Just as my cat Cam dropped a rolled-up sock on my lap and
gave me a wide-eyed look of anticipation, my eye caught a link to an article in
the National Geographic Daily News: “What Do Cats Think About Us? You
May Be Surprised.”
I tossed the sock into the next room, clicked on the link
and, true to the title, I was
surprised.
The researcher (and author of the book "Cat
Sense") is John Bradshaw, a cat behavior expert at the University of
Bristol in the United Kingdom. Bradshaw
says that although dogs recognize us as a different species and treat us
accordingly, cats don’t seem to understand that we’re not, well, other
cats.
Bradshaw has observed that as soon as dogs see their owners,
they change their behavior. The way they
play with people is nothing like the way they play with each other. But cats, he says, are different: All that head bumping, wrapping around our
legs and grooming us is exactly what cats do to each other.
To some extent, I agree with this expert. My two cats do
sometimes treat me like another cat, especially when they nip my toe and run
away because they aren’t getting the attention they want. Brats!
They pick on each other in very similar ways. But I wonder if Mr. Bradshaw has any personal
cats at home. If he does, maybe they
don’t display some of the behaviors that, to me, seem like unique cat-to-human
interaction.
For example, the sock Cam just dropped in my lap. I’ve never seen either cat take a toy to the
other and drop it in front of him. Cam
loves to play, and he meows loudly and pounds relentlessly on the drawer where
his toys are kept. He’ll interrupt that
behavior by jumping into my lap and staring at me until I make eye contact;
then it’s back to the meowing and thumping. He doesn’t run to his brother and
ask him to open the drawer. He knows I’m
the toy guy. Ditto for food. They both know I’m the food guy.
In addition to carefully observing cat-to-human behavior,
Bradshaw spent many hours watching the interaction among groups of cats. His research led him to one conclusion that
I’ve been harping on to my clients for many years: Cats are sociable, but not to the degree dogs
are. Although many dogs enjoy being
around other dogs, cats might not care for company as much as their owners
think they do. So before you run out and
bring home another cat, remember that your cat already has one or more big,
clumsy pseudo-cats in its environment:
us. And we may be enough.
