Animals aren't stupid, they just don't have everything humans do. They can understand intent sometimes. The real unusual thing is how the cat cared. Most would probably understand the assignment, but choose to see how far things would go.

I don't know if it's a fluke or what, but one time I decided to bake cookies so I started the oven and walked away in typical silly goose fashion. I got distracted upstairs and my cat barged in my office screaming and acting unusually agitated. So I followed her, she led me to the kitchen where the oven has been preheating for a good 45 minutes.

She got extra dreamies this day.

I woke up one night to my cat batting me in the face over and over again, something he never did. I was sleeping on the couch in the living room and when I put my feet down on the carpet they went squish. My cat liked to sleep in the bathroom sink, and on this night he managed to simultaneously push the drain closed and flip up the faucet lever. The sink had no overflow drain (I have no idea why not) so it just started flooding the whole house. I don't know how long this went on, but most of the first floor carpet was soaked and a bunch of water had gone into the basement through the floorboards and vents.

I was really impressed that Mr. Needy knew something was wrong and that he needed to wake me the fuck up to deal with it.

😀 this is awesome. Animals know when things are out of the ordinary. On occasion my dog will stare back at our front door and refuse to leave for the walk. It usually means I forgot something inside.

We woke up to a burst pipe blasting hot water out in our flat once.

Only reason we woke up was thanks to our beautiful orange cat yelling at us practically in plain English

Boiling soup makes water splashing noises, cat doesn't like the idea of water getting out of its cage

Talk to animals like they're not inferior dipshits and you find out how much you've been making them into them.

My cat always yell at me when the washing machine or the dryer stops and looks so happy when I unload them.

Why would this make you fear your cat?

It alerts you to danger, potentially understands a few English words.

These are... good things, yes?

... Would you be afraid of a dog if you could get a dog to bark when a pot is about to boil over?

Afraid???
(If anything, give kitty a raise, add chief soup-boiling supervisor to their many titles.)

I often talk to my cat, sometimes in human language sometimes in meows, he usually answers back. In the morning he will usually wake us up when he's hungry with a series of meows and during the day will meow until I follow him to the kitchen where he will then point out if he wants food or his water changed in the water bowl (he cleans his paws in there).

I'm pretty sure cats understand human language just fine. They're mostly just jerks about it.

They have a vocabulary and knowledge of the environment... Just not a large vocab.

You can get talking buttons and train pets to develop a shared kind of understanding of language and express wants/needs.

Here's a podcast of someone's experience:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHdnqpOFShc