Because kitties are forever babies 🤗
Define “grow up”. Their personality changes with age but they remain fixated on their care giver(s) similar to children for as long as you let them.
Same reason I refer to my 14-year-old dachshund as a puppy.
Because he’s my puppy.
The only true man cat is Idris Elba in Cats
“And that’s where you’re wrong, buddy. Damn I look good.”
Fishy fishy
I’m gonna eat you little fishy!
because they stay smol!
I can hold onto many feelings and ideas at once.
My orange baby boy is an old man.
Mama Trump, is it you?
Because they get neutered/spayed
Because they are all fur babies. Always.
You can call your cat anything you want, they still won’t come.
Because their real name sounds like a food pouring into the bowl.
My cat was an “old man cat” for a while before he passed.
Anyhow, a “man cat” just sounds like a cat who dresses up like a man and fights crime
Man cheetah
or a human/cat hybrid. like splice.
Yes, but Lady Cat and Gentleman Cat just sounds like cats being fancy. And cats are fancy.
You haven’t met my chonker
fancy chonker
He is not fancy
He reminds me of Missouri
That’s still fancier then mississippi
Worse food tho
Shape wise? Or because he particularly enjoys barbecue?
The people
I believe you’re thinking of Catman
respect my authoritay
My cats are gentlemen and ladies
I only have one lady. The rest I call terrible names.
Oh I call them like 100 terrible names as well but they are still nobles without rank or title
One of my cats is a man cat. We always call him a man unless it Big Bubba Boi for the alliteration. The other cat is a demon.
Human/animal bonding is aided because their faces retain neotenic features that remind us of babies. So many are inclined to relate to them like children.
From that article:
Accumulating behavioral and neurophysiological studies support the idea of infantile (cute) faces as highly biologically relevant stimuli rapidly and unconsciously capturing attention and eliciting positive/affectionate behaviors, including willingness to care. It has been hypothesized that the presence of infantile physical and behavioral features in companion (or pet) animals (i.e., dogs and cats) might form the basis of our attraction to these species.
It has been hypothesized that both behavioral and physical infantile features present in companion animals might form the basis of our attraction to these animals and may bear some part of the responsibility for our motivational drive to pet-keeping and pet-caretaking (Archer, 1997).
That’s weird because babies are ugly. Cats, on the other hand, are just so… hey wait a minute, my cat stole my heart 💘😼
This spell, so potent… 😍🐈
I’ve read a lot about how dogs have evolved to hit some of the same triggers that human infants do. I’ve also read about how we tend to view pets as children in our minds. I imagine that that all plays a role in it.
We totally do.
You can address a pet like you would politely address an adult, but only in a jokey way. Like “oh, and who’s this handsome gentleman/lady?”, same as with kids.
I dunno. I view my dogs as companions. Yeah, they need me to look after.them like they’re children, but I need them to take care of me in the wilderness, protect the house, cheer me up, entertain guests, tow me on the longboard.
There’s no association with them and a human child for me. If anything dog ownership has shifted my mentality into the symbiotic relationship of a pack. I think being stuck thinking of them as children would make for some very miserable times and bad behaviour from both the owner and the dog.
I agree, but I also think the studies are speaking more broadly and possibly on a subconscious level. I feel the same as you but at the same time I can acknowledge evolutionary traits they might have.
Generally speaking, the terms man and woman are reserved specifically for humans. I couldn’t tell you why, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter.
For pets, the use of boy/girl probably does have a lot to do with how people tend to infantilize their companion animals.
Additionally, the boy / girl terminology is often generalized to cover all animals, particularly when adults are interacting with children and by extension when children are interacting with each other. It’s not uncommon to have a child ask something like “is that a boy rabbit or a girl rabbit?” but it is a little unusual to hear an adult ask another adult that same question, unless it’s sort of tongue-in-cheek or maybe in the presence of kids.
I do call my doggo ‘old man’, but never just called him a man.
Adults would generally use actual adjectives, ‘male/female cat’ instead of ‘man/woman/boy/girl cat’
