Answer Your Cat’s Questions Day

What the day is

Answer Your Cat's Questions Day is observed on January 22. The joke assumes the cat is asking you something, and the odd thing is that it broadly is.

Origin and background

The origin of the observance is not documented. The communication is better understood.

Adult cats hardly meow at one another. Kittens meow at their mothers and largely stop as they mature, and cat-to-cat communication runs mostly on scent, posture and tail position, with vocalizing reserved for conflict. The meow directed at a human is therefore not a general cat noise. It is a behavior retained into adulthood and aimed specifically at people, and cats develop it individually, with the sounds an owner recognizes often being particular to that cat and that household rather than a shared vocabulary.

The signals worth learning are the silent ones. A tail held upright as a cat approaches is a friendly greeting, well documented and one of the clearest positive signs available. Slow blinking is associated with relaxed, non-threatening intent, and experiments have found that cats are more likely to approach a person who slow-blinks at them first. Ears rotating backward or flattening, a tail flicking at the tip, and skin twitching along the back all point the other way.

Cats also recognize their own names, distinguishing them from similar-sounding words, which is established. Acting on them remains optional, as noted on the Cat Herders Day entry.

How to take part

• Answer. Talking back to a cat that vocalizes at you is a genuine exchange, however silly it feels.
• Slow-blink at your cat and wait to see whether it returns it.
• Learn the upright tail greeting, which most owners never consciously notice.
• Watch the ears rather than the mouth for how a cat is feeling.
• Notice which sounds your cat uses only with you. Most have several.