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Can collecting purr sounds help explain why my cat purrs?

Updated on September 23, 2025

Pet's info: Cat | Siamese | Male | neutered | 6 lbs

I'm not sure if this is the right community to ask this, but I have a question about the science behind cat's purring. From what I understand, the reason cat's purr is not fully understood. Various theories range from bone healing to mind control, and seem dubious. Nevertheless, this is a phenomena that should have a sound explanation. My question is this: do you see a way that collecting a large sample size of purr recordings could help answer this question in any way?

1 Answer

Most Helpful Answer

Answered By Sara Farmer, DVM

Veterinarian

Published on April 18, 2018

What an interesting question! I think more research should absolutely be done to figure out why (and even how, because that is also not 100% clear) cats purr, however I don’t know that simply collecting recordings would help. You need to come up with your hypothesis before determining your data collection methods for an experiment.

1Pet Parents found this answer helpful

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