Dogs are more intelligent than cats, neuron-counting study concludes

[captaincranky]

...[ ]....A cat is more like a human when someone throws a ball- most people will look and think why did you that then NOT get the ball. Same as a person....[ ]....

Well no. Playing "fetch", is an adaptation of the dog's nature as a pack animal. If one eats, the pack eats. Hence they return the "kill", to their "pack" the. trophy in hope of a reward.

Play is in man's nature, but is in animal behaviour as well. Kittens play fighting readies them for adulthood, and its dangers of mortal combat.

However, it is well within the abilities, (read that as "willingness"). of some breeds of cat to be taught to walk on a leash, fetch and return small objects, as well as doing tricks.

The trouble with categorizing or comparing those behaviours with canine traits, is that, with the exception of the lion, cats are solitary hunters. A leopard will kill an animal larger than itself, then drag it up a tree to defend it from other poaching animals, Mrs. leopard included. (Who BTW, has her own antelope in another tree).

A house cat though, might just bring back a mouse and drop it at your feet. That's out of respect for your relationship.

To sum this up, you're attaching entirely too much human based logic, to animal behaviours. It's called, "anthropomorphizing".

With that said, both cats and dogs are well up the intelligence ladder, objectively exceeded only by whales, dolphins, the great apes (us included"), and perhaps the elephant.

I know we're in a different era now, but didn't men always try to teach their wives to "fetch", so to speak? "Hey honey, bring me a beer", Is I believe the way that went.

One could arguably speculate humans are mimicking a feline behaviour there. After all,.the male lion sits on his a** and let's the ladies go out and kill dinner. The trouble is, after he's no longer the baddest lion on the block, a new male take his place. It's sort of like a human divorce, but without alimony.

A policeman will send a dog to chase a criminal with a gun, not going themselves for clear self preservation motives. That dog is not like a person, and with the same level of rigorous logic used by the researcher the cat is more like a person, it certainly wouldn't obey any command to 'attack'. It probably wouldn't do much unless the gunman was shouting or jumping up and down waving the weapon- same as a person. OK a cat wouldn't do much if it saw the person just standing there, but a person wouldn't either unless he identified the gun where he has an advantage in knowing what a gun is, but I dare say given the right teaching a cat could learn what a gun is and act like a human.

If you want to learn about mean dogs, research, "Ovcharka".

Besides, it's really absurd to compare Canis lupus with Felis sylvestris, in their relationships with humans. Wolves scope humans out, and many have befriended the "right humans", whereas the much smaller feline, has never lost the instinct to flee from us.

(Although that fact alone, would likely qualify cats as being smarter than dogs, if the people I've met, myself included, are indicative of the nature of our species).

 

[alansmith]

Part reply only- getting message 'The following error occurred: Your content can not be submitted. This is likely because your content is spam-like or contains inappropriate elements. Please change your content or try again later. If you still have problems, please contact an administrator.'
but the information to do that seems to be well hidden.
After much messing around (sorry to anyone who got the interim analysis posts) I reformatted the offending sentence and circumvented the censorship, it's at the end.

Agree. My response was (meant to be) a bit tongue in cheek - probably all human (superset including researchers) conclusions are anthropomorphised to some extent, and often different conclusions can be drawn.

I would like to know exactly which breeds were used as samples to reach the conclusions. (I had searched a little and found one site that concluded dog size didn't matter as neurons are more tightly packed in smaller brains. It still didn't give breeds and the numbers of neurons).

It's kind of interesting/fun but not conclusive research, and has a long long
way to go before it becomes useful information. Nothing can be done with the research conclusions apart from reading and discussion.

the sentence they won't let me send mentions 'insufficient data' and 'conclusions' and 'funding' and 'publicity'. Funding and publicity seem to be linked here.

here it is!

I think it boils down to

• reaching conclusions
• from
• insufficient data
• to receive publicity
• and
• funds.

Interesting censorship. It was those last two evil words 'and' and 'funds' that had to be separated to get the post accepted.

(btw error in article (for comparison, humans have around 16 billion) should be 86 billion. Although I think we probably all know people who may have 16 billion. Or less).




[QUOTE="captaincranky, post: 1654179, member: 99521"
One could arguably speculate humans are mimicking a feline behaviour there. After all,.the male lion sits on his a** and let's the ladies go out and kill dinner. The trouble is, after he's no longer the baddest lion on the block, a new male take his place. It's sort of like a human divorce, but without alimony.

Besides, it's really absurd to compare Canis lupus with Felis sylvestris, in their relationships with humans. Wolves scope humans out, and many have befriended the "right humans", whereas the much smaller feline, has never lost the instinct to flee from us.

(Although that fact alone, would likely qualify cats as being smarter than dogs, if the people I've met, myself included, are indicative of the nature of our species).[/QUOTE]