I was on the phone with a friend this morning while my Ragdoll Chloe was sitting on my lap. After I spent a minute talking, Chloe looked up at me and mouthed this barely audible “myeh” that came out like a whisper. It took me out of the conversation I was having because it was so disarmingly cute.

I wondered what could possibly have been going through her mind as she softly vocalized. Did she think I was talking to her, and she was responding? Was she thinking, “Pay attention to me already and stop talking to that device?” Was she commenting on the coarseness of my morning voice? Was she simply expressing her love? Of course, I instinctively reached down to pet the back of her head.

Cat vocalization is interesting and we’ve addressed it in How to Understand “Cat” by celebrity veterinarian Marty Becker and in “The Cat Chat Dictionary” by Erika Sorocco in the March 2007 issue of CAT FANCY. I read through these two articles again and learned that many of our cats’ vocalizations are messages for people, not other cats.

Cats communicate with each other in more ways than just vocalizing, but sensing we’re the verbal creatures we are, they vocalize with us primarily. So there’s always a message in it for us. If you can figure out what makes your cat stop the vocalizing, you may have succeeded in decoding that message. As long as I kept petting her, Chloe didn’t make that adorable sound again, even though I wanted her to.