Hello? Hello? I'm All Alone Here, Hello?

If I'm translating correctly, I think she's saying, "I'm looking for the most inconvenient place to gak up my lunch and a clump of hair."

I played it, and one of my Maine Coon mix gals instantly began to look for the cat. She's still investigating....

She's saying "If only these people were smaller, I wouldn't need any help killing them. Hey, where did they go?"

brandon: yup. Trust me, I speak fluent Cat, and that is exactly what she's saying. "I've got to puke, I've got to puke! Should I puke this up on the hard-to-clean cream-colored carpet or under the bed, or in my person's shoe? Oh, no, I better find something hard to clean AND just out of reach..."

It's not just the vocalizations, it's the mouth and tongue movements that say, "I am going to puke!" As far as where, what cat has ever cared about that?

That is the sound my cat used to make to alert me that she was about to hack up a big hairball (usually on the end of the bed of all places!). Then would come the dry heave noises followed by the hairball. Blech. I hadn't realized this was a common way to communicate an upcoming hairball in cats!

Now she happily eats a little bit of a hairball preventing treat a few times a week, and I no longer hear that kind of dialog - just purring and excited meows.

That very call was what the late Kitten Kat would do when he realized he was on the way to the vet.

Auditory cue is definitely the right term. I used to watch my neighbor's cat and when it did something it did not like the cat would make a very whiney meow like a person would when they were unhappy.

The cat learned that making a noise like that would trigger behavior from people that the cat wanted. It makes you wonder who is training who!

brandon has it right -- and my new kitty also wondered where the calling cat was located, forgetting there are rules in place regarding table and countertops... :)

00 caren
http://www.parkgallery.org

My cat definitely calls out to see where I am... sometimes she even matches the prosody of my own "Hello?".