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Scientist: Cats think you are just a big, stupid cat
- pedalpete 13y agoI've always said that I think dogs think that one day they too will become like us, which is why they insist on sitting in the drivers seat when you leave the car. However, I don't believe cats and dogs are so unaware as to think we are actually no different to them. I may agree if animals weren't able to recognize other species of animal, but clearly they can. Dogs and cats inherently know they don't like each other, cats like to chase birds and mice, so they can recognize other animals. Why would anybody make a statement assuming that a cat can't recognize that we are different from them.
- zastrowm 13y agoWell, I can tell you that some cats will chase anything (usually anything smaller than themselves) and some cats will play with dogs as if they were a big brother. So while they may know that other animals are different from themselves, I'm not sure they recognize that they are a different species.
- qq66 13y agoDon't know a lot about cat behavior. Would they hunt and kill a sparrow-sized kitten that wasn't theirs?
- kbenson 13y agoMy understanding is that male cats are not necessarily good to have around kittens, even if they are the father, as they may see the kittens as future rivals. That understanding isn't necessarily based on observed behavior or referenced studies though.
- pyre 13y agoInfanticide is not unheard of in the animal kingdom...
- ams6110 13y agoA male lion, when taking over a pride, will kill all the young lions that are not his offspring.
- Crito 13y agoI have heard that lions' pack behaviour is more reminiscent of dogs than it is of domesticated cats, which have a more solitary nature similar to tigers or other big cats. Do you know if this sort of behaviour has also been witnessed in wolf packs?
- judk 13y agoIt's mentioned in Call of the Wild, but that's not a very reliable scientific source.
- brazzy 13y agoNo; The social structure of Wolf packs is completely different from lion prides. Leadership is shared between a male and female (the alpha couple) who achieve their status independently from each other. Also, the pack includes subordinate males as well as females.
- brazzy 13y ago> some cats will play with dogs as if they were a big brother. I'd like to point out that this is an instance of you thinking of cats as small, stupid humans. Cats do not treat their siblings any different than other cats at the same age.
- zastrowm 13y agoIndeed; that's the point I was attempting to make (though not very well). As far as I have seen, cats aren't afraid of a specific species, nor do they "identify" exclusively with only one specific species. If they find a dog (or a cat) who they can befriend, they do. If they find a large enough animal that scares them (I have a very tall friend), they'll run like hell and hiss whenever the animal is near. I'm not sure if they see classify species as much as they do friend or foe.
- lostcolony 13y ago'Dogs and cats inherently know they don't like each other' Flat out wrong. Dogs inherently have a hunting and chasing instinct, so in the wild a dog will try and spook a cat to make it run, and then chase it and try and kill it if it does. If the cat doesn't run, or better yet, fights back (I've seen multiple cats do this), the dog will back off. And cats know enough to be concerned when a giant animal approaches, which is likely to trigger a fight or flight response, if the cat doesn't feel sufficiently protected where it is. And many people have both dogs and cats living together, even in some instances sleeping together. I suspect the dog views the cat as a pack animal (and important to the owner, the alpha), and the cat views the dog as a source of warmth, but that is still very different from "inherently know(ing) they don't like each other".
- linker3000 13y agoI used to work in Veterinary IT and the office was above one of the clinics. The clinic cat ('Tom') was a three-legged , diabetic male who'd become completely at ease with all the visiting pet traffic. One day, Tom ambled round a corner into the waiting area to get to his patch of sun in the middle, just as someone entered with a pretty big rottweiler; the dog saw Tom and started to bark and growl, but Tom just looked up and stayed in his warm spot in the middle of the room. The dog just stared at Tom as if trying to work out why the cat hadn't moved. After a few more grunts, the dog just sat in a corner and wouldn't take his eyes off Tom. When the owner was called into the consulting room, the dog crept low around the perimeter of the room, working hard to keep as far away as possible and not letting Tom out of his sight - he was really spooked by the laid-back cat. Funniest 'stand off' I've ever seen.
- girvo 13y agoUgh. Anyone who thinks cats having a "wild" streak is a good thing is an idiot, considering the sheer damage done to ecosystems by escaped and feral cats.
- salgernon 13y agoWell, a cat would have at least properly escaped the entity encoding (caption on the photo)
- coldcode 13y agoDogs have owners; cats have staff. I guess they think of us as big stupid minimum wage cat staff.
- judk 13y agoHey, dogs have (alpha) companions.
- duopixel 13y agoThis is inane. Why is a cat friendly towards human visitors, yet hostile towards feline ones? We show human signs affection towards cats, why wouldn't they use their own body language towards us?
- georgemcbay 13y agoI haven't read the book this is based on so maybe that makes it more clear, but reading just the article I agree this is inane. I grew up with cats and have a cat now and they clearly act differently not only when it comes to strange humans vs strange cats, but also humans of different types, eg. genders (my cat trusts human females inherently but it takes her a long time to trust males, I adopted her from a shelter when she was 2 and assume she used to be abused by a male or something). All that aside, cats do use their own body language towards us quite a bit, like the head-bump, the "making biscuits" thing and the slow eye blink. But they also customize things for us as well, like I've read other researchers who say cats don't meow (in a non-growl way) with each other after they are kittens, that is reserved for talking to humans.
- gizmo686 13y ago>I've read other researchers who say cats don't meow (in a non-growl way) with each other after they are kittens I remember reading that domestication tends to cause juvenile traits to carry into adulthood.
- krrrh 13y agoIt's called neotony. Domesticated dogs rarely howl, and domesticated cats rarely roar. Both of them keep the urge to play much longer than their wild counterparts. One interesting side-note is the idea that humans are also domesticated animals, and that we self-domesticated. A large part of what makes us human is that we maintain a degree of brain plasticity as we age and don't ever fully become adults. A fascinating piece of evidence for this is the way that baby chimps resemble baby humans, both in looks and behaviour. http://www.gmilburn.ca/2009/03/30/chimpanzees-and-neoteny/ http://www.gmilburn.ca/2009/03/30/chimpanzees-and-neoteny/
- adventured 13y agoI'm always fascinated by the implications of the very common approach of people to anthropomorphize cats when discussing them and to put down human intelligence in relation to the cat in the process. I don't see it done nearly as commonly when dogs are discussed. It seems nearly universal in the discussion of cats anywhere online. "Given that he believes cats are semi-feral and that they think we are cats too, we must surely consider that cats aren't all that stupid -- because they must realize that we are, in fact, quite that stupid."
- KingMob 13y agoA hundred times this. Humans find it incredibly difficult to avoid anthropomorphizing things. While it's bound up with Theory of Mind (predicting others' mental states), one of our biggest talents, it goes a bit awry when applied to non-human species. Just because we know what a human's intentions would be if it did what a cat did, does not mean we ascribed the same quality or depth of intention to a cat.
- jkestner 13y ago> Humans find it incredibly difficult to avoid anthropomorphizing things. But this one takes the cake - they've even assigned similar (aeluromorphous) intent on the part of cats. Which is extra cute. Dogs' motivations are well understood, while cats are less scrutable, and so we pretend they're complex, and therefore like ourselves.
- headlights 13y agoWhat is an alternative model of the cat?
- guspe 13y agoWe can't avoid applying human paradigms to animal behaviour. Cats strike us as introverted and cynical so they serve well the purpose of criticizing humanity; by playing the role of a cat, people can disclose about the pointlessness of life without sounding too bitter or too philosophical (much like dogs facilitate talking about how humans can be loyal, friendly and honorable). Nonetheless, opinions about dogs and cats really are homogeneous. Maybe this means our ideas about those animals have been constructed over time. We wouldn't be so eager to call an eagle "loyal" or "smart". Our relationship with dogs and cats is so long that we've had enough time to carefully craft their images.
- analog31 13y agoFranz Kafka wrote a short story, "Investigations of a Dog," in which a dog tries to figure out where his food comes from, and why he goes through a barking and jumping ritual before receiving his food, and ends up creating a myth of a giant invisible soaring dog.
- bluekeybox 13y agoWow, much metaphysic. /sorry, couldn't resist.
- jrockway 13y agoI believe the meme is "Wow. Such ..."
- philwelch 13y agoI think "much", "such", and "very" are all appropriate "doge".
- tokenizerrr 13y agovery wrong much incorrect
- jrockway 13y agoSuch pedantry.
- goodcanadian 13y agoThat cats aren't really domesticated . . . I wholeheartedly agree. They have simply learned to cohabit with us. That cats don't know we are different . . . I wholeheartedly disagree. In some respects, they treat us like cats, probably because that is the language they know. To be fair, however, many people treat their pets like little dumb humans while realizing that they aren't actually people. What the hell is an anthrozoologist, anyway? That sounds like something he made up to call himself.
- wereHamster 13y agoI don't know if you've heard of this website 'wikipedia', if not, you should visit it sometime. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthrozoology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthrozoology
- colechristensen 13y agoTo be fair 'Anthrozoology' was coined in late 2010 and it's quite likely the number of people who might call it their specialty is very small. http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Anthrozoology http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Anthrozoology
- droope 13y agohttp://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Anthrozoology%2C%20dentistry&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Anthrozoology%2C%20de...
- colechristensen 13y agoIt is not at all clear what point you are trying to make. Put in a little effort.
- headlights 13y agoAnthrozoology has a much lower search interest than dentistry and is localised in the United States.
- industriousthou 13y agoCats think of us as big, dumb, non-threatening cats? I assumed they thought less highly of us.
- Xephyrous 13y agoInteresting topic and book although I highly recommended skipping this article in favor of the [NYT article cited](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/science/cat-sense-explains-what-theyre-really-thinking.html?_r=2&referrer= http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/science/cat-sense-expla...). This title and article are misleading, no where in the NYT piece does it say cats think we're "big stupid cats", just that they use their social norms towards us, as that's all they know. The cnet article is juvenile speculation.
- Xephyrous 13y agoInteresting topic and book although I highly recommended skipping this article in favor of the [NYT article cited](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/science/cat-sense-explains-what-theyre-really-thinking.html?_r=2&referrer= http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/science/cat-sense-expla...). This title and article are misleading, no where in the NYT piece does it say cats think we're "big stupid cats", just that they use their social norms towards us, as that's all they know. The cnet article is juvenile speculation.
- j_baker 13y agoThis isn't my interpretation of Cat Sense. The author clearly compares how cats treat each other and how they treat humans and points out the parallels. But the author really seems to be of the opinion that cats are more affectionate towards us than they are towards each other. Cats have depended on us for centuries to provide them mice to eat, but they haven't quite developed the same social skills with their own kind (as compared to dogs).
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- callesgg 13y agoI doubt animals has the slightest knowledge of the fact that there is multiple spices of animals. More like that animal is interesting that lager ugly one over there is not.
- headlights 13y agoUgly changes without a sense of cruelty.
- knighthawk12 13y agoThe last time I published a professional paper you had to give your affiliation with your university, government agency or at least what gives your opinion credibility. Who is this guy and where does he get his data to make this claim?
- headlights 13y agoI think cats are awesome too.
- headlights 13y agoThere may be arrogance in saying that we can think in any other way that is not human.