2023-12-16 20:34:39
They have a reputation for being surly, independent, manipulative, selfish and even vengeful. If you have a cat, it is often said, it is not he who lives in your house, but you in his. Nothing to do with dogs, much more affectionate, faithful and intelligent.
Numerous studies, however, have for years claimed both the intelligence and social capabilities of domestic felines. And it turns out that they are just as smart or even smarter than dogs, and also just as sociable, they just express those qualities and feelings in a very different way. Domestic animals, all of them, usually look for ways to adapt to human needs and customs. Cats, like dogs, recognize and love their owners, establish strong bonds, relationships and exclusive behavior patterns with them and, of course, share games with them.
Regarding the latter, about games, the magazine ‘Scientific Reports‘ publishes this week a study on cats that practice one of their favorite activities with their owners: searching for things. And it focuses on those who, like dogs, run to look for an object that their owner has previously thrown at them.
The surprising thing, however, is that in most cases it is not the human who starts the game, nor the one who ends it, but rather the cat who decides when the activity begins and when it ends.
I rule here
According to the study, led by Jemma Forman, from the University of Sussex, in the United Kingdom, until now there has been very little study of “the ease with which domestic animals can manipulate their human caregivers for their own purposes. Here we present the results of a survey of 924 cat owners who reported search behavior observed in 1,154 cats. “The overwhelming majority (94.4%) of these owners report that the search arose in the absence of prior training.”
The findings also highlight the variety of objects that cats prefer to run for, including hair ties and bottle parts, such as stoppers or corks. In their article, Forman and his colleagues explain that all the owners were asked to tell how the game of ‘toss and fetch’ first arose, how many times the game was played per month, what objects were preferred by their cats and who used to start or end the activity.
Thus, the authors found that 59% of cats who played fetch did so up to ten times a month and 55% picked them up up to five times before getting tired. The cats also started and finished the games more frequently than their owners, and they tended to play more often and for longer when they initiated the games.
In summary, the results indicate that cats tend to control search games or, in other words, they are the ones who say what is played, when to start playing and when to finish.
No prior training
94% of the cats studied had not been previously trained by their owners, and 61% of them began fetching objects when they were less than a year old. Although some owners reported that their cat could have learned from another animal, only 23% of those in the study lived with a dog or another cat capable of playing fetch.
Of the 160 cats identified as purebred, Siamese cats were the most active breed in the game (36 cats), followed by the Bengal (16) and the Ragdoll (12). The authors also discovered that cats showed individual preferences for both the objects and family members they preferred to play with, as well as the places they liked to play most.
J. M. N.
While cat toys accounted for just under 40% of the objects used in play, the majority of cats’ preferred objects were those found around the home, such as hair ribbons, bottle caps, or things that the owners threw them casually, like crumpled paper. The most common places to start the fetch game were bedrooms and stairs.
This may all sound familiar to many cat owners. And that also includes the person who signs these lines, absolutely aware that, when it comes to playing, they are the ones who decide how, with whom, when, where and what is played.
#fun #decide #played