Dr. Uri Burstyn, aka the Helpful Vancouver Vet, who previously demonstrated several different ways in which to properly pick up a cat and hold him like a baby, shares how to best name your cats so that they respond more quickly.
The beautiful long-haired Lancelot was happy to be in the room to help with the demonstration. When Dr. Burstyn called Lancelot’s name, the cat’s ears twitched for a second, but when the doctor said “Lancie” in a higher voice, the cat fully turned his head to his human. This is because the last syllable of the nickname ends on a high note, a sound that cats are more accustomed to hearing in nature. Because cats are more prone to hear high-pitched squeaky sound, it’s best to use a name that ends in vowels that go up at the end.
A cat’s ears are tuned to hear high-pitched sounds. They’re placed fairly close together in the head and cats have evolved to hear high-pitched sounds much better than low-pitched sounds because most of their prey animals. Rodents, birds all communicate in a very high frequency. ….so cats hear high frequency sounds much better than low-frequency ..cats respond to their name much better if the name terminates in a high-pitched sound. For example Lancelot ends on a low sound, he’s much less likely to respond to that than if we call him Lancie.