Does your cat understand pointing?

[Onacuctustree]

I have had a lot of cats in my life.
Some I thought not very clever, some I thought smart.
The old boy I have now understands if I point my finger in a direction.
He doesn't always oblige.
But he knows what I mean.
Finger pointed at the back door. He huffs.
At the front door... He walks over.

At bed time... I can't have him sleeping on me. So point at the bed end.. huffs and goes and sleeps there.

Am I delusional?

In one circumstance only. If we are at the bottom of the stairs and I point to the top he will start to go up the stairs and I then follow. In any other situation, if I point, he looks at my finger and not where I am pointing.

So maybe he doesn't understand pointing at all, but thinks that me raising my arm by the stairs is a signal that he needs to get moving as I will be following him up?

Yes one of ours definitely understands and looks at where I am pointing when I point at a a spider, fly etc they have been chasing but lost track of.

The boy does. Whether he follows it depends on how determined he is to carry on with what he is doing, but he absolutely knows.

The girl - she just doesn't care unless a food reward is involved. She just stares blankly at you, tilts her head and hopes you will give a snackie for being so fucking cute. This is often successful as there is something about her head tilt that hits you right in the heart strings.

I suspect he understands and ignores anyway.

They don't get my pointing at a stray cat treat on the floor and howling "It's over there you idiot", but they do understand if they're on the kitchen worktop, and I point to the floor and tell them to get down. Any other pointing simply induces them to stroll over and sniff the tip of my finger.

Only when he's scratching the sofa and he stares at me with utter defiance.....

No, mine is a hopeless bricklayer. We tried to train him to build a wall but had to give up.

DCat1 absolutely not 😂 I adore him but he doesn’t have an abundance of braincells, looks are his thing!

DCat2 absolutely yes, I can direct him around the kitchen to find various toys and he also plays fetch! No they were not litter mates, they were adopted separately!

No, because she's blind.

I've not really tried pointing but he does understand the word 'dreamies', he says something which sounds just like hello when he comes through the cat flap and he definitely understands no when he is looking a bit like he might pick the new sofa....doesn't always follow that instruction though.