I could do to either make her more comfortable or keep her more calm while I'm out?  I've tried leaving the TV on while I"m gone, but no go.  Help!
Welcome to TCS. You have posted to a thread that has been dormant for 4 years; sometimes posts at the end of these threads get overlooked, so you are welcome to start a new thread if you'd like.
  Cats don't get mad; in my experience. They act only out of instinct or habit. She is just reacting to your absence and return. She wants to love you and at the same time, she wants you to know that you upset her routine.
 
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fonkeemonkee

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I disagree with your response. I just returned from a few days away for the holidays and I can say with utmost certainty that my usually ridiculously loving ragdoll is highly mad. She is currently hiding under my bed and will hiss and scratch if I even peer under the bed. This NEVER happens. She is acting out. One could most certainly equate that with anger or disappointment. She obviously was feeling abandoned and is definitely letting me know about it. 
 
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catspaw66

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I disagree with your response. I just returned from a few days away for the holidays and I can say with utmost certainty that my usually ridiculously loving ragdoll is highly mad. She is currently hiding under my bed and will hiss and scratch if I even peer under the bed. This NEVER happens. She is acting out. One could most certainly equate that with anger or disappointment. She obviously was feeling abandoned and is definitely letting me know about it. 
It is not anger or disappointment. It is fear. Cats have very short memories, and you are now seen as a new experience to her. Give her a few days to get used to you again and she will go back to the loving cat she used to be. Don't bother her when she is under the bed, that will set the process back several steps.

Of course, this is only my personal observation from 25 years of multi-cat ownership and over 50 years of having cats around.
 
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laralove

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My cat, with his apparent very short memory, will run and hide whenever someone he doesn't know comes over. And he won't come out until they leave (like the seven hours he spent under my bed Christmas day when my sister, BIL, and nephew were here). However, after more than two weeks of not seeing my children while they were on vacation with their dad, they come over and he runs off for about 5 minutes until he realizes it's them. Then he's out as normal. It seems highly unlikely that a cat's long-time owner would become a "new experience" to them after they took a trip for a few days. More likely, they feel abandoned or neglected and they're reacting to that with negative emotion, to be classified however one pleases, I suppose. 
 
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fhicat

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This is one of the subjects I don't have a strong opinion either way. I am not convinced that cats get mad (as in holding a grudge). So far everything I've read are nothing more than human interpretation of some anecdotal "evidence" that may or may not have happened exactly as described. Confirmation bias is very strong in these cases; we want to tell ourselves that our cats get mad, so we look for "clues" to confirm that perception and ignore those that don't. We come home after 7 days, and we pay attention to things the cats do that are out of the ordinary, and we convinced ourselves that our cats are mad.

Maybe it's perfectly normal for the cat. Maybe they were thinking of something else at that exact moment. Maybe it's something they do regularly, just that we never see it, unless we have a camera on the cat 24/7. They act out of fear, sure, but saying they hold a grudge is just anthropomorphism.
 
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