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Asked by mrtea to Alan, Caspar, Diana, Murray, Sarah on 19 Mar 2011 in Categories: Your Research.
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Sarah Thomas answered on 18 Mar 2011:
Well I have a 14 week old puppy called Banjo. He is a black curly labrdoodle, who is teething at the moment and therefore chewing everything! He very cool, I’ve taught him to sit, paw, the other paw, lie down and roll over! He is very clever.
This means I am therefore biased and unable to give you an open minded scientific view…
If I had to say one thing though – at least dogs are useful, cats are rubbish and don’t even do what they are told!
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Caspar Addyman answered on 18 Mar 2011:
Definitely dogs.
The day I was born my father brought home a tiny black labrador puppy. So I’ve grown up with dogs from the very beginning. My mum tells me that Jake learned to behave much faster than Caspar the baby.
I don’t have a dog at the moment because I am not always in the UK and living in london there isn’t enough space for dogs to run around. If i lived in the countryside, I’d quite like to have a Great Dane.
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Diana Drennan answered on 18 Mar 2011:
Both !! I grew up with both.
I like dogs because they are social and always ready to walk or run or play (and not only when they want to). They are so eager to please all the time that it’s endearing. I had a dog that wanted to go in the car all the time. she would stick her nose into the window crack and breathe deeply and woof at the passing cars and look so happy. If I was getting ready to go out with her and took my time, she’d jump up and “punch” my butt with her front feet as if to say “come on ! hurry up !!”
I like cats because they are cuddly – they’ll come and sit quietly on your lap and purr. It’s very relaxing. (and they don’t chew your shoes). When I was pregnant, the cat would come and sit on my lap. As my belly got bigger, my lap got smaller and she would sit on my belly instead. Eventually, the baby would kick hard enough that the cat would feel it. She would stand up, look at my belly, look at me as if to say “what did you do that for ?”, then lay down again. Near the end of my pregnancy, she got so tired of that, she started laying next to me on the couch instead…..
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Alan Winfield answered on 18 Mar 2011:
From a scientific point of view I’ve always been puzzled by the difference between cats and dogs. You see, they have both been domesticated over thousands of years – selective breeding has resulted in cats and dogs that are (mostly) very comfortable living with people. Yet why is it that cats and dogs have such different characters? Dogs seem to want to be liked by humans, yet cats appear very aloof – as if they can take us or leave us. Do you have any ideas why this is?
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Murray Collins answered on 19 Mar 2011:
To eat or to keep you company? Some people eat both, but I would rather eat neither. To play with I am probably more of a dog person these days as they seem to be happiest to go around with people, whereas cats seem to have their own agenda!
In response to Alan’s question about the differences between cats and dogs I think it is due to the social systems of the species which our domesticated animals were bred from.
Cats (Felidae) in general are more solitary creatures, whereas the dogs (Canidae) are social creatures. In social mammals you will have a social hierarchy, with a dominant individual (Alpha male/female) to whom the rest of the individuals in the group are submissive. When you have a pet dog, you take the role of the Alpha. Sometimes you see people shout at their dog which may seem a little nasty but it is probably necessary to maintain that relationship, where the owner is dominant. That is why training is so important. A poorly trained dog may attempt to achieve dominance through aggressive behaviour. So really the training is about establishing control and the pecking order.
Cats generally don’t have these social structures, and so we cannot relate to them in the same way. Lions are an obvious example of social cats, however our house cats were definitely not bred from this species!
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