Cat Behavior: A Quick Primer for Dog People
I love cats. I also love dogs, but I’m a cat-lady at heart. But, seems like whenever I meet a dog lover, I hear a similar refrain: “Cats? You know they don’t really love you.”
- Words hurt.
- I think there’s a lot that we can unpack there.
Most of what I see as the division between how dog-lovers and cat-lovers view the opposite species is misunderstanding. Cat-lovers can see dogs as needy, overly-friendly, and high maintenance, it’s true. Dog-lovers seem to agree that cats are cold, calculating, and not to be trusted. I think this is because we in general have equated a dog’s traits, man’s best friend, as being the most ideal traits an animal can have. And it’s not just enough for the animal to have the traits of a dog, the loyalty or the loving nature, but also to communicate those feelings like a dog.
This bias for dog traits extends toward other animals as well. The Verge put out an interesting video recently, wherein they examined a 60 year long experiment to “specially (breed) for their dog-like friendliness toward people” in foxes. In the video, the term most often used is “domesticated” in relation to the foxes’ progress. In watching the video, my first and most immediate reaction was not that it was a shame to see that they seemed to have failed or otherwise had a few more steps to clear…
