I live with five cats & their thinking ability is every bit on a level with a dog’s. They are smart & affectionate.
I used to have a cartoon I wish I could find now. It showed two people talking together & a room filled with cats wandering about. One person is saying to the other, “I really didn’t like cats, until I tried one. And then another one, & another, & another...”
If a cat is socialized from early on, as with almost any other animal, they will make the best companions on earth.
And really, why do cat haters insist on getting on cat threads & making snide comments. That’s a behavior I have trouble understanding.
We had a dog, Scooby, we loved, who died almost two years ago.
We also had a latecomer "wild" younger cat I found abandoned and eating birds and lizards; I brought him home to find him a home.
The cat, Ace did NOT want to make friends, but eventually there was a spirit of toleration. Until the dog got to that age when he was close to the end of his life. When he stopped chasing balls I knew the end was on the horizon.
It took almost a year, but the last few months the now domesticated Ace finally did something I'll never forget.
Every day he took to snuggling with Scooby in Scooby's bed, something he had not ever done or been tolerated by Scooby, the previous 8 years.
Scooby died with a new best Bud at the end.
Ace joined his canine friend a few months ago.
Cat hater? No— we value them as mouser/ratters. Comment had just as much to do with dogs-— as BOTH of these are animals, not people, and inasmuch as the poster’s article talked about how owners of cats are obsessed with them and put their own “analysis” into their obsession/needs for anthropomorphism about what is essentially animal behaviour. Farm has horses, cattle, sheep-— and wild coyote, eagles, barred and great horned owls— all of whom predate on our little dogs and cats on occasion, particularly cats at night who learn to stay in the bard. Coyotes focus on trying to supplement their usual rodent diet by killing the calves after smelling and tracking the afterbirth during calving time, from the breeder cows. The coyote we shoot regularly, on sight, and kitties try to keep close inside at night. Large veterinary bill for all the above.
Guess we differ as zoological knowledge vs. urbanized projected affection needs. Like we see at the “model” farms kids are taken to see. They are— all of them- animals. And we differ on the “socialization” level of any animal that is not bred for domestication. Stop feeding them and watch them regress to normal natural behaviour. Will say that certain cats will rat/mouse even when fully fed- so that is not “socialized” at all. Pure instinct. Light, smell and movement, and.. stalking.
Not being nasty, just uncomfortably (apparently) factual.
BTW- we take in cats urban types dump, despite their “liking” cats in the abstract apparently. Cruelty itself to do so, but those who make it here do just fine. Would say the “dumpers” truely do hate cats, and the dogs they dump as well.