Grief, the sensation of ache and disappointment following a loss, is a common emotion in people. All of us expertise grief finally, no matter our background, tradition, or upbringing. On this means, grief, some of the profound and private human experiences, connects us firmly to others.
I feel for this reason the query about whether or not cats expertise grief feels so necessary. For a cat to really feel grief when somebody in her life passes, whether or not animal or human, she should have first felt love – similar to us.
However how do we all know whether or not cats really feel grief when there’s a death within the family? Even when we witness a change in habits following a dying, how do we all know whether it is grief, or whether it is one thing else?
We’re simply on the very, very starting of understanding the inside lives of cats, and science has solely begun to discover the query of whether or not cats expertise grief.
I’ll share what we all know with you on this put up. If you happen to’d prefer to skip forward to the juicy components, scroll right down to the part entitled, “The one large research on cats and grief.”
Earlier than we are able to know whether or not cats expertise grief after loss, we should always first ask whether or not animals expertise emotion.
A really, very quick historical past of the science of animal feelings
We’re removed from the primary technology of individuals to ask whether or not animals have feelings. Pythagoras, the 6th century BC thinker, mathematician, and trainer believed that people and non-humans have the identical form of soul. He gave up consuming meat, stopped sporting leather-based sneakers, and acquired animals from the market to “liberate” them.
Within the late 1800s, Charles Darwin developed his well-known idea of evolution to elucidate how all residing issues received their bodily traits. However he additionally wrote a lesser-known e-book, referred to as The Expression of the Feelings in Man and Animals, during which he defined his perception that people inherited our means to really feel emotion from our mammal ancestors as properly.
By the early 20th century, nevertheless, some scientists refused to even entertain the concept that animals skilled emotion. These scientists referred to as themselves “behaviorists” and restricted their analysis of animals to behaviors they may truly observe with their very own eyes. Emotion in animals was not thought-about worthy of research.
Immediately, the concept of animal feelings remains to be a controversial topic. Whereas most individuals agree that animals can expertise primary feelings, like worry, some argue that it’s inconceivable to know if animals expertise extra advanced feelings like grief.
Why is the concept that animals have feelings so controversial?
The issue is that we are able to’t ask animals what they’re feeling. We should depend on our interpretation of animals’ facial expressions and physique language to deduce what emotion an animal may be experiencing.
Generally it appears simple to guess what animals are feeling. Most individuals, even these with little expertise interacting with animals, when proven an animal’s physique posture, gait, face, and eyes, will are inclined to agree with each other about what an animal is probably going feeling.
But there are some famous scientific experiments that have shown, unfortunately, how easy it actually is to get it wrong when we try to guess what an animal is feeling.
Some examples of emotion in animals
You can put everything I just said above aside for the moment. Here are a couple of animal stories that might make even the staunchest doubters question whether animals are capable of complex emotion:
Rats have empathy
In one scientific experiment a free-roaming rat was presented with a rat friend who was stuck in a very restrictive cage. The video below shows how diligently the free rat worked to release his trapped friend.
Since there were no rewards involved, and since the experiment worked even if the trapped rat was a stranger to the free rat, or if the free rat knew he wouldn’t have access to the trapped rat for play after release, it would not be unreasonable to conclude that the gesture was motivated by empathy.
Later, when given a choice between opening a restrictive cage containing his friend or another containing chocolate chips, the rat opened both, and shared the chocolate chips with his newly freed friend.
Crows like to have fun
Crows have been observed deliberately sliding in the snow, including this crow who is using a plastic lid as a sled, an apparent sign of the birds’ capacity for joy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9mrTdYhOHg
A gorilla feels sad
And here is a video of Koko, the famous hand-signing gorilla, watching her favorite movie, Tea with Mussolini. When it comes to a sad part in the movie, when a boy has to say goodbye to his relatives, Koko turns her back to the screen, signing, “Frown, sad, cry bad, trouble, mother, Koko-love.”
You can decide for yourself whether you think animals experience complex emotions.
Before we get to the question about whether cats, specifically, experience grief, it might be helpful to understand whether any other animal species grieve when one of their own dies.
There’s actually a scientific discipline to study this phenomenon. It’s called comparative thanatology, and its purpose is to study the responses of non-human animals to the dead and dying.
Studies in comparative thanatology suggest that the experience of grief is actually widespread in the animal kingdom. It’s believed that a range of animals, especially highly social animals like birds, dolphins and whales, primates, and dogs, experience grief.
Animals have “death rituals” too
Human beings engage in death rituals according to their culture or religion. Catholics hold wakes and Jewish people sit shiva when someone dies, for example. But animals also seem to have death rituals.
When a female elephant named Eleanor died in Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve, a parade of elephants from five different families came by to view her body, as if they’d come to pay respects.
Two male dolphins were seen attending the body of a dead female dolphin on the sea floor near an island in Japan. They remained with the body at all times, surfacing briefly to breathe before returning to their vigil.
Chimpanzees have been observed carrying the bodies of their dead infants around for days or even months. When an infant chimp was unexpectedly killed at LA Zoo, keepers allowed her mother to keep the body so that she could carry out this important chimpanzee grieving ritual.
What is the purpose of grief?
For grief to exist in the animal kingdom, most scientists agree that it must have a purpose. It must help the surviving animals continue to survive in some way.
One theory is that grief can help a highly social group of animals reaffirm their bond with each other after losing a member of their group.
This might be why we tend to observe apparent grief and death rituals in the most highly social animal species.
Are cats as social as other animal species that experience grief?
One of the factors when thinking about cats and grief is their sociability. Cats are social creatures, but not in the same way that dogs or humans are social. It’s worth reading this post about whether cats are social or independent, to be taught extra.
Cats advanced from wild cats who have been asocial, that means that cats’ wild ancestors have been simply not all that curious about interacting with different cats of their type. (That is completely different from anti-social, which entails being actively hostile towards others.)
However home cats are much more versatile about the entire sociability factor. Many feral cats reside in busy colonies, and cats who reside in our homes get together with us, our youngsters, our dogs, and our different cats.
Science has not paid sufficient consideration to cats. Analysis is simply simply starting to catch up, hopefully serving to us perceive them higher, together with their capability for grief.
The one large research on cats and grief
To date, there’s solely been one large research on cats and grief and it was simply printed in 2024.
Researchers surveyed 412 cat guardians who had misplaced one pet however nonetheless had at the least one surviving cat within the family. Respondents have been questioned about their very own relationship with the pet who died, in addition to the surviving cat’s relationship with the deceased pet. They have been requested about modifications in habits on the a part of the surviving cat.
Researchers discovered that cats do appear to exhibit behaviors which can be related to grief. The surviving cats ate much less, and slept extra. They “spoke” extra typically and extra loudly. They requested for extra consideration from their guardians. Some cats spent more time alone. Some gave the impression to be in search of the animal who had handed.
Many of those behaviors have been according to behaviors we affiliate with grieving canine. Canine are usually not solely extra social than cats, however they’re the extra well-researched species.
As you may anticipate, the depth and size of a cat’s grief appeared to be correlated with how properly the surviving cat knew the deceased pet, and the way shut their relationship was.
Possible problems with the cat-grief study
Because cats can’t tell us directly about their feelings of loss, this study relied on cat guardians’ observations of their cats’ behavior after a death in the family.
Guardians might have been projecting their own feelings of loss on their cat.
The cat might have just been behaving differently because the household dynamic had changed after the death of one member.
The behavior change witnessed in cats after a death might not have been grief. It could be that the surviving cat was trying to console their grief-stricken guardian. In fact, cat guardians who reported that they felt more grief upon the loss of the pet reported more grief behaviors in their surviving cat.
A simple change in the household routine could have caused a cat to feel stress, anxiety, or frustration.
Or not.
Cats who are grieving might show:
Changes in appetite
Note that if a cat has not eaten in two days, contact your veterinarian. Cats are susceptible to a deadly liver disease called hepatic lipidosis which will be triggered by a short interval of not consuming.
Adjustments in sleep patterns
Some cats sleep more, some sleep much less.
Stressed habits
Cats could appear to be unsettled. They could cry or seem like looking the home for the deceased pet.
Looking for consideration
Some cats could appear to need extra consideration from you, however some could appear much less curious about enjoying with you.
Disappointment
A cat could not appear to be himself. There might not be another approach to describe it apart from “unhappy.”
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Don’t be involved in case your pet displays not one of the signs proven above. Some cats don’t seem to overlook the deceased pet in any respect. Some cats even appear to revel within the absence, having fun with extra territory in the home than they could have in any other case whereas the opposite pet was nonetheless alive.
You clearly can’t do the one factor that might make your cat’s sense of loss go away.
The very best factor that you are able to do for a grieving cat is to remove further sources of stress. For cats, a change in routine is extremely annoying. Sadly, routine modifications sometimes accompany the lack of a member of a family.
Read about cats and what happens during a change in routine in this post.
A predictable life is usually a supply of consolation and stability for a grieving cat. Preserve meal times, play occasions, and different routines as routine as attainable.
Don’t go overboard attempting to spend further time together with your grieving cat. Even loving consideration will be too intense or annoying for a grieving cat.
If the pet who handed died from a communicable illness, you shouldn’t expose your residing cat to the deceased pet’s useless physique. Maybe that goes with out saying.
In case you are uncomfortable having your cat see the physique, or if you’re unable to indicate your surviving cat the physique of your deceased pet for no matter cause, it’s OK. Don’t really feel responsible about this.
We have no idea what animals learn about dying. We don’t know if cats perceive that the corpse in entrance of them as soon as belonged to their residing housemate. We don’t know in the event that they perceive that dying is everlasting. We don’t know if they’ve want of “closure” the best way we’d.
When attainable, my private desire has all the time been to indicate the physique of my deceased pets to their residing cagemates or housemates. My pets have displayed the gamut of responses, from frantically grooming and trying to open the eyes of the deceased pal (a guinea pig), to stepping on or over the physique as if it wasn’t even there (a rat), to finish disinterest within the useless physique (my present canine upon the house euthanasia of our different canine).
As a lot as you want to launch your grieving cat from ache, there isn’t a brand new cat or kitten on the planet that will likely be ready assist your surviving cat on this means.
You have to give your cat time to adapt to her new life with out the pet who’s handed. There isn’t any substitute for the connection that that they had.
If you happen to resolve to get a brand new cat (or canine) after the dying of a pet, it must be solely since you and your loved ones want to welcome a brand new pet into the house, not as a favor to your surviving cat.
Even when your cat had essentially the most fantastic relationship on the planet with the animal who handed, it doesn’t imply that your cat can have that form of relationship with one other pet once more.
Cats don’t all the time bond with different cats
Cats are usually not equally social with different cats. Science exhibits that cats get alongside finest with different cats who’re associated to them. They’ll additionally get together with different cats that they already know.
However cats who have no idea one another, even when they’ve been social with different cats up to now, will be aggressive with one another.
If you happen to resolve to convey a brand new cat into the house, read this post on introducing cats to each other.
Queen Elizabeth II famously stated, “Grief is the worth we pay for love.” I feel for this reason it means a lot to us to think about that our cats expertise grief, similar to us.
None of us who love cats need to them to expertise ache of any type. However realizing that they could grieve our loss if we die, or the lack of one other cat or canine in the home, by some means expands the that means of these relationships to the cat in life.
For now, we are able to solely guess what cats are considering or feeling, and speculate about their grief expertise.
I, for one, don’t assume it’s fallacious to assume that cats are like us, or we’re like them, in some deep and necessary methods like this one.
You may also be curious about studying:
What to say and do when someone loses a pet
Love Pinterest? Here is a Pinterest-friendly pin in your boards!
Daybreak LaFontaine is a lifelong animal lover who all the time appears to have just a little pet hair in her keyboard. Her weblog, Kitty Contemplations, helps cat guardians higher perceive and look after the particular beings they share their lives and houses with. Her cat-products enterprise, Cat in the Box, sells stunning, well-made, and award-winning merchandise that she designed to satisfy the organic wants of cats.
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