With how vast the internet is, and how much of it is dedicated to cats and dogs, do you ever wonder how they feel about each other? Assuming we were somehow able to communicate the complexities of the internet (without factoring in how we barely understand the depths of the internet ourselves) to cats and dogs. Assuming that were to happen, and assuming they were able to communicate with us back, what do you think would happen?
I, for one, think that the long-running rivalry between cats and dogs would come back. As most of the internet is dominated by cat pictures and cat-related memorabilia, odds are that there will be war. Dogs are pack animals, whereas cats are solitary, so I imagine that dogs would, like many internet raid groups, go along and downvote a lot of cat memes wherever they see them, and cats, being solitary, won’t be able to fight back. So this is for the cats!
Source: Imgur
The ScienceMag wrote on the following:
Carl the cat was born to beat the odds. Abandoned on the side of the road in a Rubbermaid container, the scrawny black kitten—with white paws, white chest, and a white, skunklike stripe down his nose—was rescued by Kristyn Vitale, a postdoc at Oregon State University here who just happens to study the feline mind. Now, Vitale hopes Carl will pull off another coup, by performing a feat of social smarts researchers once thought was impossible.
In a stark white laboratory room, Vitale sits against the back wall, flanked by two overturned cardboard bowls. An undergraduate research assistant kneels a couple of meters away, holding Carl firmly.
They continued with:
“Carl!” Vitale calls, and then points to one of the bowls. The assistant lets go.
Toddlers pass this test easily. They know that when we point at something, we’re telling them to look at it—an insight into the intentions of others that will become essential as children learn to interact with people around them. Most other animals, including our closest living relative, chimpanzees, fail the experiment. But about 20 years ago, researchers discovered something surprising: Dogs pass the test with flying colors. The finding shook the scientific community and led to an explosion of studies into the canine mind.
Cats like Carl were supposed to be a contrast. Like dogs, cats have lived with us in close quarters for thousands of years. But unlike our canine pals, cats descend from antisocial ancestors, and humans have spent far less time aggressively molding them into companions. So researchers thought cats couldn’t possibly share our brain waves the way dogs do.
Yet, as cats are apt to do, Carl defies the best-laid plans of Homo sapiens. He trots right over to the bowl Vitale is pointing at, passing the test as easily as his canine rivals. “Good boy!” Vitale coos.
Carl isn’t alone. After years when scientists largely ignored social intelligence in cats, labs studying feline social cognition have popped up around the globe, and a small but growing number of studies is showing that cats match dogs in many tests of social smarts. The work could transform the widespread image of cats as aloof or untamed. It also may eventually offer insight into how domestication transformed wild animals into our best friends, and even hint at how the human mind itself changed over the course of evolution.
That is, if the cats themselves deign to participate.
What did you think? Tell us down in the comments below!