Can animals talk? Do they have a language of their own? Oh, you bet they do, and it's mostly all Greek to us. I understand only one language - English. That puts me at a communication handicap at times, but fortunately for me, I live where most people speak the same language. Half the people who live where I do speak Spanish, or a form of it we call Tex-Mex down here in Texas, but they also speak English. I've studied French and Spanish, don't speak them well but can read a little of it. Some folks might argue that I don't even speak English well, but I seem to be able to get my point across when I speak or write it. And I communicate with animals on a regular basis, and that's 'cause I understand dog and cat language. I learned to do that by simply paying attention to their mannerisms, their barks and meows and other sounds. The tell me when they want food, or when they want in or out, or when they want affection. If you observe and listen, you learn their language . . . and animals are a lot smarter than most people give them credit for being.
Most people have an anthropocentric relationships with animals, and that comes from the erroneous assumption that we are superior to them. Have you ever seen a human being as graceful as a cat? Can you jump six feet off the ground, or navigate along the top of a wood fence only a half inch wide? No, and you can't move at an unbelievable speed either, and you can't climb a tree like a squirrel either. Compared to a cat, you are slow and clumsy and plodding . . . and perhaps stupid. We can't take on any of the physical attributes of a cat, but they can sure take on some of ours. Anyone who takes time to work with them knows how much they are capable of learning. I've got an Australian cow dog with a working vocabulary of several hundred words, and that's because she pays attention to what I say. So do my cats, and I talk to them a lot . . . and they talk back.
Animals don't need to wear a wristwatch to know what time it is, and they don't need to watch the weather reports to know what's ahead. My cow dog knows in advance when rain is coming. She hates it because the thunder and lightening scare her, and I can tell from her movements when something is in the air. My cats tend to huddle up when bad weather is coming. They tell me when it's time to eat and sleep, their two favorite things. I've got one cat that sits and stares at me when he comes inside for the night, makes repeated trips to the bedroom, looks up at the bed and then at me, saying, "Hey, I'm sleepy. Let's hit the sack." And he won't go bed without me, likes to sleep curled up behind my knees or around my feet. Another cat crawls up in my lap and gives me a little nip to remind me it's time for his rubs, his attention for the day. They all have a way of telling me what they want, and like children, they act up sometimes. If Gracie, a calico cat, doesn't get what she wants, she pees on something that belongs to me.
Animals can be selfish, moody, angry, sad, disappointed, happy, or playful, just like people can, and they show that through behavior. Animals grieve when one of their own kind dies, or is sick. My little cocker spaniel dogs knows when you feel bad and tries to comfort you. The cats have ways of telling me when something isn't right, when they feel bad . . . and you only know these things when you pay attention, listen or observe their language. And like with people, some dogs and cats have certain personality traits and mannerisms. In fact, each one of them is different from the others in some way, and what works for one of them might not work for the others. You can't treat all of them the same way.
Some of my cats, for instance, are totally dependent, while others are free spirits that want to be allowed a lot of freedom to move about and do things their way. Not all of them are friends, and some conflicts develop between cats that don't like each other. Sometimes that changes when they reach an accommodation. Sometimes they never do that and you have to keep them separated. And sometimes, you'll notice some real love affairs between two animals. Some of our cats are more attached to the dogs than they are to the other cats, want to be around them all the time. Do they share a language of some kind? I think so.
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