People are either cat people or they aren’t.

At least, that’s what I used to think.

Then I married Troy.

Troy was never someone I would have called a cat person. Certainly not the kind of man I imagined living in a house with five of them. And if you ask him, I’m not entirely sure he would admit that he has crossed over.

But I have evidence.

Every once in a while, I’ll hear:

“TT is an awesome cat.”

Or:

“Skii has the softest fur.”

And I have caught him loving on them when he thinks no one is paying attention.

Sir, you are a cat person.

You may not have filled out the paperwork, but your membership has been approved.

Five Cats. Five Completely Different Personalities.

One of the things I love most about living with cats is how impossible it is to describe them simply as cats.

We have five, and not one of them is remotely like another.

TT is the leader.

This is not something we voted on.

TT decided.

She is security, management and pest control wrapped into one furry little body. Small critters unfortunate enough to enter her jurisdiction are dealt with swiftly and without the benefit of an appeals process.

And yet this same tiny assassin has a softness that continually surprises me.

She will stretch out on the floor and allow a baby to crawl all over her. Fur gets grabbed. Little hands poke and pull.

Yesterday, I caught Starlynn with TT’s tail in her mouth.

I immediately separated them because…

Ewww.

Ten minutes later?

TT was right back beside her, calmly allowing that baby to grab fistfuls of fur without so much as an ear twitch.

That is TT.

Murder at dawn.

Babysitting by noon.

Oscar is our lone male, and he considers this an important executive position.

Oscar is verbal.

Very verbal.

He expects the girls to appreciate his presence, attend to his needs and understand that when food appears, he belongs at the front of the line.

I’m fairly certain Oscar believes the household hierarchy goes something like this:

Oscar.

Everyone responsible for feeding Oscar.

Everyone else.

Skii has discovered the secret to a happy life.

Sleep.

Preferably about 23 hours a day.

She doesn’t ask for much. Give her a comfortable place beside me or one of the other girls, and she is perfectly content.

Then there is Dory.

Poor, dumb Dory.

I say that with tremendous love.

Our sweet calico lives in a household largely populated by black cats and seems determined to prove that being beautiful is enough.

Dory has been known to simply stop wherever she happens to be and go to sleep.

The kitchen sink.

The bathroom sink.

Behind the couch.

Behind a door.

Inside a basket.

Inside a box.

Location is irrelevant.

Apparently, when Dory’s internal battery reaches zero, shutdown is immediate.

And then there is Betty.

If I absolutely had to choose, Betty is probably the one I am closest to.

Where I am, Betty usually is.

If something is occupying my lap, she considers it competition.

A book?

Move it.

My phone?

Unnecessary.

Laptop?

Absolutely not.

Another cat?

We may need to discuss boundaries.

Betty doesn’t simply want to be near me. She wants to occupy whatever space currently has my attention.

And somehow, I understand exactly what she means.

They Know

This is the part that isn’t quite as funny.

My cats know when something is wrong with me.

When I’m sick, they gather.

When I’m sad, they stay closer.

When I’m lonely, somehow there always seems to be a warm little body beside me, a paw touching my leg or the steady vibration of a purr close enough for me to feel it.

For years, I assumed this was simply something cat people told one another.

Turns out, there is actually some science behind it.

Studies have found that cats can recognize familiar human voices and distinguish their own names from other words. Researchers have also found evidence that cats can connect human emotional sounds and facial expressions and respond differently to those emotional signals.

Does that mean Betty understands exactly why I am having a bad day?

Probably not.

Does TT know what an illness is?

I doubt it.

But they know me.

They know what normal looks like.

They know my voice, my movements and my routines. They know when I get out of bed, where I usually sit and what I normally do.

So when something changes, they notice.

And sometimes their answer seems to be remarkably simple:

Then I will stay here.

There is something beautiful about that.

Your Cat May Know More Than You Think

Here’s one that surprised me.

Researchers have found that cats can recognize their own names.

Which means every time you have called your cat seventeen times while she sat three feet away staring at you…

She may very well have known exactly what you were saying.

She simply chose not to participate.

Honestly, this is the most cat research finding I have ever heard.

Even more interesting, researchers studying cats who lived together found evidence that household cats can learn the names of their feline companions.

So Oscar may know perfectly well who TT, Betty, Dory and Skii are.

Whether he considers this information important remains between Oscar and Oscar.

That Slow Blink Really Does Mean Something

If you have ever lived with a cat, you probably know the look.

Your cat is lying somewhere comfortable, watching you.

You look at her.

She slowly closes her eyes.

Then opens them again.

Cat people have long considered that slow blink a sign of comfort or affection.

Researchers actually tested it.

Cats were more likely to narrow their eyes after their owners slow-blinked at them, and in another experiment, cats were more likely to approach an unfamiliar person after that person slow-blinked at them than after the person simply maintained a neutral expression.

In other words, when you slow-blink at your cat and she does it back, the two of you really may be communicating.

So yes.

I talk to my cats.

Apparently, now I speak cat too.

We May Have Mice to Thank for All of This

The history of humans and cats is fascinating because our relationship with them seems to have developed differently from our relationships with many other domesticated animals.

Thousands of years ago, farming communities began storing grain.

Grain attracted rodents.

Rodents attracted wildcats.

And somewhere along the way, humans apparently looked at the little hunters taking care of their mouse problem and thought:

You can stay.

There is archaeological evidence of cats living closely with humans going back thousands of years. One particularly fascinating discovery involved a cat buried near a human in Cyprus roughly 9,500 years ago—especially significant because cats weren’t native to the island.

Over time, cats traveled with people and became part of human settlements around the world.

So basically, the arrangement began something like:

“You kill the mice. We’ll provide room and board.”

Several thousand years later, I buy special cat food while apologizing because someone doesn’t like the flavor I selected.

Clearly, there has been a shift in management.

Why Cats Are Better Than Dogs

Before the dog people begin composing angry emails, I would like to make something perfectly clear:

This section has been independently researched and peer-reviewed by the five cats currently living in my house.

The results were unanimous.

Cats are better.

Cats do not require you to stand outside in freezing rain at 6:00 in the morning begging them to please, for the love of God, just pee.

Cats generally bathe themselves.

Cats can use a bathroom indoors without anyone calling it an “accident.”

Cats do not usually announce the arrival of the UPS driver as though armed invaders have breached the perimeter.

Cats provide pest control services.

Cats can turn practically anything into a bed.

Cats provide free lap warmers.

Cats will graciously allow you to live in their house as long as you continue paying the mortgage.

And cats are wonderfully independent…

right up until you decide you’d like to use the bathroom alone.

Then independence is apparently no longer one of their core values.

Mitch would like it formally noted that dogs have several counterarguments.

His appeal is pending.

Maybe There Aren’t Cat People

The older I get, the less convinced I am that people are simply born “cat people.”

Maybe sometimes you just haven’t met your cat yet.

Maybe it’s the bossy black one who runs your house like a tiny organized-crime operation.

Maybe it’s the spoiled boy demanding breakfast.

Maybe it’s the sleepy one curled against you.

Maybe it’s the calico who fell asleep in the sink.

Or maybe it’s the one who quietly climbs into your lap when you’ve had a terrible day and somehow knows that whatever you are holding can wait.

Living with animals means accepting fur on your clothes, paw prints where they don’t belong, the occasional mysterious crash from another room and—if you live with TT—the presentation of tiny deceased “gifts” you absolutely did not request.

But it also means companionship without explanation.

It means being loved by something that doesn’t care what kind of day you had, what you accomplished, whether the house is clean or whether you have anything interesting to say.

They simply know that you are theirs.

And they are yours.

Sometimes love looks like flowers.

Sometimes it looks like a handwritten note.

And sometimes love is a black cat lying beside a baby, patiently having her fur pulled, while the humans wonder how the same animal responsible for yesterday’s mouse massacre can possibly be this gentle.

Maybe that’s what I love most about them.

They’re complicated.

They’re ridiculous.

They’re completely themselves.

And somehow, they make a house feel a little more like Home.

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A Little Further Reading for Fellow Cat People

If you’re curious about some of the research behind our tiny house lions, these are a few of the sources I used while writing this entry:

• Scientific Reports — “Domestic cats discriminate their names from other words” (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40616-4): Research examining whether cats recognize their own names.
• Scientific Reports — “Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives” (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10261-5): Research suggesting household cats can associate the names and faces of feline companions.
• Scientific Reports — “The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat-human communication” (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73426-0): The wonderful study that gives us scientific permission to continue slow-blinking at our cats.
• Scientific Reports — research on cats and human emotional cues (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-38167-w): Research exploring how cats process and respond to human emotional information.
• Smithsonian Magazine — “How Cats Conquered the World” (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-cats-conquered-world-180963749/): A fascinating look at archaeological and genetic evidence tracing the long relationship between humans and cats.
• Cornell Feline Health Center (https://www.vet.cornell.edu/fhc): A wonderful resource for reliable information about feline health, behavior and care.

Because apparently loving five cats wasn’t enough.

Now I’m researching them too.