Teaching pets to use speech buttons is a great way to communicate, but one cat owner was horrified when her feline continually used the button for ‘stranger’ with no apparent reason why.
Sarah Baker, 33, started teaching her cat, named Justin Bieber, how to use speech buttons in 2021, and now he has learnt to use 41 buttons. They help him communicate directly with his owner, as he can tell Baker whenever he wants anything from food, or to go outside.
Baker, of Los Angeles, California, loves seeing her intelligent cat use the buttons, but when he started to press the ‘stranger’ button while staring outside, she became increasingly unnerved. For several months, Justin would hit ‘stranger’ and sometimes add the button for ‘outside’ after. Baker told Newsweek this made her “hair stand on end” with fright. To make matters worse, it usually occurred late in the evening, or even in the middle of the night sometimes.
“I was definitely a little alarmed when he started doing it,” Baker said. “He hadn’t used it much in my old apartment, so, when he started saying ‘stranger’ all the time after my partner and I moved to a house, it started to creep me out.
“He was definitely describing something outside, as most of the presses were paired with ‘stranger outside’ or ‘stranger window’. The worst was when he would say it in the middle of the night because waking up to your cat saying ‘stranger outside’ is never what you want to hear.”
Baker tried not to let Justin’s behavior creep her out, as she reassured herself that if there genuinely was an intruder, her three other cats would have reacted, too.
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The more Justin used the ‘stranger’ button, the more he started adding in other words, too, including ‘stranger squirrel’ and ‘stranger dog’. Eventually, it dawned on Baker that the home she had moved into was near a park, and there was plenty of wildlife that Justin had never encountered previously.
Baker told Newsweek: “I think people were genuinely worried that I had a stalker. A lot of people thought maybe Justin was seeing ghosts or spirits. There’s such a big cultural connection between cats and the paranormal; I think it always sparks a lot of interest when Justin is saying things that are a little spooky or mysterious.”
Despite the initial confusion and fear, Baker said that the ‘stranger’ button has been incredibly useful and doesn’t regret teaching Justin to use it. He gets nervous around new people, so she often uses the button when she has people coming over, and to alert him when they have left the house.