This seems to be my experience, except that our current cat almost never talks. I think it may be a genetic defect (she also has a kink in her tail). Her communication is almost entirely non verbal.
I’ve got mixed feelings on this. I agree that they shouldn’t be given full human rights, but I do think we should make distinctions as a function of intelligence, and perhaps even recognize some degree of moral agency (e.g., dolphins). It also raises the issue of how we would treat extraterrestrials as a function of those things.