What Dogs Understand
but Cats Cannot
Many cats aren't even sociable
enough to allow testing.
PET CARE: ASK THE EXPERTS WITH CODY
Article By Stanley Coren PhD., DSc, FRSC, Canine Corner
The most popular domestic pets in America are dogs and cats. Dogs are somewhat more popular overall, with 38 percent of households in the U.S. having a dog while 25 percent of households have a cat. The number of actual animals is a bit more evenly matched since people who own cats are more likely to own more than one; there are about 77 million dogs and 58 million cats. Any conversation between dog and cat owners is almost inevitably bound to bring up the question of the relative intelligence of the two species.
Social Intelligence
A recent research report by a group of Hungarian researchers headed by Attila Salamon at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest has revisited the question of dog-vs.-cat intelligence, focusing on the issue of whether dogs or cats understand human communication gestures better.
Technically this refers to the relative "social cognitive ability" of canines and felines.
In many respects, evolution and the history of the domestication of cats and dogs should give us a clue as to the likely outcome of this comparison. From some
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