Growing up, my family had 2 cats, both adopted at the same time as kittens. They slept curled up with each other and played together constantly.
One of them died suddenly years later. As painful as that was, it was even more heartbreaking to see our other cat dealing with his death. She did not understand why he had disappeared, and grew increasingly upset in the days following. Searching everywhere around the house making distressed meows at all hours. Demanding to have every door opened so she could search every inch of the house multiple times.
After a week, she began to understand our other cat was not coming back. For at least a month, her appetite disappeared, she was grooming herself compulsively and needed to be near one of us 24/7.
This is only one anecdote… but to me the fact animals can grieve is beyond question
Out of curiosity, did the surviving cat have a chance to see (and smell) the remains of the dead cat ? I know it's often advised to show to pets (cats and dogs at least) the remains of any human or other pets that die, so that they understand what happened and don't interpret this as "abandonment".
Similarly, families of people that disappear are often "relieved" when a body is found, since they can properly start to grief instead of clinging on some hopeless dream that their loved one might reappear out of thin air.
That's a great point actually. I guess literally seeing the dead body of a loved one isn't so relieving to humans, but there's no way to communicate the death to an animal other than just visually. So that's probably the best way to go about it. I'm keeping that in mind for the future.
I had two cats, siblings, growing up. One died unexpectedly. We thought about showing it to the other cat for closure, but decided instead that the cat might interpret it as a Mafia-type threat.
We had a very similar experience when one of our two cats who had been together for many years died. The survivor was miserable to the point that we were worried about her. After a few months we adopted a kitten, and after a period of adjustment (lots of hissing at first), the old cat bonded with the new cat and seemed much happier.
I have a similar experience. My cats were brothers and one disappeared (I allowed them to be indoors/outdoors). The remaining cat meowed constantly; it was incredibly sad.
I got a kitten a couple of months later and they bonded quickly. In my experience cats are always happier when they have a friend, which isn't surprising.
Dogs can get terrible lovesickness for quite some time. Usually dogs get separated at least after the puppies are born and they are not at all amused by that. Perhaps separating them should be far more questionable than it is.
Parents had some beagles and they could never get enough affection from humans. But for some weeks they would just growl at you if you came near them. Also you could really see the sadness in their faces.
Is it surprising the article would discuss that when it goes on to discuss cats been considered aloof, independent, and fickle in their affections? The cat/dog thing is yet another one of those stereotypes where many pet lovers could provide an abundance of evidence to the contrary.
Mythology? Dogs are a natural predator of all small mammals, cats included. Prey drive is a big reason that extreme caution is advised when introducing an adopted dog to a cat with an unknown history.
Prey drive is a big reason that extreme caution is advised
when introducing an adopted dog to a cat with an unknown history.
Introducing pets is the least "natural" behavior ever. You are asking two predator animals to share a confined living space orders of magnitude smaller than their natural habitat.
Conflicts there are most definitely not evidence of whom is a "natural predator" of whom.
Dogs are a natural predator of all small mammals
No. Even when a cat is much smaller than a dog, it's not going down without inflicting some nasty claw wounds... that's a lot of prone-to-infection wounds for not a lot of meat.
And it's difficult to imagine a dog or a pack of dogs being able to catch a cat in the first place.
I had to say goodbye to one of my cats on Monday. I found out she had cancer on Thursday after she collapsed. Did enough to keep her around and not in too much pain over the weekend but Monday was the day.
I cried my eyes out before taking her to the vet for the last time and she came up to me and licked my face and nibbled. She was an extremely affectionate cat.
I brought her back home so the other two could see/sniff her because I didn't want them to not understand that she just disappeared. One of them is definitely more concerned than the other.
Cats are pretty amazing creatures and while not all of them are super affectionate (my other two aren't) they seem to understand a lot more than we give them credit for. Mine always know and understand when I'm not feeling well and show it in their own ways. I will miss the hugs and cuddles from the one I said goodbye to... I needed those hugs and cuddles this week but the one that would give them wasn't with me anymore. Tough times.
I would encourage anyone to take the time with their animals and give them attention and love. You never know when a surprise may come and you have very little time to say goodbye.
> I brought her back home so the other two could see/sniff her because I didn't want them to not understand that she just disappeared. One of them is definitely more concerned than the other.
I also had a cat funeral when a cat died. I like to think that seeing and sniffing the dead body gave the other cats closure
I've heard it's really important for bonded pairs. None of mine are bonded like that, but I still wanted to make sure I did the right thing and not make things worse than they already were.
I'd highly recommend others do it if possible just to be a little proactive in sparing our little furry critters some possible pain and suffering.
This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has paid attention to their cats' behaviour when another pet dies. I remember when one of our four cats didn't come home, there were definitely changes in how the remaining three behaved. Apparently the cat got hit by a car and was found by someone and dumped in one of those bins where they dump dead animals for rendering. We took her home and laid her on the lawn so the other cats could know that she was dead. Each of the cats came one by one, giving it a sniff and concluding that she was dead. One of them however stayed with her until we took her away to bury her, an incredibly endearing display. It took a while before they all started acting like they did before.
And with the subsequent deaths of all the remaining cats, as they are all sadly deceased, I saw similar things happen.
We should not anthropomorphise animals, but that doesn't mean they don't have complex feelings or thoughts. If we find that even bees can "play", it's not that weird if cats can "grieve".
It isn't just cats. Elephants mourn as do whales and dophins, dogs, cows, pigs, parrots and other birds, and apes (including humans) among others.
If one has any sort of biology background the silliness of these types of studies is clear. Humans are simply animals, there is nothing distinct about us aside from being further out on the distribution of cognitive ability.
It would be news if an advanced member of animalia didn't experience grief from the death of another. If an animal can enjoy the presence of another animal (as they clearly can) it should be assumed they can mourn their loss.
If you have concerns about having to potentially put down a pet, find an at home euthanasia vet, IMO it's the best way to deal with this process. Having animals be able to see and smell the death happening helps them understand, you don't have to worry about transporting an animal in rough condition, and having them in a familiar environment when it happens makes it far less stressful for them. Last year, I had planned to have my dog put down a few weeks after his health started really declining, but when it was obvious that he was in unbearable pain, the vet agreed to come out later that day, on just a few hours notice, no questions asked.
The dog was very closely bonded to my two cats (who themselves are a bonded pair of litter mates) and having the dog euthanized this way allowed the cats to understand what happened. They were pretty distraught afterward (as was I) but weren't looking for him around the house. Their personalities changed in that they were more stressed out when I had company at the house, and didn't really return to normal until I adopted another dog about a month ago that they were able to bond with in a really similar way. Because of how closely the cats are bonded I definitely will need to use one when the time comes for either cat.
I really don't know how someone could deal with putting down animals all day, but if you can find a good one they are fantastic. In addition to helping my cats, it definitely helped me process the situation way better than if it had been done in a sterile setting at a vet's office.
Biologically, it would be pretty strange for grieving to not have evolved pretty early on in the mammalian brain, no?
It would be pretty weird for a smart, social mammal to simply ignore the death of a beloved companion. Are there any social mammals that DON'T grieve? Maybe large herd/flock animals (deer, bat, rodents)...?
It was surprisingly hard to find a scientific consensus on this topic. Maybe there isn't one yet? It seemed obvious to me, but that's not data, just anecdotal experience with animals.
I remember a video of a hunter shooting a deer and the other deer around it didn't care and kept eating their grass. I suspect most cats are smarter than deers.
Even apart from the grieving, that sounds like very odd behaviour. Don't deer herds usually flee in all directions the moment they hear the bang of a shot? It seems weird they'd not react at all here.
Apparently none. Of course you can tell stories, but it's not as if we know exactly how grief has (or hasn't) benefited humans from an evolutionary point of view. We can't create genetically modified humans who don't experience grief and then rear them in a parallel environment to see if they have more or less reproductive success than regular humans. So who knows?
Nor is it safe to assume that any existing trait must confer an evolutionary benefit. Evolution isn't a perfect optimizer, and it's an ongoing process without a terminus. All kinds of traits in the current human population might turn out to be evolutionarily disadvantageous and scheduled for elimination via natural selection in the long run. We won't be around to find out.
No way to know, but the concept of "momento mori" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori means the living might live more "examined" - and therefore more valuable or meaningful lives - when they are conscious of the inevitability of their own death. Perhaps this consciousness then benefits the society/group they are a member of?
My personal opinion (which is I think at least loosely supported by research into animal vs. human memory) is that relative to humans, animals are very grounded in the present so they grieve much differently.
When a human's loved one dies, we miss them in the present moment... but we are also thinking of the past and future. We think of our days ahead without them and mourn the happy times in the past that can now not be repeated.
It was surprisingly hard to find a scientific
consensus on this topic.
There's no real objective way to measure feelings, particularly in animals.
Even in humans, you usually just have to ask the subject how they're feeling.
Behavior changes are at best kind of a decent proxy for making... educated guesses instead of uneducated guesses into an animal's feelings.
We could measure things like oxytocin and cortisol levels or take fMRIs, but good luck collecting those metrics without profoundly altering the animal's emotional state.
That's a really good point. I think it's even possible that my personal experience of lack/grief/loss is 0% present-moment and 100% reflective. Noting of course that this includes reflection on the super-recent past / future.
I think that feels very very true for me and probably for most people as well.
I of course grieved mightily when my mom died. Even though it made nearly zero practical difference in my present life at that point. I was grieving the loss of things past, and of the future - I would not see her in the future, and I also greatly grieved that she would no longer be able to do the things that she loved so much in the future.
Subtract all that past and all that future, and what's left? I think that's where most animals are at... there is much common ground, and they clearly feel emotions as strongly as we do, but they experience the world so differently.
I had two cats who lived together for 11 years, but they only barely tolerated each other, they didn't fight but they also didn't spend time together, play together, sleep together, or groom each other.
So when one died I was shocked that the other paced around yowling for days. I don't know if he missed her specifically or was just confused about where she was and his confusion is what was causing distress.
We used to have semi-feral cats living in our shed. One time, one of them had kittens. Not too long after, our dogs broke into the fenced area around the shed and killed and ate the kittens. We only found some blood and bits and pieces, it was gruesome.
For quite a while, the mom went around meowing like crazy, she looked very distressed. I guess she didn’t see them die, there wan’t much for her to find and understand.
I really don’t know why our dogs were so aggressive towards smaller animals. They were perfectly fine with people and kids, but we has to keep them far away from the cats and chickens. I guess they learned from each other.
We were alerted our one cat had died suddenly in the bathtub to the sound of our other cat howling outside the bathroom door. The surviving cat then acted really strange for the next week or so.
Probably not drowned. Cats, when sick, tend to find isolated places, probably cooler, where they will lay down. Tubs seem to be a common place for cats to go to near the end.
Makes sense, I dread the day when one of my cats passes (5 year old and 1 year old cat).
A nitpick: The researchers are asking the owners for the owners' observations during a time of grief, which doesn't seem as robust as it could be. Humans would be emotional, grieving, and also projecting their own loss to their other animals. (Theres not much of a control or a fair baseline here)
As a child, I used to spend a lot of time with insects. I wanted to understand how they understand the world. I have thought about death and how other animals may perceive it. In the recent years, with a lot of machine comprehension, I find myself asking these questions again. And I spend a lot more time with animals now, so that aids in the process.
In a way a deeper question I have is do we humans actually "understand" death in similar ways? I personally do not think so and it arises from how much or little I have seen people spend time pondering on these topics. With some, I can discuss hypotheticals easily and with others I just can not. They do not admire these subjects and I wonder if our brains just perceive some of these things differently. Time is another such topic.
I should add that we do not need to agree on what is "death" in order to grieve the missing. But I guess how would cats know death vs missing (vacation)?
Animals are capable of complex emotional experiences and cats are included. When my friend's cat died of old age, the daughter of the cat, who had been living with her mother since birth, fell into a true depression. My friend had to take time off work to help the little one cope with the loss of her mother.
When my 6-month-old kitten was sick and in the hospital, his 3-month-old "sister" would walk around the apartment yowling constantly. This would be broken up only by periods of her clinging to/around me in a way she never has before or since (she was always much more independent than the other one), before going back on her search.
Very interesting. I've been lucky enough to have some very affectionate and loving pets. However, they have generally just been closely bonded to us, not the other pets.
Following various deaths (2 cats, 1 dog) and departures (1 cat and 1 dog from a departing housemate) the remaining pets didn't seem to show any lasting behavior change at all.
The only thing I observed is that, after fellow cats died or departed, the remaining cats spent a day or two roaming the house and seemingly searching for them. They seemed to be in something like "stalking" mode, moving slowly and stealthily. But, they didn't seem distressed.
My 2nd dog actually seemed happier after the first one died. Seemed happier to have us "for himself."
Domesticated dogs and cats are social, and are clearly capable of love for any reasonable definition of the word "love."
I don’t know how anyone who has pets, especially cats, would question this.
Of course, the grieving brings up the awkward question about all the other animals that we don’t categorize as companion animals and abuse and murder for trivial and unnecessary reasons.
An anecdote of a somewhat opposite experience with 2 cats.
One had a big personality, very outgoing with strangers, and only left family members alone go hunting[1]. The other was a bit dopey and didn't groom well.
After the superstar cat passed then the surviving cat became much more energetic, playful, and outgoing. We all commented he seemed to step into the limelight after his counterpart passed.
Still not sure if it was driven by us giving him more attention or by him "activating" and demanding more attention.
As for cats and dogs: our cat seems uninterested in our dog. But when the dogs boarded our cat walks room to room screaming until the dogs back home.
[1]i was a kid, my cat stays inside now. Sorry birds :(
I had a cat and a dog. I had to put the dog to sleep and I came home and was so upset. My cat came over and I pet her. Her reaction was like "we had a dog? I think I'd remember if we had a dog"
Cats are loving, lovable little beasties and anyone who says otherwise is either lying, or repeating propaganda from dog people.
Cat body language is more difficult for humans to decipher, whereas dogs literally evolved extra eye muscles to better make those adorable expressions at us. That doesn't make it the cat's problem if you miss their signs of love. The orneriest cat I knew became highly, HIGHLY distressed when she lost her hearing and with it, constant assurance that her humans were around.
Yep can confirm. Had two cats and when the one died this last winter her brother has been definitely acting differently. It’s kinda sad, I can tell he’s trying to find her still too.
Deep down I believe such things about both dogs and cats to some degree.
But also this is also a survey of pet owners about their own pets' behaviors, and I can't shake the feeling there's more than a bit of projection/anthropomorphism involved.
The link from the article contained snippets but I can't access the full paper. For anyone who can (if you would be so kind) did they share similar concerns and/or control for them?
Anyone who has spend significant times with animals know they are emotional and have personalities and behave just like us in some respects. Not my personal experience but stories from relatives who have from farm animals. A quick glance at #pets #animals tiktok or instagram will prove it.
I would be very very surprised if this were just limited to cats and dogs. If you've ever seen previously factory-farmed pigs, cows, and sheep there is just so much joy and care in them. Our relationship with animals needs to be heavily reevaluated.
I doubt it is. Several years ago a squirrel was hit by a car outside my work. There were several squirrels on the sidewalk watching, and one would keep running to the corpse and pushing on it like it was trying to wake it up, running away when a car came, and running back when it passed. This continued until I got a shovel and moved it to the dumpster because I was afraid we'd end up with more dead squirrels.
How do cats know if another pet dies? Oftentimes they don't witness the actual death - the cat will just "disappear" because the owner would take it to the vet and the cat may be put to sleep there.
> Previous studies have revealed some differences between canine and feline scavenging. Dogs tend to eat the face and throats of humans, then break the ribs and chew on bones. Cats, on the other hand, often strip skin from the nose, upper lip, and fingers (the same places, Rando notes, that they nip at when playing with a living owner). Scavenging is more common with dogs than cats, Byard adds, “but I don’t trust either of them.”
Why are folks downvoting the truth? This is common behavior in cats/dogs and NOT common in humans at all outside of extreme famine, even then it's rare.
I very much doubt cats understand the concept of death and can "grieve," but they clearly do enjoy the company of people and other animals they like, and react to them no longer being around.
The first time I went on a two-week holiday after getting my cat, when I got back, she became super anxious about me leaving. Whenever I left, she would wait near door and meow loudly until I came back. It took a while for her to start to trust that I wouldn't just disappear again when I left.
Edit 1: I have no idea idea why people are voting this down. I'd love for somebody to explain to me what about my comment is causing them to do that.
Edit 2: I guess the word "grieve" is ambiguous, but I understand it in this context to mean "being upset at somebody else's death." Of course cats are upset if somebody they like isn't around, that's what I'm describing happened with my cat. I just doubt it's because they know that somebody died.
I've read about this, though, and the scientific consensus seems to be that cats do not, in fact, understand the concept of death, because they tend to wait for deceased owners to return. The same applies to dogs.
They understand the concept of absence, obviously, and they find it upsetting, but I think calling it "grief" is misleading, because it implies that they know that the person they miss is actually dead.
But have these cats inspected the corpse of the deceased owner? Also, it's pretty common for humans to expect their loved ones to return, at least for a while until the reality sets in. Certain situations (like returning from a trip or visiting a place where they used to be) can trigger it long after acceptance.
> Cats are very loving animals that can bond deeply to others
That's... that's what I said? That's why I put "grieve" in quotes, because in the article, they used it specifically as a reaction to death. But death is probably not a concept a cat understands. They understand concepts like "absence" and "missing," but I doubt they know that things die.
> But death is probably not a concept a cat understands.
This is anecdotally wrong (see below), but also doesn't make much sense on its face. Why would social animals not recognize death? A dead animal poses many dangers to a social group, so there is evolutionary pressure to recognize death. I also don't see a reason to assume that understanding death requires more intelligence than a cat has.
But aside from that, I'm anecdotally sure that cats understand death and grieve. I've seen a bonded cat search for their friend who died earlier, but the cat didn't yet know. Once the cat saw and smelled the others body, this searching stopped. They instead became lethargic for multiple weeks, in a human I'd have said depressed, and they looked for much more human contact than they had before (even when the two were separated for a couple of days).
If you're correct, why did the cat suddenly stop searching everywhere, when it didn't stop searching during previous separations? Why did it not try to "wake" their friend? Why did it eat less, play less, and search for more human affection in the following weeks, even though it never did so during previous separation?
>But death is probably not a concept a cat understands. They understand concepts like "absence" and "missing," but I doubt they know that things die.
Why are you so confident that cats can understand some concepts but not death, as a predator they kill animals, so do youy think that in their mind they think that after they kill an animal that animal is just sleeping and should wake up soon?
I am wondering what a cat that acknowledges a friend died or "is sleeping the long one" is thinking if they dream about them, is that confusing for them, dead cats comming to you in a dream.
"as a predator they kill animals, so do youy think that in their mind they think that after they kill an animal that animal is just sleeping and should wake up soon?"
This is a very human approach to describing how a cat perceives the world.
A lot of animals kill other animals. Some of these animals don't even have brains. I don't think "killing" is a necessary or sufficient precondition for understanding death.
"is thinking if they dream about them, is that confusing for them"
I think this is an interesting question in general. Cats seem to understand the difference between dreams and reality. When my cat seems to have a nightmare and I wake her up, she calms down immediately, so she must have some understanding that her dream was not real.
>This is a very human approach to describing how a cat perceives the world.
So when a cat leaves a dead mouse as an offer she does or does not understand that the mouse will never wake up? I think the cats know that dead is irreversible and a cold dead cat is not sleeping.
Do you think then that no other animals understand the concept of death or you think cats are not intelligent enough like monkeys/elephants.
Considering the number of mice my cat has killed, I tend to disagree that they have no concept of death at all. The extent to which they "understand" it is open to debate for sure. But whenever my cat catches one, he deliberately leaves it alive for a while to play with until he gets bored, at which point he promptly cracks its skull between his teeth to finish it off and tries to eat it(I usually stop it if I can so he doesn't get parasites). There's certainly some concept there. Probably not the same concept we have, but it's there in some form.
One theory as to why cats toy with their prey is they are tiring out and confusing it so they (the cats) reduce their chances of getting injured when they close for the kill.
That's an interesting theory, though it doesn't match my experience. My cat tends to bring the mouse inside through the flap, holding it in his mouth, and then will repeatedly grab it in his mouth, move somewhere else and let it out again. He has the option of killing it just by biting down at any moment.
My own hypothesis is that cats catch prey and play with them for a while as a way of getting more training per kill. They probably find some enjoyment in it, which is likely evolved as an incentive to practice. Cats are certainly well known for their playfulness, which tends to be stronger at a young age.
I suppose both theories might be true at different times, depending on the context or the prey. I guess mice aren't particularly capable of doing any real harm to a cat.
I think it is an evolutionary benefit for a social creature to understand a difference between "not currently here" and "not functioning anymore" (i.e. "died"). This is the "why". The "how", apparently is by feelings or emotions or whatever you want to call it.
>I very much doubt cats understand the concept of death and can "grieve,"
You're putting a lot of weight with the philosophical definitions of grieve and death for a cat. Yeah, it's probably not the same understanding as a human, as a social animal it's probably not the no understanding at all either.
The article is like "cats react to death like they understand what it is" and you're ambiguously insinuating that they don't without defining your terms or actually adding any substance.
"Cats might understand death but not the same way I do" is both obvious and probable and not particularly interesting.
> I very much doubt cats understand the concept of death and can "grieve,"
My guess is someone disagrees with both of these claims. To be fair, your doubting that they can grieve is a bit ambiguous – of course they can grieve but whether they can grieve over a death, assumes they understand death as distinct from 'where have they gone?'.
I guess the word "grieve" is ambiguous, but I understand it in this context in the sense of "being upset at somebody else's death." Of course cats are upset if somebody they like isn't around, but it's not because they know that this person is dead.
While the concept of "grieving" in animals, particularly cats, might be different from human grieving, it’s clear that they do experience significant emotional responses to changes in their social environment
Yes, that's what I'm describing happened with my cat. I never denied that, I provided relatively objective evidence that this is true, because the article suggests that people might overstate how their cats react to absence, which I do not believe to be true.
i dont know to what degree they do or don't understand death, but i definitely wouldn't be surprised to learn that they do. rats certainly do, and i can't imagine it's a huge leap between them.
actually now that i think about it, having owned plenty of both as pets, cats are definitely a lot dumber than rats so now i'm definitely not sure.
It's pretty gross to see a perfectly fine post get downvoted. I bet it's just people having a knee-jerk reaction to something they don't agree with, or maybe some weird psychological thing. I see this stuff all the time, and it bugs me that people here can't seem to keep their emotions in check. Instead, they hit that downvote button like it's a "La la la, I can't hear you!" switch.
I’ve noticed pet owners get angry when you point out the mid-anthropomorphic ideas they have about their animals.
I assume they take it as disrespect that their pet is an animal that is different than them. Rather than accepting they are simply another form of life with whole different motivations and concepts.
But that's what I'm pointing out in my original comment... Cats definitely experience love, they notice the absence of people or animals they love, and they react to it.
All I'm saying is that I don't think the word "grief" is the correct word in this context, because grief implies an understanding of the concept of death, which is a very human idea that we had to learn. We weren't born with this understanding, learning about death is something very upsetting that children have to go through.
> Grief is the anguish experienced after significant loss, usually the death of a beloved person. Grief often includes physiological distress, separation anxiety, confusion, yearning, obsessive dwelling on the past, and apprehension about the future.
That seems to describe the behavior people have seen cats display after the loss of someone or another animal in their homes. Maybe they don't know it's death, but they know it's a loss and exhibit signs of distress, anxiety, and confusion. We can't really ask them to find out if they're dwelling on the past or apprehensive about the future though.
I'm not saying other social animals have some kind of abstract understanding to death, but that they very, most, extremely, likely have an innate response to seeing dead members of their "pack" or other social structure. And if so, it would be very strange if humans did not have it too.
You may believe it is not so, but maybe you now understand my position?
I guess. I see my cats as a type of alien. I know they love me and want to be around me, but I also know that their experience and understanding of the world is very different from mine. They're not little furry humans.
One of them died suddenly years later. As painful as that was, it was even more heartbreaking to see our other cat dealing with his death. She did not understand why he had disappeared, and grew increasingly upset in the days following. Searching everywhere around the house making distressed meows at all hours. Demanding to have every door opened so she could search every inch of the house multiple times.
This is only one anecdote… but to me the fact animals can grieve is beyond question