Realistic or Unrealistic exspectation?

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Situation:

You have had outdoor cats your entire life, they meow to go outside (to relax, go potty, etc.) at your home with your parents.

You have a different cat in your home, it is not an outdoor cat, but an indoor cat. The cat accidently gets locked in the bedroom with the door closed. You exspect the cat to meow to get out so it can use its litter box which is in another room.

Do you think this exspectation is realistic?????????? What kind of personailty do you think would think this was realistic????

Why or why not?

Our cat is old and nuts and poos inside all the time..

I think it's unrealistic to expect a cat to use a litterbox at all, because ours has never co-operated, it's always gone to the toilet in the garden or behind the TV.

Usually I would expect a cat to meow if it needed to get somewhere to go, ours usually does if we are nearby or else it just goes on the floor.

But ours meows all the time so alot of the time we don't know what she wants until it's too late.. unless she goes to the door.

In my experience, cats have to be trained to meow at doors - indoor cats or outdoor cats. Ours just scratched (doing a lot of damage in the process) until we made sure to ignore/punish them when they scratched and only let them through when they made noise. I don't think a particular type of personality would be more likely to expect cats to meow - more likely it just depends on your past experience dealing with cats.

In the past I definitely would have expected the cat to meow,
but now the cats that my mum & sister have are very quiet, even though they are outdoor cats, so I wouldn't really expect anything so much.

I think it depends from cat to cat, and what you're used to.

My stupid cat will sit silently in the closet if he wanders in and I close the door, locking him in- and just kind of wait for me to miss him. He won't meow but he may poke a paw out. Which is ridiculous because when eh's roaming free he WON'T SHUT UP.

I think someone with a Type D personality would be most likely to to think your expectation is a realistic presentation of the world as cats see it. I come to this conclusion because people with Type D personalities are more socially inhibited and prone to anxiety and uneasiness in general. Of course, they idealize the world outside them as more competent than they are and extend this inferred social competence even to cats.

In my humble opinion, I doubt Type A'ers would give the kitties a break at all. They wouldn't expect the cats to know how to meow for attention or use a litter box, but they really don't care because they believe in survival of the fittest, who are human beings, not domesticated cats.

Now Type Zs are another matter entirely...

Of course, some cats could - at least theoretically - describe a hyperspatial catenary that would mean they could circumnavigate the 3-d physical constraints of 'doors' or 'windows' (if they circumnavigate the constraints of Windows, then thy're either using X11R6 or Mac OS X), but given they do not have Narcissistic attributes, they are likely to hide their stupendous metabilities under a bushel, so to speak. This means they might do their business in a less than optimal environment, if they think mere humans are watching for demonstrations of higher mind powers as manifested by the Real Elite of the Universe.

Generally, Cats would probably prefer to 'go outside' when they can, but unless they have been trained, it is not reasonable to expect them to be able to signal when they need to go outside.

I am rather concerned about the whole idea of 'indoor Cats'. They're not designed to be 'indoors' allthe time and to deny their essential nature is not a good thing, for them or for the people who try to tailor them to function in this manner.

All I can suggest is that if you must keep Cats indoors all the time, then you do not 'punish' them for occasional lapses in toilet ettiquette, rather spend the time necessary to train them to live within such a strictured and controlling environment.

This is not my exspectation that i am asking about, it is my husbands!! And I hate it, he is so cruel and controling!! He refuses to hear anyone else's opinions, yet I am the Aspie.

Since my cats are almost always around me except for rare breaks but don't even like closed doors between us, for MY cats this expectation would be realistic.

I really think "realistic" depends on your cat.

(Although my cat, Sugar, might be a slight "unrealistic" expectation since she once got closed into a closet for about a half hour and I didn't hear her and didn't realize it until I started wondering where she was and then did an apartment-wide search.)

ask Schrodinger...

I am of two minds about this (means I have two different opinions):
Most cats, when locked in a room, will meow to get out when they get distressed.
However, I have had cats get caught in ridiculous places (like inside a wall), and not meow at all. Meanwhile I have had cats go nuts meowing because I didn't clean the litter box.

It depends on how long it takes for the cat to get distressed or need something.
Then, if it is a talker, it will meow.
I am guessing that an indoor cat would take longer to meow since it would be used to enclosed spaces.

Finally, since every cat is different, you'd have to judge on the basis of its past behavior....

Mine would do the opposite - they'd come in and use the litterbox after having had plenty of time outside to do their business.

As for expectations for cats - I would say not to expect anything from cats in general. You just have to get to know your cat.