Even Cats Can Mourn, Study Suggests

A recent study is the latest to throw into the question the idea that cats are unfeeling masters of their domain. Based on interviews with hundreds of cat owners, scientists have found evidence that cats do routinely grieve after the loss of another pet in the home, even dogs.

Humans are far from the only animals to mourn the dead. Dolphins, elephants, and other highly social creatures have been observed displaying signs of grieving, such as orca mothers holding onto the bodies of their recently deceased children. Studies in recent years have also shown that dogs will exhibit plenty of sadness when humans or other pets pass away. But relatively little scientific attention has been paid to cats and their capacity for mourning. Scientists from Oakland University in Michigan sought to remedy that.

In their new study, published last month in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science, the team surveyed over 400 cat owners who had lost another pet in the past. The owners were asked about short- and long-term behavioral changes in their surviving cat following this loss.

Related article: Do Dogs Think About the Past? 

Overall, the team found that cats could experience similar changes in behavior as those seen in studies examining dog grief. Cats might eat or sleep less, seek more or less attention from their humans, or even “appear to look for their lost companions,” the researchers wrote. And the longer that cats lived with their lost companion or the more positive their relationship was, the more signs of grief they seemed to display. About two-thirds of the cats lived with other cats, but one-third had lived with dogs.

The findings are based on subjective reports from cat owners. And the researchers did find that owners who reported spending more time with their cats or who experienced greater grief from their pet’s death were more likely to see grieving from their cats. That means there is the possibility that people are simply mapping their own loss onto their surviving cats rather than seeing genuine grief from them. According to the scientists, this is only the second study ever to look at whether cats mourn other pets in the household. So at the very least, more research should be done to confirm the phenomenon of feline grief.

“Future work is needed to determine whether these results reflect caregivers projecting their own grief onto surviving animal companions or whether cats may also experience grief following companion loss,” the researchers wrote.

Given other studies showing that cats aren’t quite as heartless as commonly portrayed, though, it’s certainly reasonable to expect that they can and do miss the animals that pass through their lives.