The Mystery of Cats

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This recent article, Dogs vs cats: The great pet showdown , is meant to to guide people to find the right pet for them. I applaud the effort; absolutely, we should find the right pet for us.

But is this a good article for that purpose?

Cats actually do well on many of their metrics. When it comes to intelligence, for instance, the article points out brain size is a poor indicator, and goes on to say:

However, there is one anatomical measure that gives a pretty good indication of information processing capacity: the number of neurons in the cortex, or executive brain. Here cats trounce dogs, with 300 million neurons compared with a piddling 160 million.

Dogs have been domesticated longer, so the article awards them that point. What about bonding?

Adam Miklosi from Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary, whose group did the work with dogs, tried this experiment with cats – but they were having none of it. The lab setting was very upsetting and stressful for them, presumably because cats tend not to leave their territory. Nevertheless, Miklosi suspects that cats bond with their owners in much the same way that dogs do – if only he could persuade them to take the test.

So cats lose this round, because the way this scientist tested bonding is a way cats cannot do. It’s a good thing he didn’t test me on literacy… by handing me a book written in French.

And then there’s popularity:

Arguably the ultimate test of whether an animal makes a good pet is how many people actually own them. Here cats are clear winners.

How strange. I guess people who have cats don’t expect bonding! Or the next metric, understanding:

Cognitively speaking, cats are similar to dogs, says Miklosi, so you would expect them to have similar patterns of behaviour and abilities. A big difference is that they are not compliant or motivated, making them devilishly hard to work with.

And they award this point to dogs. Well, I guess since cats are neither compliant or motivated, we’ll just have to settle for admiring the way sunlight bounces off their fur.

Problem solving? Those of us who have cats who open cabinets and take objects apart can feel cats at least come up even. Sadly, no.

Not much else is known of cats’ problem-solving capabilities. Dogs have been subjected to far more testing, and have often failed to shine.

After noting that both cats and dogs failed a “string pulling” test to get a treat, the article concludes that since dogs can think for themselves as seeing-eye companions, they must be smarter. It’s enough to make us wonder why cats have all those neurons.

But they win vocalization:

By embedding an urgent high-frequency miaow into a blissed-out purr, they produce a sound that brings out our nurturing side… For their guile, cats get the cream.

They get the point… on guile. ‘Cause, you know, they don’t do bonding.

Dogs win on tractability, or ease of training. I gotta hand it to them: dogs like being told what to do far more than cats.

Cats can be taught using rewards too. “They respond to stimulus and reinforcement,” says Miklosi. But since no one has really tried training cats, we do not know the full extent of their abilities.

No one knows! Especially not the circuses who have trained cats. What would they know about it, anyway?

Cats win on “supersenses,” because their hearing, sight, and scenting abilities are better than dogs, and on “eco-friendliness” because of their smaller size. Though they take a hit:

Cats love wildlife – in the UK alone they kill more than 188 million wild animals each year.

Which is true; they are hunters. But they also eat a lot of rats and mice which decimate crops and bird populations. There’s a reason the Egyptians worshiped them; cats made their civilization possible; and, by extension, ours, too.

After enumerating all the ways dogs can serve people, the article says cats are good when we are infested with rodents.

Cats are beautiful and soft, and stroking them has been shown to reduce stress. Then again, dogs are also good stress-busters: owning one can lower your blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

Cats are learning to be helper and companion animals. But I know they don’t pull sleds. So I’ll shrug this one off, because this article has more than enough to criticize.

Summing up:

Cats have more neurons, but apparently don’t use them, since cats have no problem-solving or understanding skills, and lack even the ability to be trained. They don’t bond with their people and are the most popular pet in the world.

To dignify this mishmash of rationalizations with the word “science” is to denigrate both the scientific method and the real-world experience of millions of Cat Appreciators around the globe. We all have cats who are affectionate, understand what we say, figure things out, and become especially attentive when we are sick, or just feeling down that day.

But because cats cannot demonstrate these qualities in a strange room with a stranger; we are told they do not exist.

Ridiculous articles like this keep people from understanding how cats are wonderful pets, and can be the best possible choice. That kind of attitude keeps cats a second-tier pet; getting less attention, less affection, less vet care, and less chances at the shelter.

So it’s not just wrong.

It’s inflicting wrong.

For my own take on this subject, see Dog or Cat: Which is the better pet?

A big thank you to the reader who alerted me to this article.

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There’s more ways to understand our cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my posts on WHY CATS DO THAT.