A cat or a dog?
I have never thought dogs are smarter than cats, but according to a study described in The Guardian, Cats outsmarted in psychologist’s test, they are, at least in some ways. I’m not quite convinced, since I don’t fully understand the test myself. Either I need a better description or the dogs in the study are smarter than I am as well. What I found most entertaining about the article was the comments. We will defend our pets to the bitter end! I love both dogs and cats, and I’m not sure why humans feel a need to take sides as dog people or cat people. Frankly, I don’t care which are smarter, cats or dogs. Members of both species seem to know quite a bit about friendship, and have something to teach us humans….
So maybe the question should be: Which are smarter, cats, dogs, or people?
Good article. I liked the ending comment about string theory.
But whenever I see these animal intelligence tests I wonder, for example, how does the researcher know she didn’t happen to be testing some very stupid cats? Surely if animals have intelligence it must vary greatly between individuals? Or perhaps not. Or maybe the cats were simply not interested in playing silly buggers with the researcher. To a cat, food attached to strings must seem pretty stupid, unlikely to be of practical value and not worth much mental effort.
It seems to me that the intelligence of dogs, at least that we can observe, is more similar to human intelligence than that of cats. Not surprising since they are more domesticated than cats. (Which maybe is why I prefer cats!) Well, actually, what is intelligence? I guess scientists are really measuring animals for the amount of human intelligence they have.
A couple of things occur to me:
One is that there are different kinds of smarts. Dogs definitely have people smarts. Cats definitely have survival smarts. Puzzle smarts? Causality? I don’t know.
The other is that the cats used in this study were raised in a rescue agency, and may have the usual limitations found in people and animals subjected to institutionalizatio for long periods of time. Without the normal stimuli, some parts of the brain and nervous system, along with social skills, just don’t normalize properly.
That’s what I think, anyway.
I’ve always thought that cats were smarter. Dogs are more loyal. At least those are my thoughts.
Eric and Sarah — you both bring up what also occurred to me, the question of differences in individual animals and what controls were in place to adjust for that, to provide a balance of different cat and dog personalities, levels of intelligence, healthy upbringings (psychological health), genetic diversity, and so forth. I also question the validity of a test using food attached to strings. It doesn’t seem to me to mimic any natural feeding situation that both dogs and cats are best suited to respond to, one as a pack hunter and the other as a solitary hunter. I’m also not really convinced the two can be compared at all in a way that truly demonstrates a comparison of their levels of intelligence.
When Tara was a kitten she started to notice when we were playing that I held a toy with my hand, which connected to my arm, etc. There were times that she grew frustrated with catching a toy I held and would go after my arm. There were times when she seemed to grow bored with the knowledge that what I caused to move wasn’t moving on its own. We have a game we play with a stick under a blanket or pillow, where she chases the other end. But she’s very clearly aware that I am holding my end of the stick, and sometimes she watches my hand to help her predict where her end of the stick will move next. (This seems very similar to the string test, and to confirm Eric’s theory that the cats outsmarted the string and decided it was stupid. Maybe the dogs they tested were just more willing to put up with stupid tricks to get a little treat?)
I’ve seen my late dog, Indi, test carefully with a paw to see if the screen door was open, when I confused him by opening the door before he came up onto the deck to come inside.
I think they were both pretty damned smart in those instances. But then as their “mother” I guess I’m prejudiced.
Do you remember the outcry when Stanley Coren published The Intelligence of Dogs back in the ’90s, and ranked the various dog breeds by his standard of intelligence? When he declared the Border Collie to be the most intelligent dog breed out there, it helped (along with the movie “Babe”) to put hundreds of Border Collies into tiny city apartments. They’d been bought by people who decided that “smartest dog” was synonymous with “for people who want only the best.” No one wants to buy a stupid dog, after all.
I honestly forget where my breed (Bearded Collies) fell in his hierarchy, but having observed all nine of mine over the years, I can say that Coren did the breed a major-league disservice by ranking these dogs so low. My dogs read the book and didn’t think too much of it, either.
As for our cat, well… I think I blogged about the time that we had to call the repairman to fix our treadmill because a mouse had crawled into the motor and died there. The mouse would have had to have stepped on the cat to get in there — which says a lot about the cat’s hunting instincts.
Interesting topic, I would say dogs in most situations. Still I think my cat is quite intelligent.
*smiling* I like all the input and agree with all of it. Just like there are people who are smarter than other people, I think that’s true with animals. No matter to me - I generally love them all unless they endlessly growl and hiss at me. My Roger is an amazing cat and it’s never occurred to me to categorize him as smart or not-so-smart. I’ve adjusted to his *catch of the day*, so I imagine a mouse would not have made it to the treadmill in my home. My last dog had been brutally abused and was 100% blind from birth - I considered him highly intelligent because he managed so well - and because I was a good herder. LOL. He was an a-m-a-z-i-n-g dog that had to be *put down* nine days after he moved in with me, because the so-called *rescue person* lied about his health - he was full of heartworms. In that short nine days I was totally head-over-teacups in love with Mikey. We bond quickly with our pets, don’t we? *sigh*
That is a very good question. Dogs and cats are both smart in certain ways. Cats are smart in the way that they can survive on their own and know exactly where to go potty (litter box) Dogs on the other hand are also smart, because you can train them over time to do things, such as potty train, sit, lay, fetch, rollover, etc. In my opinion Dogs are smarter than cats, just because you can teach them things over time, because its difficult to teach cats anything, besides to beg for a treat!
I always thought that cats are more smarter than dogs even though I’m a dog person. It doesnt matter which is smarter as long as I’m happy having them.
I have two black cats (male and female), both rescued, both over a year old now. The male cat has a congenital disorder whereby his frontal lobe underperforms. He walks wobbly, has poor defense skills, and all his squeals are like a human baby. He was also probably abandoned by his mother, and most likely the runt. He was bottle fed as a baby, and learned grooming from my other cat. He whines easily when I pick him up, run around wild when he hears food related sounds or smells cooking, and follows me around everywhere and sits near my foot. He also greets me at the door every day when I return from work (running towards it) and rubs his forehead on my leg. He sleeps with me and lands clumsily against some part of my body. He runs up to me 90% of the time I call his name, and easily associates certain sounds to certain situations or commands. He greets all my friends, isn’t shy, and isn’t scared of unfamiliar sounds. In other words, he the most doglike kitty I’ve ever met, in a while (minus the birth defect).
The female on the other hand is the complete picture of a snobby pretty cat that is picky about everything. She cleans herself constantly, taught him grooming through cues, likes to lie on my lap from time to time, makes very feline (and often strange) sounds, knows what things to avoid (instead of “training”, i only raise my voise in dissaproval at some acts, and she pretty much avoids repeating it ever in front of me). She sleeps on my bed, but keeps a distance. She covers up the male’s poopie (because sometimes he avoids the litterbox). She talks to me (not sure we understand each other, but we definitely can exchange sounds). She is stealthy, clever, has discovered every nook and cranny of the house, and is constantly hunting for something. She also is very sensitive to my moods, knows very well when to approach me, when to avoid me, and stops doing things that annoy me if she senses I’m annoyed (most of the time, like playing with something loud when I try to sleep). But I can never get her to come to me when I call her.
So, when cats can vary that much, I’m not sure how we can compare dogs to cats without making the case that we have deliberately chosen to give importance to some of our human values/traits and not others. Is social more intelligent, or cunning? Is following orders or maintaining independence? Is being emotionally cued or being cued to physical gestures or sounds?
Sorry to report this, but there is no question or debate here: dogs are smarter.
Every scientific study conducted in the past 50 years regarding canine vs feline intelligence has revealed that dogs are much more intelligent than cats. Canines excel in problem solving, anticipating new problems and observation.
On top of that, a dog’s social skills and ability to interact with humans is on a level far more advanced than the common house cat.
I am a dog person. I love dogs. But somehow, I always believed that cats are smarter, but I don´t really care. Dogs will always be my favorite of those two