Cats Can Recognize Their Own Names, Study Suggests (gizmodo.com) 228
AmiMoJo shares a report from Gizmodo: Plenty of cat owners will happily tell you their felines are capable of responding to their own names, but the scientific jury remains ambivalent on the matter. A fascinating new experiment suggests this might actually be true for some cats, and it's a capacity very much tied to the social environment in which the cat lives. The new research, published today in Scientific Advances, doesn't mean cats understand the human conception of a name, but it does show that at least some cats can distinguish their names from other words. Prior research has shown that cats can recognize human gestures, facial expressions, and vocal cues. Slashdot reader sciencehabit adds: Give this a shot at home: Say four random words to your cat -- separated by about 15 seconds -- with the same length and intonation as its name. Then say its actual name. If it swivels its ears or perks up its head, chances are it knows what you call it. That's essentially what researchers did in a new study. The scientists saw similar responses when the cat's name came after the names of other felines he lived with, or when a stranger spoke the words. The findings are the first to experimentally show that cats have some understanding of what we are saying to them, the team concludes.
No surprise (Score:5, Informative)
This should come as no surprise to anyone who owns a cat.
My cats will come when they are called, if they feel like it. Sometimes they will run to the door then refuse to actually come in.
So yeah, they understand. They just probably dont give a shit about what you want.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Funny)
I did wonder if my cats were just responding to my voice. Ignoring everything I say, merely taking note of the fact that the help had returned from wherever the fresh chicken comes from.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Funny)
I noticed that they react to the can opener way better than my voice.
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Be honest. Do you react better to your parent or SO telling you to take out the trash, or the sound of the oven timer saying dinner's ready?
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For most people it probably depends on how good of a cook they are.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
We also have various other cats "boarded" at our place for periods of time due to her CFA connections.
I'm literally exposed to 10-11 cats a year, though never 3 or so at a time, for varying lengths of time. I.e., I have a *lot* of experience cohabitating with cats. A diverse selection of cats.
While cats certainly recognize words, I have seen little evidence that they're aware of their name.
If I call a cat by the treats, every cat that wants a treat comes running.
If I call a cat while on the couch, every cat that wants pets will come running.
If I call a cat while I'm in the bathroom, our one cat that fucking loves the shower will come running.
You could argue that as "they know I'm calling someone, but they don't give a fuck that it's not them"
But I read the article too, and they didn't discount for the possibility that they are simply recognizing that you're calling attention to yourself, which they may or may not be interested in, depending on the context, as opposed to making random noises.
In short, I think learn to interpret "names" as some cat meowing loudly because he wants something, which also depending on context, will send various other cats running toward it.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
I have two, they both look directly at me and meow at me when I say their individual names and don't meow at me when I say the others name or just make noises in general.
They do recognize their names, it's just a lot of cats don't give a shit what we want.
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Yep, my cats definitely know who I'm talking to and respond. Now when food is involved, my greedy cat will try to get in the way if he suspects I'm feeding our non-greedy cat. But outdoors with no food on the mind, you can get a good feel for what they understand in general.
I'll add to this:
"Then say its actual name. If it swivels its ears or perks up its head, " OR if you see the tail go from no movement to a twitch very precisely and succinctly, but they otherwise ignore you unless you call them 3+ times,
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Re:No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know. My girlfriend breeds them (Russian Blues)
While cats certainly recognize words, I have seen little evidence that they're aware of their name.
Totally different experience; cats whose owners have no emotional connection to the owners and live with many other cats and hearing the names of other cats continuously as the kitten mill churns along; and a cat that is kept as a pet and develops a long emotional bond with the owner and gets lots of one on one time.
A cat that is kept as a pet and has an emotional bond with their human is going to develop deeper understanding of their human than one that is a commodity to a human and doesn't have the emotional bond.
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I used to have two Siamese sisters before they went to the Great Food Bowl in the Sky. Once, I was busy and pushed Ariel away from me letting her know I was busy. She walked down the hall, turned and gave me (what I interpreted as) a reproachful look, and walked into the bedroom out of sight. She was miffed. When I called about 5 minutes later, she came running.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Funny)
Yes but she went in to the bedroom to pee on your clothes!
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Ah yes, only people who live with one cat build a bond strong enough that causes the cat to learn its name.
That makes far more sense.
Delusional Cat Owner Syndrome is what you have.
People board their cats with us precisely because of the fact that *I* bond with them so well.
A few months with me will turn the most asocial cat into a social critter.
I love cats. There's simply no good evidence that they associate their name with any sense of personal identity. And this article didn't refute that.
It
Re: No surprise (Score:2)
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Care to back up that assertion?
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Yes, they have YOU well trained by now.
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People tend to read too much into the concept of a name. As far as we know, animals don't have a sense of identity, in the same way that people do. A person may be able to step outside themselves and think: "that's me, and my name is XYZ". Animals can't, and don't.
So: what is a name to an animal? I submit that it is a very simple, functional sound: the sound made by a human who wants to get the animal's attention. And the animal gives its attention, because interesting things tend to follow.
If your girlfrie
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As far as we know, animals don't have a sense of identity, in the same way that people do. A person may be able to step outside themselves and think: "that's me, and my name is XYZ". Animals can't, and don't.
We don't know either way. Humans assume humans are special, but there's almost no science behind that.
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If your girlfriends cats all come running to every name-sound, that is easily explained: you and your girlfriend are not consistent in rewarding them if-and-only-if the correct cat reacts to the name.
Yes, it's also easily explained by the explanation I gave. I've spent a long time formulating that explanation, and I've never seen a single shred of evidence that it's wrong, and believe me, I've looked. Every single person I know who has claimed that cat knows its name will simply sit there and look confused and make excuses when the effect is demonstrated. I get it. We love our cats. Doesn't excuse inventing fairy tales for their behavior.
Train the name to mean something (Score:2)
While cats certainly recognize words, I have seen little evidence that they're aware of their name.
When you say "aware of their name", what do you mean exactly by that? Have you trained each of them that their name means something special in relation to them? They don't speak English or any other human language so expecting them to just figure it out without some work on the handler's part is absurdly naive. You can train a cat to respond to its name but it requires specificity and effort on the part of the handler to communicate this information.
A name to a cat is not anything special unless you tell
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Cats do not replicate this behavior.
So what do I mean? I mean I there's no evidence that they tie that name to *themselves*.
The fact that they respond to a word that they can distinguish does not mean they consider it their identity.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Animal smarts only ever surprises people who don't own animals.
My two cats definitely know their own names and they're not even the smartest cats I've ever owned.
More: They know the other cat's name, too. I once asked one of them where the other cat was (she was stuck in a cupboard - somebody closed the door) and he took me there pawed at the door, like saying, "She's in there!".
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Informative)
Yes - we had two cats and one was smart and one was about as dumb as a rock (in cat terms, at least). Both were well aware of their own names, though.
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Animal smarts only ever surprises people who don't own animals.
My two cats definitely know their own names and they're not even the smartest cats I've ever owned.
More: They know the other cat's name, too. I once asked one of them where the other cat was (she was stuck in a cupboard - somebody closed the door) and he took me there pawed at the door, like saying, "She's in there!".
Yeah, cats have a wide variance in intelligence. Some are really smart and some are really dumb- just like dogs have different levels of intelligence. Some of mine have shown a wide variety of vocab and understanding.
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This should come as no surprise to anyone who owns a cat.
My cats will come when they are called, if they feel like it. Sometimes they will run to the door then refuse to actually come in.
So yeah, they understand. They just probably dont give a shit about what you want.
Must have taken a lot of effort on your cat's part to train you that well.
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You can "trick" them with similar-sounding words, but not with different-sounding words. They clearly hear some kind of pattern even if they don't hear their "name".
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This should come as no surprise to anyone who owns a cat.
My cats will come when they are called, if they feel like it. Sometimes they will run to the door then refuse to actually come in.
So yeah, they understand. They just probably dont give a shit about what you want.
Not only do they know their name, they understand intonation as well. Also, we have one cat that each member of the family calls a different name- she responds to all five names; but knows for example, when we call out one of her siblings names, that we're not talking to her.
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Say four random words to your cat -- separated by about 15 seconds -- with the same length and intonation as its name.
They also pick up subtle inflections in your voice. Even if you try to say the name with the same intonation as the other words, you won't. When I had a cat he would respond to his name when I called him, but if I said "Come here stupid" in the same voice he would respond the same way.
All they hear is sounds (like we hear their meows), so how you say it means at least as much as what you say.
Re: No surprise (Score:3, Informative)
Iâ(TM)ve never owned a cat that didnâ(TM)t respond to itâ(TM)s own name. And Iâ(TM)ve owned several throughout my 68 years. What I find noteworthy...actually disturbing about this article is that something so obvious merits a study to confirm it. Apparently not a one of these researchers has ever owned a cat. What a waste of time, money and bandwidth.
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Right, because your anecdotal experience with your cats, apparently completely ungrounded in behavioral science, conclusively proves that it's the vocalization of it's name that your cats were responding to and not any of the other dozens of uncontrolled factors present. Obviously they know it's their name, as otherwise why would they respond?
There's a big difference between "mittens comes when I call him" and "studies show that these specific species of cat are able to recognize their name and treat it as
Ironic. Crazy cat ladies knew more than science (Score:3)
I knew this as 6 year old kid.
Why is this considered worthy of a study?
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This should come as no surprise to anyone who owns a cat.
We don't "own" cats, they pretty much own us. We are wait staff. Pretty much ALL cats are named "kitty kitty kitty". Don't believe me? You want pretty much any cat to come, just go "here kitty kitty kitty" [seems to take all 3 so it's like First, middle and last names.] Kinda like Zathras. That said every cat that has ever owned me has "come" to me when I called its name. Inside cats more so than outside cats which lends me to believe it's more of a condition response as indoor cats spend so much more time
How to annoy a cat (Score:2)
My experience (Score:2)
(anecdotal evidence ahead)
My experience is that the IQ bell curve in cats must look very interesting.
There are some crazy intelligent cats out there but a lot of them are dumb as dirt.
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When we had friends or family at the house, we would sometimes put him in a bedroom and close the door. The times that he got out of the bedroom, we assumed we just hadn't closed the door tight. One time, I was in the bedroom with him, and I watched him jump onto a table next to the door, reach over, and turn the doorknob.
It also explained why, if he wanted to go outside, he went over to the outside door and reached up towards the doorknob. If
What did hte *cats* conclude from this experiment? (Score:4, Funny)
Will the cats ever reveal the results of this experiment of theirs on humans who think they're "scientists"?
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1 of my cats is definitely smarter than the other (Score:2)
I have 2 cats. Both of them respond to their own names. In fact the dumber one responds to both names - I think she's just greedy.
The older male one is definitely smarter than the younger female one. He can understand when I point to something, to look at what I am pointing at rather than the tip of my finger - apparently this is something that about 30% of cats can do. The younger female cat seems pretty ambivalent on this gesture - sometimes she will stare intently at my finger, other times she appears to
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> I would beat the shit out of anyone I ever saw harming an animal
Fighting violence with *more* violence and assault?!
**Facepalm**
Sigh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not necessarily.
They are recognising a sound that normally precedes things of interest to them... usually food.
For all we know, they think "Tiddles" means "I'm opening up a tin of meat for you". It only has to correlate enough for them to think it's worth getting their attention diverted to see if there's food, not every time.
Now, I did teach my cats words. They understand what those words mean and how they differ. They don't always know their own name, for example, and will ignore you calling them upstairs by it (food isn't served upstairs, so why would I wake up and run all the way up there?.
I teach my cats the word "down"... which discourages them off furniture, shelves, stairs, places they shouldn't be. They tend to get that.
They don't need an explicit word for food, they tend to go by the sound of the food bag/tin being opened, but using their name does reinforce that. When you want them to approach, you can try the name but what piques their interest is chirpy sounds or holding out your fingers... both food-related enticements. They won't approach if they know you haven't got food, unless they want a stroke but that's usually a side-effect of wanting to sit on you or be fed.
Some of them learned that me patting my lap means they are welcome to jump up but they struggle even with that.
Let's stop anthropomorphising them... they are little wild animals that have been given a privileged environment that they will defend if necessary, accept our presence in because we are much larger and more dangerous than them, have become accustomed to us generally being amenable to them being present, sometimes scent-mark us (especially to remember who fed them, usually), act like kittens in such an environment, and respond almost entirely only to food-based enticements.
That's not a bad thing. It's called a pet.
Though it is said that the greatest, most natural, and most clear signal of any species in terms of offering of peace is to give food. That's why you shouldn't refuse offers of dinner in foreign countries. Giving somebody food is the biggest signal you can offer in terms of acceptance, non-threatening, friendliness, sharing of vital resources, etc.
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For all we know, they think "Tiddles" means "I'm opening up a tin of meat for you".
It actually says that right in the summary. I know not reading TFA is standard, but not reading the summary is cat levels of laziness.
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For all we know, they think "Tiddles" means "I'm opening up a tin of meat for you".
It actually says that right in the summary. I know not reading TFA is standard, but not reading the summary is cat levels of laziness.
No it doesn't. I know not reading TFS is becoming standard but you can't just make up what it says.
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"The new research, published today in Scientific Advances, doesn't mean cats understand the human conception of a name, but it does show that at least some cats can distinguish their names from other words."
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"X and Y are distinct" and "X has an interpretation that food is imminent" are two entirely separate conclusions.
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"The new research, published today in Scientific Advances, doesn't mean cats understand the human conception of a name, but it does show that at least some cats can distinguish their names from other words."
Hmmmm, that's pushing it to say that says the same as what the other guy said. 'Here comes food' is a specific message, other words could literally be anything from 'you cuddly wuddly little bastard' to 'c'mon it's time to go to the vet'.
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most clear signal of any species in terms of offering of peace is to give food. That's why you shouldn't refuse offers of dinner
Except when they're Ferengi.
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They don't always know their own name, for example, and will ignore you calling them upstairs by it (food isn't served upstairs, so why would I wake up and run all the way up there?.
You just proved that teenagers don't always know their own names.
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For all we know, they think "Tiddles" means "I'm opening up a tin of meat for you".
Strange coincidence. When I was young, I associated that with feeding time as well.
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There's no need to paint cats as complete selfish bastards... I mean the occasional cat joke is great because there is that grain of truth there, but seriously, they are awesome pets.
"Some of them learned that me patting my lap means they are welcome to jump up but they struggle even with that."
What?! All of my cats since I can remember learn that patting something, or patting then pointing at something, means to go there. Lap, stairs, couch, bed, etc.
I wonder what in your environment or situation is causin
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Cats can understand names, but something like "down" is really abstract. They don't understand that shit at all.
The only reason it seems like they understand it is that they understand "down" means "I'm mad at you," and they separately have figured out you get mad when they're on the counter. So if both these things are happening, they're likely to take evasive actions.
They probably all know that when you pat your lap you want them to cuddle. It might not be a problem of them not understanding, but rather a
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I can confirm almost everything you said.
We have a cat, regular short hair domestic tabby, almost 9 years old now. Came to us when he was 5 or so months old. He has always been odd: very scared of loud sounds, and when the door bell rings, he runs away, often watching from a perch. The possible reason is that we were told he spend some time (before he came to us) in a dog shelter and the continuous barking probably permanently traumatized him. He also does not like to be lifted up, or placed on laps at all.
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They respond to the name, because that name is used when feeding them. As per the article, it doesn't matter who says it, whether you feed them or not - they know what the sound for "Dinnertime" is, whoever says it. They are associating it with food.
That they respond does not mean they think it means "Me, particularly" which a name does, but "Come Get It!". Now if one cat responded to their name to come get food but no other cat in the house cared, then you might have something testable. That's incredib
The sound of a can opener (Score:2)
This is what my cat thought his name was. He refused to answer to any other name.
As any cat owner can tell you... (Score:3)
ALL cats recognize their name. Whether they give a damn about you calling them is entirely another thing.
Ok, but... (Score:2)
Duh (Score:3)
>"Cats Can Recognize Their Own Names, Study Suggests"
Wow. I thought everyone knew this- at least anyone that has a cat (and bothers to interact with them regularly). What next? A study that says when a cat squints (slow blinks) at you or purrs it is happy? (Duh)
Cats are quite smart, fun, affectionate, and entertaining. They are just not slaves that hinge their entire self-worth on their owners... and that is one of the best things about them.
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Reply to self-
BTW, all my cats know many words- such as:
* Special treat
* Let's play
* No
* Whacha want?
* Kitty kitty (come)
* Where's the bird?
* OW
Yes, it does matter HOW the words are said... they are recognizing the sounds- pitch and intonation do matter.
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Here's some words my cats have taught me. They do have a lot of different vocalizations, that vary by the cat's own distinct personalities.
1. hungry
2. bored
3. demanding something
4. something's wrong
5. I want to be petted
6. fuck off
Oh, they know a lot more than that (Score:2)
They just don't give a crap.
Another cat story! (Score:2)
Yes, our cats know their names.
Funny story, years ago my wife & I are in the computer room one evening (as usual) & Budapest, one of two cats comes running in meowing like crazy. It was like lassie trying to tell us that Timmy was stuck in the well. At the same time my wife & I say "Charlie fell of the balcony!". I go out & sure enough, I can hear him meowing somewhere below. We have a cat door in the screen because cats are a pain in the ass when it comes to doors.
Cats, dogs, even bir
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Birds can be very intelligent. My wife's parents have a cockatoo that picked a master lock to escape from her cage. She's affectionate also... until she decides not to be at which point you'd best remove your fingers from her cage. She can bite a whole walnut in two with her beak. You don't want to know what she can do to fingers.
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Well, I for one am impressed that two humans both took the time to listen to cat, and consider that the noises it makes might be communicative. Most humans aren't really that smart, they only manage to keep a pet alive because of their innate parenting instincts.
Any animal can be trained to a cue (Score:2)
Plenty of cat owners will happily tell you their felines are capable of responding to their own names, but the scientific jury remains ambivalent on the matter.
No the "scientific jury" is not really in question here. You can train virtually any animal to come or do some actions on a cue. A name is just such a cue and pretty much any animal can be trained to recognize and perform an action in relation to their name. Animal handlers in zoos use this fact constantly. My wife took a graduate level training course at the Shedd Aquarium a few years ago. Some animals are easier to train than others but literally anyone who works with animals for a living will tell y
The truth is much simpler (Score:2)
In the words of writer David Gerrold: "All cats have the same name. It's pronounced exactly like the sound of a can opener."
My cats always came running when they heard it. :-)
Domestication in cats and dogs (Score:2)
https://www.smbc-comics.com/co... [smbc-comics.com]
My last cat definitely knew her name (Score:2)
It took many years, but one day I was having a phone conversation with my sister and the cat's name ("cat") came up in the middle of a sentence. Like "Yeah, I once had a cat like that". The point is that I wasn't calling her in a familiar voice, looking at her, and I didn't stress that word. It was in the middle of a sentence. Right after that word she looked up and meowed at me. At that point, I knew that she actually knew the word.
She was highly intelligent and had spent 7+ years living on her own ou
IQ (Score:2)
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Big deal (Score:2)
My monitor lizard (Varanus Rudicollis) knows his name, comes when called, and can count to 10 (the number of mice I feed him. If there are less, he'll hunt around for the remainder until he finds them.)
This is research? (Score:2)
This is research? Seriously? I was convinced this came from some crappy write-only journal, but...it comes from a Nature publication? That's just pathetic.
Ask any cat owner: of course cats recognize their names. Mine looks at you, to see what you want. If you say "come", then - guess what - she comes (well, most of the time, she is a cat after all). She also understands commands for simple tricks: sit, lie down, jump, etc.. And she's not any special breed, just an accident between two house cats.
Cats aren't
Comment removed (Score:3)
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I propose a study to investigate the correlation between so-called scientists attributing to cats properties they may or may not have, with toxoplasmosis infection. If the parasite can make rats think cat piss smells good, it stands to reason that it might well result in "researchers" conducting "studies" concluding that cats are in various ways smarter or better than previously believed.
How do you explain people going gaga over dogs?
I'm starting to think that nerds love the "mind control parasite" thing just because it sounds like a Star trek plotline.
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Yes I hate paying taxes for this reason.
Do you mean specifically the part where you thought it was about you, or do you just mean, narcissism in general?
Of course they do (Score:5, Insightful)
As anyone who has been owned by cats knows.
Box turtles can know their name - why not cats (Score:2)
When we lived in the Ozark Mountains we knew a "turtle lady", whenever a box turtle was injured neighbours would take them to the Turtle Lady. She ended up with a collection of one eyed or three legged turtles as pets. As a demo she would line them up and ask you which one you wanted to come, she'd call it by name and it would come. Anyone who has owned two parrots will tell you they talk about the other one by name. Why not cats?
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But we are NOT special. And that is OK.
Like it or not we are special. Look around, other animals might communicate and build nests but none in any thing like the way we have and it essentially comes down to flappy lips and opposable thumbs.
This world wasn't made for us but we have made it our own for better or worse.
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Maybe the other animals have actually experienced everything we are doing/experiencing and decided, some million years ago, that the way of civilization is not really worth going. And then, maybe, just maybe, they decided to go back, leave civilization behind as the "wrong path" and go back to nature.
Maybe, in this sense, we are the dumbest of all species on this planet because we are way behind all of them and have to have this experience called "civilization" first...
Just sayin'...
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This world wasn't made for us but we have made it our own for better or worse.
How do you know it wasn't? You acknowledge that we are obviously special.
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Except we're not the only one's with opposable thumbs so it can't be that. And African gray parrots certainly can do the talky, talky just fine so it's not that either.
It's a combination of those things plus being bipedal. Pretty much every other animal with four limbs uses all of them for movement (other mammals normally, if not always, walk on all four legs; birds use the two upper limbs for flight, etc.). Humans don't need to use our arms and hands for much else, so they're available for investigating and manipulating the surrounding environment.
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Except we're not the only one's with opposable thumbs so it can't be that. And African gray parrots certainly can do the talky, talky just fine so it's not that either.
It's a combination of those things plus being bipedal. Pretty much every other animal with four limbs uses all of them for movement (other mammals normally, if not always, walk on all four legs; birds use the two upper limbs for flight, etc.). Humans don't need to use our arms and hands for much else, so they're available for investigating and manipulating the surrounding environment.
I'm not convinced you've ever even seen a video of weasel behavior while they're exploring their environment. Lots of animals walk around touching and manipulating things with their hands, that has nothing to do with being bipedal.
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I'm not convinced you've ever even seen a video of weasel behavior while they're exploring their environment. Lots of animals walk around touching and manipulating things with their hands, that has nothing to do with being bipedal.
But other animals can't do it as much or as well as humans, because they need to use their arms/hands for movement and/or they don't have opposable thumbs. The point is that it's not any one of these attributes that separates humans from other animals, but that humans are the only animal to have all of these attributes.
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Except we're not the only one's with opposable thumbs so it can't be that. And African gray parrots certainly can do the talky, talky just fine so it's not that either.
It's a combination of those things plus being bipedal.
Our three advantages are opposable thumbs, flappy lips, bipedality and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.
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Except we're not the only one's with opposable thumbs so it can't be that. And African gray parrots certainly can do the talky, talky just fine so it's not that either.
It's a combination of those things plus being bipedal.
Our three advantages are opposable thumbs, flappy lips, bipedality and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.
Hold on, I'll leave and come back in.
Good thing we have opposable thumbs to open the door, huh?
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A friend of mine named his cat "DooDoo". He got it an engraved water and food dish, cat tags, accessories.
The cat died. He got a new cat, and since he already had the engraved accessories and already knew mentally that {"Cat" : "DooDoo"}, in a brilliant act of mental efficiency, named the new cat "DooDoo", with his thought being that onus was on the cat to figure out its name and since he bought the cat food he got to call the shots and he didn't want to have to learn a new cat name.
When I met him, he was probably on DooDoo v4 or v5.
Will he go as far as doodoo twotwo?
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Re:Cats are pretty stupid, (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cats are pretty stupid, so that is quite an achievement. But they recognize the names only when you bring them food. And then they recognize any name as theirs.
Why do you consider cats stupid? Because you can't teach them tricks like a dog? In actual facts dogs are stupid because they will do cheap tricks for food out of greed. Cats could learn do those tricks too but because a cat is a very smart and cerebral creature it just can't be bothered with such simplistic food/reward teaching methods. You are mistaking that for stupidity.
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Cats can be trained just as well as dogs, it's just a lot harder to do because they lack a pack instinct to follow a leader. I've seen a circus act with a dozen trained cats climbing, jumping, performing tricks.
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Cats are as trivial to train as dogs, it's not so much a pack instinct as not understanding the reward mechanism is different between the two. Then again you'll hear people say that goats, horses, sheep, pigs and so on can't be trained. They can be and easily, again it's the reward mechanism that you have to understand. And then you can get into the various sub breeds of various animals that have a natural reward instinct like with various sheep dogs or retrievers. A sheep dog is just as happy herding a
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True but then they also think differently. My cat taught me to play fetch; while working in my office I threw a few crumbled paper balls into the next room, she charged after them and came back for more. I refused to crumble up more paper and after staring at me for a bit she went and fetched one of the previous balls and gave it to me. From then on we played fetch.
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"In actual facts dogs are stupid because they will do cheap tricks for food out of greed."
No. Doing what some needs to be done to get what you want when what you want isn't otherwise related to the task isn't dumb at all. It's quite intelligent and a good bit of abstract thinking as far as animals go.
As far as cats go though, in viewing them at family and friends houses I've never seen one do something a dog couldn't but I have seen dogs do plenty I've never seen a cat do. Of course my lack of cat ownership
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I too could build a starship in my tiny apartment for ten dollars worth of scrap metal, but my immense intellect has decided that it wasn't worth my time. That proves that I'm smart, right? That I didn't do anything?
I think you misunderstood something, here's what happened:
.....o <-- you
..../|\
..../ \
--=|CAT JOKE>
-- 50.000 feet --
TTTTTTTTTT
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To paraphrase, humans and dolphins long argued over who were smarter. Humans said they were the smartest because they'd invented wars, nuclear weapons and New York, while the dolphins just swam around in the ocean eating fish all day. The dolphins said they were the smartest - for the exact same reasons.
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I have deeper, more meaningful Conversations [segmeowtationfault.com] with my cat than I do with any humans:
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They also recognize when you meow in the same tone and pitch as they do. Posted as AC for obvious reasons.
Don't worry, your penis won't actually shrink if you stop being toxic and talk about something cute for 5 minutes.