> It's not like cats could follow instructions if they wanted to but they just don't want to You can teach your cat to use the toilet, come when you call its n

> It's not like cats could follow instructions if they wanted to but they just don't want to You can teach your cat to use the toilet, come when you call its name, roll and jump. They can even open doors which requires understanding how a door knob/rail system behaves. We had a cat that would follow us everywhere even if we went for a walk outside the house for several miles. Additionally, cats are not nurtured like puppies are. There are considerable amounts of information and know-how from breeders on how to socialize puppies to develop their ability to follow instructions and respect their master. Kittens on the other hand are mostly raised in small cages in pet shops and treated as glorified hamsters that can jump high and purr. Going further, canines are pack animals which are naturally predisposed to work with others and understand complex hierarchies. Felines are mostly solitary and only really get in groups during mating season. Another counter-example (unrelated to cats) are birds. Birds are incredibly intelligent, they can learn to solve puzzles, talk, and answer to their name. Yet if you ever get a budgie (or similar) you'll notice that your animal seems dumb as a rock. That's because birds require a lot of work in order to learn those tricks because they are naturally distrustful of humans. If you put ~1hr a day on training your budgie as you would with a young pup, you would see incredible improvements. As a final note, I would concede that a cat's intellect is no match to a dog's, but using "follow instructions" as a metric to define intelligence and concluding "cat are dumb" is an oversimplification.