to think my cat recognises my footsteps!

[sharptoothlemonshark]

Whenever I come home and open the door, puss is there in the hall to greet me. When other family members come home, he isn't. When the cat sitter comes in when we are away, she often cant find him at all.

IABU to think he waits for my footsteps coming up to the front door and knows its me?

More likely to be your smell( nothing personal). Cats locate their prey by smell quite often, they can detect things from a long, long way away.

But he loves you, that’s for sure.

Really, you think he can smell me walking up the path, through a locked front door?

I think so!! Ours recognises the sound of our car engines, they're amazing creatures.

I can distinguish between the footsteps of my family members so almost certainly so! Also any other sounds like your keys on bunch of keys etc

Ours have 100% recognised our cars.

And before my DH was on our drive our old cat would be waiting at the door. I'd know DH was on our road as he'd wake up and move. (Lazy bastard)

They probably use all their senses including sound and smell. I used to work with a rather attractive man and I could detect his footsteps and aftershave from a long way away 🤣🤣

My ddog knows the sound of my car ❤️

We wear lanyards at work and I can tell which of my colleagues is coming down the hall by their lanyard jangles.

I know when DH/DD/DS are walking up the driveway as the crunch on the gravel is different for each of them. The cat probably has significantly better hearing than I do and she greets me and DD at the door, but never DS or DH.

I also know my colleagues by their lanyard jingles.

Cats are very clever. I had a cat that would run down the garden path as the car was coming around the corner. I can’t imagine it did that every time a car went past, so it clearly recognised the sound of our car engine! My current cat always appears from the bushes as I walk up the road. Im not sure if it hears me and recognises me or smells me!

Of course dcat can hear it's you!

If I can hear which family member is walking towards the room, which I can, then I'm sure a cat can.

We lived on a quiet street in a small house with single glazing when I was a kids. Our dog was familiar with all the neighbours footsteps (no road past the houses so everyone walked to their door up the street), all the footsteps of their regular visitors and... the postman, so she never barked unless it was a stranger, all the neighbours loved it, because she was so accurate.

Whenever we got a new postman, it would take a week for her to stop barking at the new footsteps and ignore, until the regular postman changed again. 😁😁😁

Mine is crying before I even get to the door. Cats are a lot smarter than you think, he’s taught himself to open the sliding wardrobe doors to wake me up and takes me phone out of my hand and slides it under my body when he wants attention!

And our budgie could recognise the sound of dad's car and would get excited as he turned into our road, because things always got lively on his return with kids wanting to share their day, table getting set for dinner etc etc. Budgie loved it. 🤣

Yes, my cat recognises the sound of my car and my footsteps (he also knows the exact moment when I open a packet of ham).

Of course they do! Similarly to others ours also recognise both our car engines.
One of our departed previous cats loved DH so much he’d jump off my lap and go and wait at the door when he heard DH’s car.
Our family dog similarly used to let us know Dad would walk through the gate soon

It's actually beyond anything we understand. If you watch the secret life of cats/dogs, it didn't matter if the owners varied their actions/clothes thev pets would know when they were coming home or going to leave. They read us. It's similar to how we 'know' our babies have woken up in another room, without them making a sound. But yes they will be able to pick up your foot fall, they are profient hunters.

On my street we have a bush where my cat hides, there will be other people walking by and she ignores them, as soon as I get near she pokes her head out and follows me home.

I wouldn’t be surprised. Horses in a livery yard often recognise their owner’s car engine sound. Animals are clever!

They read us. It's similar to how we 'know' our babies have woken up in another room, without them making a sound. Or they way you can walk into an apparently empty room and know whether it really is empty or whether there is someone there hidden from your view.

Absolutely OP! My cat is always in the hall laying on her back to greet me as I open the door. They definitely get to recognise familiar sounds. 😸

When I was a teenager, we had a guinea pig that lived indoors. I was his main carer and he would squeak every time I came down the stairs. There were five of us in the family, and he definitely could differentiate that it was me from my footsteps.

Cats also have a very good sense of time passing, so he'll know what time you usually get home, as well as recognising your footsteps.

I had a friend whose cat used to go out and walk down the street to meet the male owner coming home from work. My own cat goes and sits on the (begging) stool in the kitchen just before lunchtime, in the hope she'll get bits of ham or chicken. She also goes there for DS making his sandwiches for lunchtime. She wakes me up a minute before my phone alarm goes off in the morning.

She also knows specific car engines but most animals I've known can discern particular ones.

My cat does this with me too,never with anyone else. My brother used to say that my mum's cats recognised the sound of his car coming round the corner of the road because they'd always be sitting in the hallway to greet him.

Absolutely. I was waiting for my partner to get home from work (unpredictable finish time) and suddenly his old arthritic cat leapt up from the sofa (hadn't moved all day) and headed to the front door. A few minutes later I heard the downstairs front door (block of flats) open and then my partner came up to the 2nd floor flat.

The cat definitely heard/sensed him walk by in the street.

Our cats recognise our car engine. If we are out while he is he will sit in a bush down the road. As soon as our car turns the corner into our street he runs out and sits by the front door waiting for us to park up. It’s so cute!