Roughly 49 million households own a cat as of 2024, a 23 percent increase over 2023. But how well do you really know how cats operate? While they do it when they’re content, purrs can also be signs a cat is ill, wounded, or stressed. Roughly half of all cats don’t react to it at all. But the biggest feline misconception might be that cats don’t care about people—but evidence suggests that cats really do love their owners.