The Secret Language of Cats

New science shows that our seemingly aloof feline friends really do care about us. They just have their own way of showing it. (And they need their space)

- By Adam Piore

As the proud owner of four housecats-Cookie, Sushi, Crumbles and Stinky-Péter Pongrácz can think of a million worthy research questions that might shed light on the mysterious inner lives of the world's second most popular species of domesticated pet. How do they feel toward humans? And what do they think of us?

It's not always easy to find graduate students with enough patience and determination to answer them. Particularly when dogs, which will do virtually anything for a little human validation or a big juicy bone, are available as alternative research subjects.

The scope of that challenge was driven home to the jovial Hungarian ethologist when he and his colleagues brought a cat into their laboratory at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest in 2005. Within minutes of arriving, the cat disappeared into a floor-level air conditioning duct and wouldn't come out. The team spent the afternoon disassembling a laboratory wall as the animal's distraught owner's increasingly desperate calls went unheeded. It took more than a decade for Pongrácz to find a graduate student willing to try again.

"I am really interested in cats and whenever there is a possibility to do cat research, I am on it," Pongrácz says. "I always have good ideas, of course, but I am always waiting for students who would like to work with cats."