Conference misery::feline_v1

i also have quite a variety of voices (having 5 cats)...Meagan (almost 15)
will deliberately yell as loud as she can RIGHT IN OUR EARS when the sun
comes up & she wants her breakfast...Rudi & Fritz (2.5 yr old red lynx point
siamese boys of questionable quality!) have high pitched voices...they really
don't say very much, unless Rudi wants a "pick-up", at which point he'll peer
up at me, with crossed eyes, and utter a very high "beep-beep"...Beasley
& Benjamin, however, (being the true gorgeous siamese that they are), are
quite talkative (almost a year old)...Beasley has a real croaky sort of a
voice, & Benjamin knows when i hear him, i stop whatever i'm doing to love
him & discuss absolutely EVERYTHING!

		karen		aka <momcat>  !!

Chayna has a very musical, chirruping meow that almost always sounds
questioning.  She makes sounds all the time, sometimes full meows,
sometimes in her throat.  I suspect she has a bit of Siamese blood in her.

Jasper's meow, on the other hand, is often loud and obnoxious, especially
before and, lately, *after* feeding time.  And sometimes he just will not
shut up.  I didn't know Persians were so vocal!  (Maybe they're not  --
maybe he's just weird...)  The other night he was meowing so loudly and
insistently *after* I'd fed him that I wondered whether something was
wrong with him (sometimes cats meow loudly just before they throw up or
something).  But he seemed fine, and quieted down after a while.  He also
has a squeaky meow, which he uses just for the sake of using it, I think.
And he has a weird, sort of "broken" meow (possibly like the one mentioned
in a previous reply) that sounds like "kuh-COW" (it's hard to put into, uh,
words).  Quite a vocabulary, actually.  If he wasn't a full-blooded Persian,
I'd wonder whether HE had Siamese blood in HIM...!

							-- Nina

Among my current cats, Merlin (half Siamese, half Manx) has a near
howl.  Vivuanne (half Siamese, other parent anonymous) has a very
high-pitched squeak, Karamaneh (Sealpoint) has a full-throated Siamese
wide range, and Morlock (orange/wite piebald) speaks little and has
a sort of hoarse croak/honk when he does.  Great variety.

Steve

Both Ada and Loiosh are ordinary gray tiger DHCs, but they have very different
voices (and personalities).

I've only heard Ada meow once, in the cat carrier on the way home from the
vet after having been spayed.  It was a soul-curdling, desolate sound!  Even
her purring is weird:  a cross between a grunt and a six-cylinder engine
with only five cylinders operating.

Loiosh has a full range of expression, from a pleasant meow ("Don't forget
to change my water before you go to work"), to a continuous scream ("Pick me
up NOW, Daddy!"), to an inquisitive chirp which always makes me cringe, as it
usually signals an impending assault on the living room drapes or (lately)
the top of my wall unit.

					-- Roger

   Well 5 of 'em we have quite a variety.  
   Pip when he's distressed (put me down NOW!) goes woof.  Merry the big
17 pounder has an embaressingly small chirp. (Except 5 min. after I turn
out the light every night.  Then he gets mad (wants me to stay up and play 
with him) and for 5 mins or so go around with a deepthroated meROWR.
Cinnamon is generallysilent except for earthshaking purring and and an
occassional "kamakazi yell" on the way to the vets.  Sam (my baby) talks 
to me almost contantly. Meow, chirp,squeak, the "broken meow", ma-a(almost
like a lamb bleating).  Gandalf plain screams!  He also has a sound that 
goes brrrr something between a purr and a chirp.  THe strangest sound I've
ever heard from one of the cats was from Gandalf.  He was sitting on the 
window sill and watching the birds at the feeder.  He crouched down and 
went ma-a-a-a-a-a-a almost like a "machine gun laugh" crossed with a lamb
bleating.and his bottom jaw quivered forward and back.  Wierdest thing!
Pip makes sounds at the vet's like you wouldn't believe. Nevermind the 
growling and the hissing, we're talking about hair raising skin curdling 
screams that can be heard though 3 rooms and 2 closed wood doors.  When we came
up with Pip in one piece the other patrons looked releived to find that we
had not skinned me alive with a rusty kinfe as they had been led to beleive
by the fuss he was making.  (What were we doing to him?  Simply boarded him
for less than 4 hours while we flea bombed the house.  Needless to say, he
don't like the vet!)(Now Sam on the other hand... He purred while the vet 
squeezed his anal glands!)

Carried away about the kids again....
tlh

Hobbit, a Maine Coon, has a rather standard cat voice...but an 
unusually loud purr (a friend once commented the purr was 
amplified by the all the vacant space within his skull). He can 
be sitting accross the room, and if I start to talk to him the 
purring starts and can be heard all over the house!

Kismet, a siamese, has the normal oriental vocalizations. If I 
were only a little more intelligent, I'm sure I could understand 
all the things she patiently tries to tell me.

Shadow, true to her name, has a silent meow. Even her purrs are 
silent...you can only hear the vibrations when you're holding her 
(something she has just only begun to allow).

-nn

Re .5:

I believe that one of the universals in cat language is the "bird" noise:
a sort of strangled "kek-kek-kek", used when watching birds out the windows
(and occasionally for airplanes).  This sounds the same as the "machine-gun"
noise that your cat made while watching birds.

	-Neil

   Since I first head Gandalf make that noise, I've found several people
whose cats do that.  What's amazing is that over the course of my life, I've
owned close to 30 cats.  (I have 5 now.)  And until Gandalf, not one of them 
had made that sound!  Guess Gandalf is the first "normal" cat I've owned.
(What a laugh, my husband and I spend a great deal of our time telling Gandalf 
just how wierd he is!)

tlh

Figaro also makes the cackling noise, especially when she's located a bug
on the wall or ceiling that she can't reach.  

She also has a small gutteral noise that she makes from her throat when shes
looking for me.  It sounds almost like she is asking a question.  

   ^_^
  (>.<)
   )_(

I was glad to read about Gale's cats 'machine gun' sound. I also have
had a lot of cats and the one who owns me now is the first I've ever
had who made this noise. At first I thought Lessa was going to be a
quiet cat. But true to her name, as she got older she got louder. She
chats to the birds outside. She meows both softly and loudly as her
normal voice. On car trips, which are now infrequent, she howls. Loudly
if she is wandering in the back, softly if she is in my lap. Of course,
she won't stay in my lap for the whole ride. I think she likes to howl.

Lessa is also the first cat I've had who expects to be chased. I've seen
my cats chase each other, or my parents dog, but I've never known a cat
who wanted her human to chase her around the house. Sometimes form a
sound sleep, she'll jump up, and race towards me, tail puffed out, then
dash away. She'll immediately come back and then I'm supposed to chase her.
If I don't she'll bounce a little closer and if I still don't respond she'll
start crying.

Strange cat, but I love her.
kris

    We also have a cat who likes to be chased.  Gandalf will look at you 
and scream and then run.  We'll run after him and chase him around the house
for a while.  When he's ready to be caught, (he loves that too) he stops 
abruptly, turns around and scream again until you pick him up.  (Actually,
I think he just enjoys seeing his humans trip when he stops!)

tlh

Chorniy and Koshka have "normal" meows, and also chirrrrr chirrrr a lot when
they're up to pranks or when they're looking for each other or for us.  Also,
after we retire for the night, if Chorniy is really not sleepy, he wanders
around the kitchen whining.  Both kitties purr a lot, but Chorniy specializes
in snuggling down between our heads (when he IS sleepy) and making like a
chain-saw.  He is generally more vocal than Koshka - he's got a lot of
Persian in him and can get very demanding when it's mealtime.  Now that he's
almost reached his full length (hasn't filled in yet - he's only 11 months
old - but he weighs 11 1/2 lbs.  Koshka looks little at 10 lbs), he can
stand on the floor, put his paws on the counter, and watch us put the food
in the dishes while giving us an encouraging Merrroup?  MOUW!!!!

    Sukie and Jazz as I've mentioned before didn't meow to start with
    until one of them got locked in the loft, and the other got lonely.
    But I'm yet another one glad to hear that "Chattering" is normal,
    it seems to be the only sound they regularly come out with.
    
    Tootsie on the other hand used to have a greeting especially for
    mornings/coming back from shopping/returning home in the evening.
    It's quite hard to described but I guess what we called it was nearest;
    her Brip-mauw.  It was a kind of half purrish noise which graduated
    into a short and sweet mauw, it was kind of the same intonation
    as he-llo........ used to wonder if she was copying us?
    
    Jo
    Reading, UK.
    
     

    RE: -1
    
    Tabbatha has that same type of meow!  And I thought Tabbatha was
    unique!  I guess she is, though because she does it almost all the
    time.
    
    Holly
    

    Re -1 and -2
    
    And another one! Kimi makes the same noise as a sign of affectionate
    interest. It's a real half-purr half-miaou, just as you describe.
    
    SLP
    Auckland, NZ

    Persians do talk a lot.  Mine does.  He also is very crabby at times.
    He too will meow sometimes after eating and usually I have found,
    he wants milk (which I know is bad for him, but I give it once in
    a while anyway) or he is still hungry and will eat another bowl
    of food.
    

    Shanti talks to me CONTINUOUSLY in the mornings! The normal ritual:
    1. Alarm goes off. Fur suddenly covers face
    2. If no response, fingers get chewed
    3. Once I'm up then I get followed around the bedroom with little
        "meow, meow".
    4. Bathroom ritual: while sitting on toilet, cat jumps in tub, meows,
       then jumps on lap, meows and rubs fur in face
    5. Out of bathroom putting on makeup - underfoot, on back, meowing.
    6. After dressed, downstairs, she follows me, falls on her back,
    and meows.
    
    I wish I knew what she was saying -- probably: "you slept all night,
    and you're all rested up -- now pay attention to ME! NOW! Meow!"
    
    What a character!
    

    My cats ususally talk to me when they are saying hello to me or
    if they are hunger.  Last night though my Bandit was locked out
    of the bedroom and he definately let me know about that.  He meowed
    and meowed and rattled the doorknob trying to get in.

At present, we have got a family of starlings in a nest just above our bathroom.
As a result, we frequently get a four-part harmony of frustrated chittering -
one of the family has only got three legs so can't get to where the action
isn't (they can only see, not touch), and another is always out doing something
more practical about reducing the avian population that just shouting about it.

On of our kittens (actually they are over a year old, so the description is a
bit inappropriate) has a tendency to roll onto her back with a pathetic chirrup,
apparently demanding to have her tummy tickled.  This leads to one of two
results: either she rolls off the bed / stair / cupboard / etc. and stalks off
with an offended look in here eye, or she waits until you have bent down to do
the honours, and then runs off (with an offended look in her eye, of course).
There's no pleasing some cats - although regular feeding seems to get close!

Chris.