I have a cat that will flop down and roll onto her back exposing her belly every time I approach her. Then she gets tummy rubs.
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Serious question: I see this thing about cats not being pack animals but you rarely see them alone in the wild. Most often than not they get together to form feral colonies with complex rules and behaviors and shared territory.
How does this work? What evidence and studies demonstrate that colonies aren’t natural behavior for cats?
We know that there’s no “alpha” wolf bullshit in dogs, right? The guy that coined the term retracted his study. It’s more like children following their parents/elders than a supposed anthropomorphic hierarchy.
Logic dictates that feral cat colonies are desirable for cats since they tend to form them all the time, so why people keep thinking that cats are loners? It makes zero sense. Could it be that we are bad at recognizing horizontal hierarchy structures in animals? Or that their existence doesn’t fit a narrative of cats as aloof?
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Perhaps feral cats retain enough of their domesticated behavior to form colonies? Certainly wild species of small cats seem to mostly be loners as adults*. Make no mistake house cats ARE domesticated, not just tamed. We have changed them, evolving them over time to be more social. There is a wide variety in how socialized individual cats are. But on average they are not as devoted and dependent emotionally on their owners as dogs are.
*edited to add as adults.
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I would really like to see some scientific research on the nature of feral cat colonies, it’s a bit counter to think that they are a side effect of human domestication but if there’s proof it would make for a fascinating read.
I only have anecdotal evidence of 30+ years knowing about 100 cats, but the only aloof ones that I have seen are the ones whose owners raised them to be like this. There’s no evidence of born or inherent aloofness in kitten, they learn from us.
With that being said, I don’t think it’s wise to search for “dog’s devotion level” on cats more than in rabbits, parrots, pigs or any other domesticated pet. It doesn’t mean that one pet species is more attached than other, just that the way they express said attachment has its own characteristics.
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I’m no catologist, but if you look at the ancestors/closest relatives of domestic cats, they’re not pack animals - in fact, as far as I know lions are the only species of cats who form communities, others are either full-on loners or form pairs only for a short time for mating purposes.
As for domestic and feral domestic cats, I think it’s simply because there’s so many of them (especially in cities, especially with the rate they reproduce), sharing relatively small/cramped spaces and food sources. They can’t avoid one another and they can’t have their own territories and food sources. In the wild a situation like this would lead to fights, but most animals tend to gravitate toward solutions to avoid fighting. Colonies are a peaceful solution. But even in feral cat colonies you don’t really see the sort of pack dynamics you see with canines, elephants, etc. it’s more like a sort of loose alliance. Like, housemates but not family.
Growing up I spent a lot of time in the countryside, and while I saw plenty of feral cats (they were definitely not “free-range domestic” - they weren’t fed, cared for or used in any way, and many of them likely crossbred with wild cats) but I never saw colonies of them like in cities, in fact they tended to avoid one another, and the farmers’ actual domestic cats. I assume it’s because they had plenty of space for territories, and didn’t depend on having the same food sources, they just hunted as they pleased.
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my current dog knows the difference between now, not now, soon, later and tomorrow. like a young child he isn’t a big fan of later but will wait a few hours to remind me. i even use “soon soon” (double) to indicate a shorter soon to him and the little effer totally gets it.
same with tomorrow, if i tell him he is going to go see his brother tomorrow, he wakes me up the next day so excited. or if i tell him i have work tomorrow he wakes me up by pawing my face and whimpering. he doesn’t like when i go to the office. that at least indicates he remembers what i told him the day before about the current day.
i don’t think he understands the constructs of the abstract concepts, but he certainly knows the reality of them and what i’m meaning, similar to how a young child might. he is a very smart doggo with words and i’ve had a few doggos in my life. he also very actively watches tv and listens to people, where most dogs i’ve had didn’t register what was on the screen most of the time or pay attention to conversations not directed at them.
sure they don’t think like humans, but they aren’t dumb either, our fellow mammals can be unsurprisingly capable and well adapted.
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