Pizza, my first cat, thought he was a cat and I was a human and we were friends, although confidentially I did need a good deal of looking after but that's okay, that's what he was here for. I think Pizza viewed himself more as an adult cat with a baby human, since when he came to live with me I was still a child, and of course he grew up so much faster than I did. So he always had a very mothering attitude with me, as well. But he knew that we were different species and he was fine with that.
Pippin, on the other hand, thought he was a human, albeit oddly shaped. He spent his first four months in a cage (a large one) with his siblings disappearing after three months, and then when he came to live with me he was the only cat after Tiger passed away about six months later. The only cat with three humans. He concluded that he was a human too, just funny shaped.
He insisted on drinking from a cup once he noticed that humans didn't drink from a bowl. When I would take him places with me, he didn't know how to associate with other cats, and ended up making them conclude that he was strange and thus they mostly left him alone. He sat in the front seat of the car like I did, without my having to do much training at all.
Most of his behavior was modeled after humans, and so training him was easy. I've always had the attitude that the cats can do anything I can. Thus they can be on couches and chairs and other furniture, but they can't walk on the counter. Because after all, I don't walk on the counter. Pippin would sit in a dining room chair next to me and wait until supper was over. On the rare occasion I had something he actually wanted, he would wait patiently until I gave him my bowl to lick out. (Since he had seen that I lick bowls (yes, I know, manners, manners) he was fine doing the same.) But mostly he just sat with me.
I have no idea how he reconciled the food differences. I know he always thought I had something he'd like because obviously I liked it, but when I'd offer him a smidge on my finger, he would sniff it and go, ew, that can't possibly be what you're really eating. Where's the good stuff? And he never did figure out why I used the toilet instead of a litter box like a decent human. He kind of gave up figuring it out after a while. Possibly he attributed that difference to our relative sizes. (Big humans use toilets and little humans, like himself, used litter boxes.)
He never did figure human children out, either. Whenever I took him somewhere public, like Petsmart or Luray Caverns (yes, I took him on a tour of the caverns with me, more than once. He loved it.) anyway, children would be instantly attracted to him with his gorgeous fur and long tail and large size. Most children would ask me if they could pet him, and I'd let them pet the tail that hung down into their reach (seeing as most of Pippin was over my shoulder). A few children actually got their parent to ask me, which I thought was funny, but more appropriate. Nobody ever tried to pet him without asking me first in some way, though.
And Pippin would look at them and I could see he had his puzzled look on, as if trying to determine if these small versions of "big humans" were actually humans or if they were a different category. Of course he was never around small humans enough to make up his mind, as those events were the only times we'd encounter children.
So Pippin thought he was a human.
Apricot, now; Apricot knows he's a cat. He also thinks I'm a cat, just an oddly shaped one. He has no other humans to compare me with on a regular basis to be able to see that I have more similarities with them than with him. And the humans he does know of (the ones he saw in the shelter and the ones he sees outside and the very few visitors I've had since he came to live with me) those humans don't act like me.
And he's right; I don't behave like most humans. My friends and family probably won't believe this, but in my house I'm actually very silent most of the time. Adult cats don't verbally communicate with each other; they use body language and pheromones instead. So the fact that I don't talk a lot makes me, in Apricot's eyes, more like a cat than the talky humans he's encountered. He is just beginning to talk verbally to me, but mostly he still only does it when we can't see each other.
Then there's the fact that I deliberately learned some cat body language in order to make friends with him from the beginning, seeing as he was so anxious and shy. One thing that most humans don't do is what was called Cat Kisses by the website I learned it from. If two cats stare at each other unblinking (or blinking for only as long as necessary to lubricate the eyes), it's a challenge. They're actually fighting, because if they can reconcile the differences without having to expend energy on a physical fight, they'd rather do that. The first cat to look away loses. If neither cat does, then they escalate things.
But humans consider a stare to be "without blinking" and think that as long as they blink normally, they aren't staring. To cats, that's still a stare. But if two cats want to look at each other and communicate that they aren't a threat and furthermore, they are friendly, they will blink for much longer. Several seconds, even, with each blink.
This is how I first communicated with Apricot as I sat on the other side of the room from him and looked at him. I was telling him I was a friend without having to actually touch him to do it. I still do Cat Kisses and he does them back, which ends up in funny contests of "love you more" which he always wins because the ultimate Cat Kiss is the half-lidded content gaze, and I can't do that (my eyes don't like to stay half-lidded and either close or open completely).
I didn't realize at the time that I was teaching Apricot that I was a cat. I was just trying to help him understand I wasn't a threat.
But now he thinks I'm a cat, which has done nothing to alleviate his fear of humans, but makes our relationship very tight. He thinks petting is allogrooming (that is, "grooming by another") although since at this point he considers I'm a mama cat, he doesn't offer to groom me back (thank goodness. Cats have awfully rough tongues!)
He's actually a bit confused as to whether I count as a mama cat or a sibling cat. I groom him and don't let him groom me back (well, he's never offered, but I'd pull my hands out of the way if he did. That habit drove Pippin nuts because he was trying so hard to return the favor and I wouldn't let him). And I provide the food and clean his litterbox like a mama cat would provide food and clean his butt (thank goodness I don't have to do that ...)
On the sibling cat side, however, I play with him. Granted, I play with him using toys, but I still play. A mama cat wouldn't play with him. So while he's mostly coming down on the side of "mama cat", he's still hopeful that perhaps I could be sibling cat instead. Or possibly at the same time. After all, I'm not shaped like he is, so perhaps I could be both? (he thinks, hopefully. Best of both worlds, right?)
This is, I think, the reason why it has taken him so long to stop trying to play-bite me. I mean, he still does try, but it's much less now and most of the time he'll remember to stop himself. But before he came to the conclusion that yes, I really don't like it, he was trying a gentler and gentler bite, to find what level would "not hurt" me. I put that in quotes because actually, he never bit me hard enough to hurt after that very first time when it wasn't a playbite but was because I'd messed with his back paws before earning his trust about that.
I just always pretended he hurt me dreadfully when he bit. And he'd get this puzzled look on his face, as if to say now I know I didn't break skin or hurt you this time. Why are you still hurt?
It is very odd to be considered a cat. He's making the same allowances for me that Pippin did, only from the other end of the viewpoint spectrum. (Bathing in water, toilet instead of litter box, eating at the table instead of a food bowl, etc. Pippin didn't have an issue reconciling the water bath because I actually bathed him every so often. He probably figured that I needed the water bath more often than he did because I was bigger.)
This also means that Apricot thinks I can see him no matter how dark it is. I'm working on that but I've only just started to explain about it. It's still summer so the house isn't that dark when I go to bed.
Oh, yes, and Apricot is starting to get very tired of me explaining stuff. I forget what it was, but something startled him, so I started to explain what it was, why it made that noise, and why he shouldn't worry about it, and he gave me the cat version of rolled eyes and was all, yeah, yeah, okay, so it won't hurt me. I don't need to know the rest of it, can you just shut up already? and he walked off, not startled anymore. If only he'd believe me about the tv ...
It will be interesting to see what the kittens add to this mix. Since the kittens are raised underfoot with two humans and lots of cats, they'll know they are cats and I am a human, and I'm wondering if they will persuade Apricot to their viewpoint, or if, since he's older (thus wiser in the ways of the world) and me being odd for a human, they'll come over to his viewpoint.
Well, it is time now to play with the Bird, only Apricot is fast asleep in the crepe myrtle cat tree. I will go see if he's willing to wake up and play.
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