Human scientists have just figured out something that my humans have known all along: if they copy our "no threat" signal and narrow their eyes and slowly blink at us, it sets us at ease. We've only been sending them this signal for how many millennia? But now that the scientists have finally gotten the memo, it's somehow official. Sheesh.
They should've just asked my humans. My humans might be slow about some things, but they do know the basics of peaceful coexistence.
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| Peaceful coexistence |
Hi Thera, we were taught this signal by a few wonderful cats. In fact, it is so engrained in our lives that we regularly try it to calm our human baby. We haven't yet decided if it works on her or not.
ReplyDeleteLet me know how your experiment turns out! My own theory is that we cats started making this gesture to indicate "I am neither predator nor prey in this interaction with you." Human babies might not be as aligned with the ways of predators as our kittens are, though. But I think some human behavior serves similar purposes. For example, I suspect the human custom of shaking hands originally meant "I am not carrying a weapon in my hand."
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