YES, CATS DO HAVE THE CAPACITY FOR LOVE

New Zealand boasts one of the highest rates of cat ownership per capita, with 74% of owners considering them members of the family.

We provide them with housing, food and medical care. We post photographs and videos of them on social media, and canvass the community with notices when they go missing.

But how can we know if they love us back?

This question has played on the minds of cat custodians since cats domesticated people during the agricultural revolution. Now, swathes of articles, blog posts, books and scientific endeavours weigh in on this mystery.

It seems silly to suggest an animal that has evolved in close contact with us for thousands of years is incapable of developing close bonds with its guardians today.

Theoretically, cats should be capable of a certain type of love – the tricky part is determining what this love looks like in practice.

Owning a cat can be an experience that prompts questions like: “Do you care about me?” “Do your loud expectations of the food I give you mean that you see me as a servant?” “Do you miss me when I leave you?”

These questions arise because humans are fundamentally social beings. We thrive through relationships and fret when abandoned or excluded by people we care about. This facet of our psychology, called attachment, also applies to our relationships with pets.

Studies have shown that pets can serve as important attachment figures that provide us with social support, a sense of responsibility, and the capacity for love. Attachment goes both ways, with cats demonstrating the capacity for attachment too.

A 2019 experiment showed that cats exhibit attachment behaviours strikingly similar to human infants. The Secure Base Test involved the cat and owner entering an unfamiliar room in which the owner would sit down for two minutes. After that, the owner left the cat alone in the room for two minutes, and then re-entered the room for two more.

The experiment found that all cats became anxious when their owner left them, and that there were differences in their responses towards their respective owners when they returned.

These closely mirrored the attachment styles babies show in response to separation and were classified into three main types.

Securely attached cats would explore the room before the owner left and, after the owner returned, use the owner as a secure base of comfort to return to when they needed it.

Anxious-ambivalent cats were unable to gain the courage to explore the room, instead remaining spooked and close to their owner after they returned.

Anxious-avoidant cats also couldn’t recover from their experience of separation, but remained isolated from their owner, instead of returning to them for comfort.

These results suggest the development of close bonds with humans seems to affect the way cats encounter and manage loss, and also shows cats are quite capable of missing their owners.

Love is a wonderfully vague term, used to denote one as whānau or the object of romantic interest, or simply a catch-all for a positive alignment (‘’I love that ice cream’’).

Used interpersonally, love simultaneously denotes a strong affection, an attraction, admiration or devotion. Regardless of the word’s many uses, I’d tentatively suggest that the concept of love approximates a close bond or attachment towards another being, practice or place.

The strongest indication that cats have the capacity for love is in how they react to the deaths of their guardians. A cat calling after their guardian is a haunting experience.

The grieving process can be debilitating, with animal behaviourists suggesting that the loss of the cat’s favoured attachment figure can result in depression, loss of appetite, insomnia and listlessness.

These symptoms are remarkably similar to how humans encounter loss, and are a challenge to the pop-culture portrait of cats as aloof and independent beings indifferent to their human companions.

My neighbour’s cat, Frank, really seems to miss his owner. When she left for work in the morning, Frank would follow her down to the road, and would be waiting at the top of the steps for her arrival in the evening.

When my neighbour moved countries, Frank had to stay behind. Nothing seems to have changed for this plucky black panther – he remains proud and composed on his daily commute down to the road.

But I can’t help but wonder if he both knows that she isn’t coming back and mourns her loss.