11 Surprising Reasons Why Do Cats Miss Their Owners

As a cat owner, you may have to find your cat numerous times after it ran away whenever it found the door open. These adorable felines have a way of making you question yourself as a pet parent. 

Despite being mean, throwing tantrums, and having excessive mood swings, cats do love their human companions. They might not show so many affectionate behaviors, but they do love you in their own ways.

Here, I will discuss why your cat may miss you, and how you can read those signs. Let’s take a deeper look at your beloved cat’s behavior.

Thoughts On Cats Missing Their Owners

As per the carefree behavior and constant ignorance of your cat, you may think that they are not much attached to you. However, here are 11 surprising reasons why cats miss their owners:

1. Cats Love Their Owner

The most simple reason for all cats missing their owners is that cats love their owners. When your cat feels comfortable with you, it may act like they own your house. However, when you are not in the house, they may even experience separation anxiety.

Your cat may act all moody and careless, but deep down they appreciate the care and work you are putting toward them. The more your cat loves you, the more they miss you.

2. Moved to New Family

It may be hard to understand, but cats have feelings too. Some people treat cats as playthings and keep them as long as they find them cute. Once the cat is grown or hit by medical issues, these people leave the helpless pets on the streets.

When these cats are rehomed, they may form a bond with their new human family. However, they will also miss their previous foster parents as it is difficult for them to get over.

3. Spending a Significant Time

It is quite common for cat owners to be clingy with their pets. Most pet owners spend a significant amount of time with their cats to feed, clean, walk, and put them to sleep. 

These activities help you build a strong bond with your feline companion. Once the bond is strong enough, your kitten is bound to miss you.

4. Getting Abandoned

While cats project antisocial behavior, they are capable of creating deep bonds with their familiar persons. However, it is a common fact that cats get abandoned way too often.

Getting abandoned is one of the crucial reasons for felines to miss their owners. They may not even be capable of grasping why their original owner has left them. 

5. Protective Behavior of the Owner

Being a minor creature, cats are often attacked by other animals like dogs and raccoons. Whenever these predators find cats unguarded, they may attack the fur balls. However, if you can successfully save them from such attacks they will get hugely attached to you.

I remember when my cat was attacked by a dog and returned with an injury in its hind leg. It took almost a month for my cat to fully heal and walk normally. During that time, he was always around me and wanted to stay on my lap.

6. Cats are Familiar with Your Voice

Cats can distinguish their owners by voice, scent, and existence due to the brain’s hypersensitivity. They feel attached to the voice that called them such adorable names, hushed them to sleep, and soothed them while stressed.

7. You are on Vacation

Commonly, many tourist sites do not allow cats or any pets on board. In such cases, cats have to be either left behind alone at home or assigned pet sitters.

Cats can sense such situations, and they dearly miss you when you are away. They can sense that there is a change in the environment, and the owner is not around to take care. This disrupts their daily routine as they are not getting enough attention from their adoptive parents.

8. Cat’s Like Their Owner’s Presence

Despite showing snobbish behavior, kittens get super attached to the person they like. Even introverted cats who like to be left alone, crave the presence of their beloved owners.

Cat owners and cats develop a mutual relationship where each of them shares a common space. When this disrupts, it can trigger anxiety in cats and they miss you.

9. Cat’s Miss not Having their Playmates

Your cat may scratch, bite, and ignore you whenever it is playing. However, if they are used to having you as a playmate, they will definitely miss you. 

To be completely honest, cats are the biggest attention seekers you have ever encountered. They like to be attended to every little thing from playing with toys to being cuddled around.

So, when they sense that their attentive human is paying less attention, they will miss you, and even project destructive behavior to gain your attention.

10. Cats Miss You When They Are Stressed

Everyone loves a little company when unwell, the same goes for pets when stressed. Cats look for shelter whenever there is an issue. They may stay quieter than normal but will get sad and badly miss you. 

Stressful situations can make cats feel distant from their foster parents. They will eat less, face problems with their sleep cycle, and feel less enthusiastic and mischievous during this period. All they crave is the lovely petting of their human.

11. Losing Their Way Home

Cats are more likely to run away from home than other pets. This tendency is mostly seen in female cats during their estrus while males run away being too defiant.

While most cats can find their way back home by their natural navigation instinct, some can get lost. Platforms like PawMaw have a huge list of such lost pets where many owners got reunited with their beloved cats. 

These lost cats have no one to feed or care for them on the street as their owner is left back at home. It is one of the significant reasons cats miss their adoptive parent aka you.

Signs that Your Cats Missed You

Since cats do not communicate with their humans through a common language, you may keep wondering if cats miss people. To understand that, you have to study even the slightest behavioral change in them.

• Keep an eye out for the sign your cat missed you
• They might purr or meow louder when you reappear in front of them.
• The cats will curl their tail at the top, twitching them.
• They may also curl the tail around your leg.
• They can bring killed rats as a gift to you.
• The cats will act super clingy
•  They may ask for small boops repeatedly

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some of the consolidating factors for your satisfaction with your cat's behavior: 

Do Cats Actually Miss Their Owners When They Are Away?

Yes, they do. The cats miss the owners whenever they are away or have been detached from the owner. They notice the absence of all the showered love their owners have left for them.

Do Cats Miss Us When We Are Gone?

Although most cats are habituated to solitude, they may show signs of being happy when they return home. While gone, they may not show any anxiety about separation since cats are pretty self-dependent. But if they act overjoyed on being reunited, the cats surely miss you when gone.

Do Cats Forget Their Owner In 3 Days?

Cats have an average memory of 16 hours, which is higher than dogs, as studies suggest. But it is only applicable to the things they have seen or met only once. When it comes to the owner, the cats show great memory due to the inbuilt attachment. They can remember you for many years.

How Long Can A Cat Remember A Person?

A cat can remember a person for as long as ten years, depending on the emotional attachment the person grew with the cat. Relying on the bond, this time frame can vary. If you are their owner, the timeline can go a long way. Again, if it is just a street cat you fed for a day, their time can become much shorter.

Do Cats Remember Previous Owners?

Cats remember previous owners, regardless of whether the owner was an attentive or careless one. Cats have a great memory for the people they spend a long time with. So, they do not forget the previous owners even after being rehomed or re-sheltered.

How Long Does It Take For A Cat To Adjust To A New Owner?

Cats take longer than most pets to get familiar with a new owner in a new place. Give them two weeks to 2 months for adaptation. It is the normal time range to get habituated with a new owner for cats. If it takes longer than that, you may check the previous history of the cat to find out any hidden adjustment issues.

How Long Does It Take A Cat To Forget About Its Owner?

It depends on how attached and the depth of bond the cat has with the owner. Cats have a short-term memory of 16 hours for the person they interacted with only once. Keeping that in check, the time can go a long way if you have adopted them for a longer period.

Do Cats Recognize Their Owners?

Owners are those humans who have adopted the cats and responded to their needs. The owners will feed and clean the cats. These activities build a strong bond between the cat and the owner. So, they can recognize their owners even after a long time.

Do Cats Have Feelings For Their Owners?

Feline creatures like cats have unbreakable feelings for their owners. They may have a different way of expressing it but make no mistake, in their heart, the owners have a special crown.

Do Cats Miss Their Owners When They Go On Vacation?

It depends on the vacation duration. If you are on leave for too long, the cats will surely miss you, regardless of who you left them with. If you leave them alone in the home, it will be difficult for them to conduct the activities they depended on you for. So, it may make them miss you even more.

Do Cats Miss Their Owners When They Die?

Even though cats are less likely to verbalize their internal feelings, they mourn after their owners' death. One way of showing it is when they miss the owners like no other.

Final Thought

Cats have been established as mysterious creatures for loving solitude too much. Yes, they mark their territory like no other, keeping up a thorny wall of privacy and boundaries. But do cats miss their owners?

Every cat has its way of showing signs of its inner emotion. They demand more attention and care and take a longer time to get adjusted while being highly self-absorbed. Whenever you feel like your efforts for the cats are not being reciprocated, ensure reading this article to figure out those signs.

You will find the expected answer to make your bond with the cat better than before, hopefully.