Cats vs Dogs, or Cardboard Approximations vs Real Creatures

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by superluminal, Aug 19, 2006.

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  1. wsionynw

    wsionynw Master Queef Valued Senior Member

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    As a by the by, my youngest cat (1 ish) has also learned to open drawers to get at cat toys. Strange creatures

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    wsionynw, Aug 19, 2006
    #21

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  3. superluminal

    superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    Ok. If you say so.

    Of course. They're two very different species that diverged a looong time ago. They have completely different natural survival strategies.

    Not ad infinitum, just for hundreds of thousands of years at a minimum. You still don't accept that you are completely driven by behaviors evolved to keep our non-technological ancestors alive. Amazing.
     
    superluminal, Aug 19, 2006
    #22

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  5. superluminal

    superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    Cool! I'm not saying that cats don't have an innate intelligence of some kind, just that it's very different from a dogs, as sam will agree with. She views her cats very differently than her dogs.
     
    superluminal, Aug 19, 2006
    #23

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  7. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Not true. Dogs and humans formed the first multi-species community (not based on parasitism, symbiosis or exploitation) around 17,000 years ago. It would be several thousand years before humans developed the concept of animal husbandry or any other kind of agriculture and could settle down in villages without hunting and gathering. Humans could not have domesticated a bee at that early date, although it was one of our first when we finally learned how.

    Dogs and humans found themselves hunting in the same territories and must surely have noticed each other's advantages. (Dogs and wolves are a single species.) Dogs could smell prey a long way off and run fast enough to catch it; humans had pointy sticks that could bring down a frelling mammoth. Some dogs probably became the first camp-followers and ate the perfectly good food that humans to this day can't help but leave lying on the ground. Some humans probably came upon a dog pack that had cornered an old woolly rhino but could not kill it and helped them out. By hunting cooperatively they could take down more game than they could separately and nobody had to eat bugs. A match made in Carnivore Heaven.

    Soon dogs were risking their lives to guard the mixed-species camp from predators only they could hear and smell coming, and sharing the warmth of the fire that only humans could tame. Meanwhile the young of both species found each other to be fabulous playmates. True love.

    Many of you have already heard this... At a time when humans lived in tribes only modestly larger than those of our gorilla and chimpanzee cousins--maybe 300 people, all of whom were personally acquainted and most of whom were blood relatives--and considered the next tribe up the river enemies to be driven out of their hunting and gathering range, we learned to love "people" of another species, to care about someone who couldn't even talk.

    Since then we've learned to be brothers with people who merely speak a different language, practice a different religion, or have a different appearance, and we call it civilization.

    I wonder whether we could have ever made the leap if it weren't for our experience with dogs.
    Cats came to us in much the same way, although about 7,000 years later when civilization was well under way. One could say that the rodents actually came first, as soon as we learned to cultivate grain and built granaries to store it, but we never use the term "domesticated" for animals we don't want around.

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    The cats followed the rodents and, like the dogs, learned that they were welcomed for their services.

    Cats have not yet established the same kind of bond with us that dogs have because of a key difference between the two predatory species: Cats are solitary hunters by nature, whereas dogs have the social instinct to work in packs. It was considerably less of a stretch for dogs to allow other species of creatures into their packs (just as it was for our packs) than it was for cats to wrap their fuzzy little heads around the concept of being part of a pack at all. Some species of genus Felis, like the African Jungle Cat, are more comfortable socializing, but most species are not. It's not as clear which species Felis domesticus descended from as it is with Canis lupus familiaris, the new name for the subspecies of wolf.

    Other animals self-domesticated in similar ways. Pigs and goats obviously came for the garbage. Sheep and poultry came to eat the grains we grew. Unfortunately they ended up being our dinner rather than our companions.

    Anyway, if you're looking for a reason for the difference between cat and dog personalities, it goes all the way back to their wild behavior.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Aug 19, 2006
    #24
  8. superluminal

    superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    Nice post FR. I just learned that some feral cats will form "colonies". Not sure what this means for social behavior yet. Still reading.
     
    superluminal, Aug 19, 2006
    #25
  9. redarmy11

    redarmy11 Registered Senior Member

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    I think there's as much variation within the two species as there is between them. My sister and her fiance have 4 cats. One's an agoraphobic homebody - a typical scaredy-cat that's frightened of it's own shadow and that hasn't left the house since it was a kitten. It spends all day every day lying on the couch, being stroked and fussed over, leaving it briefly to eat, then returning to it's vegetative state. The 2 younger cats are the complete opposite: one stays out for days on end, living on it's wits; the other stays out most of the day but always returns at night for food, then cries incessantly to go out again soon afterwards. Of these, the young male is very sociable and affectionate, whilst it's female counterpart is an exploitative sociopath. The fourth cat - the alpha female - falls between the two extremes. She goes out often but never for long; she's affectionate but not clingy; she's sociable but very independent-minded too.

    Dogs vary wildly too. Some are loud and aggressive, others boisterous and playful; some are quiet but independent, some timid in the extreme; some are sociable, others like to be left alone.

    I think it's therefore difficult to generalise. If cats are loners someone ought to inform my own cats, both of which follow me whenever I leave the house on foot, persisting even when I shoo them away. It's very annoying when I'm late for something and have to catch and return them both to the house. If they aren't exhibiting a pack instinct here, can someone tell me why they're doing it? I'd very much like them to stop.
     
    redarmy11, Aug 19, 2006
    #26
  10. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    I've never heard of a colony of Felis species that hunts in packs. The only feline we're all familiar with that does this is the lion, Panthera leo. I would think that for a predator, the act of cooperating to satisfy hunger would create a much stronger social bond than anything else they're doing. Prey animals of course can form packs for protection. And then there are the Emperor penguins and the sea turtles who get together to lay eggs because it's the only place they know where they can lay them. I guess there are several reasons. I'd like to know why those cats form packs.
    Yeah, dogs exhibit as much variation as humans in their adaptation to the phenomenon of giant blocks of leisure time, something that does not occur in nature. However, when the leisure is over and they have to go back on duty, even the crankiest will usually join the pack. Of course "lone wolves" have always been common enough that we have an aphorism for it, but they're still relatively remarkable or the aphorism would not have been invented.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Aug 19, 2006
    #27
  11. superluminal

    superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    superluminal, Aug 19, 2006
    #28
  12. S.A.M.

    S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Not that I disagree, I just think it's interesting that you can look at the same behavior and arrive at different conclusions based on your assumptions of what they represent. I would think that behavioral strategies which favored survival would be more adaptive than not.

    Here is an interesting article.
    http://messybeast.com/soc_cat.htm
     
    S.A.M., Aug 20, 2006
    #29
  13. redarmy11

    redarmy11 Registered Senior Member

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    Re. feline hunting: lions live in colonies and often hunt in packs. See the link. I've only glanced through it but the implication seems to be that they hunt co-operatively for selfish reasons where lone hunting isn't feasible. Nevertheless, pack hunting among felines isn't unknown, even if it's done reluctantly.

    http://www.lionresearch.org/current/cooperation.html
     
    redarmy11, Aug 20, 2006
    #30
  14. S.A.M.

    S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Cooperative hunting in male cheetahs of the Serengati:

    Apparently, cats may not benefit much from group hunting.

    Compared with other large cats, and other mammals, cheetahs have an unusual breeding system; whereas lions live in prides and tigers are solitary, some cheetahs live in groups while others live by themselves. Tim Caro explores group and solitary living among cheetahs and discovers that the causes of social behavior vary dramatically, even within a single species.

    Why do cheetah cubs stay with their mother for a full year after weaning? Why do adolescents remain in groups? Why do adult males live in permanent associations with each other? Why do adult females live alone? Through observations on the costs and benefits of group living, Caro offers new insight into the complex behavior of this extraordinary species. For example, contrary to common belief about cooperative hunting in large carnivores, he shows that neither adolescents nor adult males benefit from hunting in groups.

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226094340/103-1705470-7115056?v=glance&n=283155
     
    S.A.M., Aug 20, 2006
    #31
  15. superluminal

    superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    It's just because they wuv each other sooo much!
     
    superluminal, Aug 20, 2006
    #32
  16. superluminal

    superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    The point is that it's not the normal strategy for cats. It is for domestic dogs, who are really just gray wolves. Even poodles. We live in harmony with dogs because our social group behaviors are so similar to begin with. We are nothing like cats in our species behavior.
     
    superluminal, Aug 20, 2006
    #33
  17. S.A.M.

    S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Hmm I'm not so sure. Perhaps it's a case of like attarcting like.

    There are as many people living in harmony with cats who prefer their behaviour to dogs (me, for example).

    And there is really no telling how long it takes evolutionary behaviours to adapt, though it appears that there may be differences within the species as to the extent of adaptation.
     
    S.A.M., Aug 20, 2006
    #34
  18. superluminal

    superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    I think you're being too specific. Of course humans have personal preferences for this-or-that. And there are loner humans just as there are "lone wolves", but they are far from the norm. Humans are a social group species. Dogs are a social group species. House cats are a solitary species.
     
    superluminal, Aug 20, 2006
    #35
  19. S.A.M.

    S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Perhaps but with lifestyle changes going in the direction they are, I guarantee the cat will replace the dog, especially because it is so independent.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1965499.stm

    And I do not agree with the solitary bit at all.
     
    S.A.M., Aug 20, 2006
    #36
  20. S.A.M.

    S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    S.A.M., Aug 20, 2006
    #37
  21. superluminal

    superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    First, read that article. Britons are wierd. Do you want to classed among those that generated those statistics? Not me.

    And you disagree with the solitary bit? You can't since it's a sort of, you know, fact of the normal behavior of cats, don't ya know. Not talking about how you or Mrs. Liverwort snuggle with your cat in preference to a human, but the natural behavior of cats left to their own devices.
     
    superluminal, Aug 20, 2006
    #38
  22. superluminal

    superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    And I can explain all of this to you very simply, based on your own links. People are lazy and sefish. Cat's are independent. Translation: I don't have to do diddly but change the litter once in a while if I don't feel like it. And I can buy a machine to do that for me if I'm so inclined. Most people I've known who are exclusively cat owners have had a well visible streak of self-centeredness.
     
    superluminal, Aug 20, 2006
    #39
  23. S.A.M.

    S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    The evidence my dearest supe does not support your assumptions.
    Remember this?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_cat_colony

    I would say that cats enjoy socialising but do not have a need for it.

    http://www.agarman.dial.pipex.com/bco/behav04.htm
     
    S.A.M., Aug 20, 2006
    #40
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