A ‘veterinary expert’ in Miami, USA, Nuria Gómez Constanzo, believes that cats apologise to their caregivers when they’ve done something wrong. They understand they’ve done something wrong and then they try and make up by rubbing against their owners and being extra friendly towards them as their version of an apology.
My conclusion at this stage is that domestic cats don’t apologise for things they’ve ‘done wrong’ but I can’t be sure. What might look like an apology is cat behavior designed to elicit friendliness from their owner because they sense that their caregiver has become unfriendly as they appeared to be hostile when the cat did something which they didn’t like. I think that’s a better assessment of what might happen. I don’t see this feline behavior as a true apology.
Please read on – comments and thoughts welcome on this as it is a grey area:
I have two observations on the Miami vet’s belief. Firstly, we don’t know for sure how domestic cat think. We can guess using our best knowledge. We can guess by observation. But we have to be cautious because it is very easy to anthropomorphise our domestic cat companions.
We can tend to see them as little people because they are so important to the family. They are part of the family and they are elevated sometimes to a human presence. And then we start believing that they understand punishment which they don’t because to understand punishment you have to understand human norms and society. The morality of society. Cats don’t get that.
But in my experience, cats do know when they’ve done wrong (or which displeases their owner – a different thing) because the demeanour of their caregiver both in terms of body language and voice indicates at least slight hostility or annoyance. The cat might have learned from repeated past events that they done something which their surrogate mother, human caregiver, doesn’t like. Their initial reaction would be to run away perhaps, to hide.
When they come back, they might be particularly friendly which might be interpreted as an apology. I don’t think I can interpret it like that. I’m not sure that cats apologise in the true sense by employing deliberately friendly behaviours after they’ve been admonished.
As I mentioned, we have to be very careful how we interpret feline behaviour in the family environment.
An apology is essentially a human concept I believe. To apologise is to express regret for something that one has done wrong. So, the cat must understand that they’ve done something wrong. Cats don’t understand that they done something wrong. They will understand that they done something which their caregiver doesn’t like. That’s a distinct possibility but it doesn’t mean that in their mind they believe it is something wrong. And then you have to decide that a cat can have regret.
To regret something is to feel sad or disappointed over something that one has done or failed to do. It’s quite a complicated emotion. I’m not sure domestic cats have the capability of feeling that kind of emotion. I am not saying that they can’t. I am saying that I am unsure.
There is a big debate about cat emotions on the Internet. It’s a work in progress. We know they have the basic emotions. We don’t know how advanced their emotions can be. Others might disagree with me and probably will. All I can do here is express my opinion.
