For me it's like reading that someone just discovered that grapes are sweet and wrote an article about their discovery.

Me, too. Conversely, my wife seems to have little intuition for what cats or dogs are feeling. She grew up without any animals. It's probably like human language - fluency is more likely to be achieved in childhood.

Yeah. Even when I was child I knew that compared to a cat I was gigantic. It wasn't hard to realize that if you wanted the animal to stick around you were quiet, crouched and led with an out stretched hand.

I mean, except for our cats where you'd just walk up and grab 'em about the middle, drag them up to eye height for a quick scratch under the chin and about the ears.