As a child, I had a cat named Pishi. She was part Siamese, with intelligent, bright blue eyes and seal point coloring.
We had had her for 5 years when my mother became pregnant with my younger brother and decided that having a cat in the house would be unhygienic for the baby.
So, a friend of mine from school who owned a farm several miles away agreed to take her for us, and, of course, 9 year-old me was devastated.
After many protests from me, we drove her to the farm, which was separated from our house by several miles of farms, wooded areas, and a creek. The family kept her indoors for a week so she'd adapt to her new location, but as soon as they let her out, she ran off. Not long after, she appeared at our doorstep.
My family and I were shocked; how had she known the way home? Still, my mother insisted that we take her back, and still, the cat somehow managed to return, sometimes within hours. This happened two or three times before finally my mother gave up and Pishi was allowed to stay with us.
It was then that it struck me that the intelligence of cats is seriously underestimated by humans.
In fact, cats possess many types of intelligence and instinct that go completely over our heads on a daily basis.
A 2009 study found that cats have even adopted an entirely new, unnatural type of meow specially designed for human ears. This is a sound that cats do not use to communicate with each other; rather, it is used only with humans. This meow is a combination of their endearing purrs and "whines comparable in frequency to the distress cries of human infants," according to National Geographic. Cats have learned that this specific type of sound forces humans to pay more attention to them and feed them, since it is both cute and helpless, like a human baby.
So, though cats are not as trainable as dogs, they may understand more about us than we think; they know what sounds make us respond, and they know how to find us should they get separated.
They're a lot smarter than you think.