LadyButterfly she/herCan any scientists confirm this important fact?
š° š š± š¦ š³ š¦ š° š® Dog brings you things because you asked, itās asking to play, or because they wanted to reward you.
Cat brings you things because it thinks you fucking suck at hunting and feeding yourself.
far_university1990āI take care of my human. I bring them mouse once a week, twice after new moon because so dark. Hope they survive on that.ā
My dog gives me stuff all the time. At first I thought it meant he wanted to play with the object, but, nope. Heās just spent the last fifteen minutes fighting the other dog away from it, running around the house with it in his mouth. Then when heās finally āwonā, he gently places it down right in front of me, sits and stares at my eyes, āThis is very important to us dogs, but I love you the most, so you can have it.ā
picks up slobbered cow hoof with a pinch āThank you so much, buddy! How about I hold it, you can chew; we can share.ā
He does do this with the other dog at times too, though. Usually when sheās calmed down and snoozing, heāll bring a treat over to her, watch her accept it, and goes on his way.
Gifting is his love language.
My cat sometimes brings toys because it wants to play. That doesnāt happen too often, though
my other cat is extremely ADHD and he brings me toys many times a day. he runs from the other side of the apartment screaming with the toy in his mouth and then sits next to me until i throw that toy. also if weāre away for several hours he delivers toys on our bed.
My one cat fetches things like 80% of the way. Sure drops them a meter and half in front of me every single time
Confused_EmusTime to get your steps in, human!
I find it sweet when a cat brings toys to the bed, mine does it sometimes, too, even though it doesnāt play on the bed, because we discourage this š
My cat has figured out how to pantomime chasing the dot as his way of asking me to break out the laser pointer.
video proof required
This is a daily occurrence for me. Normally she brings it to the couch, but if Iām late leaving my desk for lunch she will absolutely bring the toy into my office.
My older cat tells me when itās time to get up, when itās bedtime, etc. He woke me up and is currently content with me being on my phone as long as I donāt close my eyes and go back to sleep. In about 20 minutes though heāll decide itās time for me to get up and heāll herd me into the bathroom.
starlingukMy cat played fetch, just like a dog. Cats like playing.
I hate it when people just assume stuff about cats, treat them that way, and then say stuff like ācats are so aloof and they only like me because I feed them.ā
Meanwhile, my neighbourās cat loves my family even though we donāt feed her, because we snuggle her. The person who feeds her just chucks her outside when she gets home. And then she comes to us for scritches.
Sure, the cat that gets fed daily by us and even begs us for food thinks we suck at hunting and feeding ourselvesā¦
It is such a dumb take.
samus12345Agreed. Much more likely itās a sign of affection. āHereās a treat for you, hoomin!ā
Thatās a popular idea Iāve seen, but it doesnāt make a lot of sense when you think about it. Humans are the ones who can magically conjure up food multiple times every single day. Why would they think we suck at acquiring it? It makes more sense as a sign of affection. āHereās a treat for you, hoomin!ā
IheartcheeseAm science. Can confirm.
I mean, she knows Iām much better than her at opening wet food cans.
āThis cat is awful, but Iāll keep it around because it knows how to open the food stones.ā
Sanchez and Thumb Bringer | LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS VOLUME 4 | SMAX ANIMATION
AlexanderIām not so sure my cats and dogs identify as different species tbh
southsamuraiEh, any time someone ascribes motivations to animals, my butthole spasms.
The best that should be said is that the behaviors they exhibit are similar to the behaviors they exhibit for kittens or sometimes sick cats.
Somehow, somebody decided that meant they think weāre bad hunters, and the idea took off because itās funny, but you canāt know what goes on inside the thoughts of other humans reliably, much less other animals.
Thereās competing possibilities that the cats are showing off their kills to their social group, which is not only a common behavior when cats are young, but when theyāre mated, but you donāt see people crowing about them bringing us food to get in our pants.
Overall, cats seem to treat us like other cats. Not exactly the same, but with less distinction than other domesticated animals. Horses, as an example, have a much wider distinction, for equally unprovable reasons.
My personal pet idea is that any sufficiently social animal, including humans, is instinctively going to seek out groups. They/we will negotiate the lack of a unifying language as best as possible, but with plenty of misunderstandings. It isnāt so much that other animals see us as being the same as them. Itās that they donāt really have the need for the distinction; thereās the in group (pride, pack, clan, whatever you want to call it) and out groups. When dealing with the family group, any animal will perform the same basic behaviors that their instincts tell them to.
Domestication just means that a given type of animal has developed or been bred to have, a stronger instinct for social bonding than wild animals, to the degree that theyāll accept other species as family easier.
To add to this, an outside observer would say humans think their pets are little humans, throwing birthday parties, dressing them in clothing, talking to them.
Well, some do seem to think that.
You can pry Mr. Scrufflesā humanity from my cold, dead hands!
Mr Scruffles tax?
No, Mr Scruffles commits tax evasion
Thatās it, youāre part of my pack now!
I think the difference between cats and dogs is mainly tens of thousands of additional years of co-operative evolution. Cats are amazing but dogs you can almost assume can understand your emotions and care, that comes from the absurd length of time dogs and humans have been friends, it is a relationship that far predates other domestication.
I think cats can often understand your emotionsā¦ they just donāt care lol
My personal pet idea
Heh
Cats also know that youāre there. They just donāt give a fuck.
Bullshit.
johsnyCockwomble
Cuntsmurf
All Iāll say is cats meow at humans and they donāt meow at other cats except their own mom. To me this instantly defeats this take.
Itās just a fun post though so Iām not judging.
I kind of am judging. Misrepresenting how science works and what it can and canāt do ia a dangerous game on the age of intentional misinformation. Even if youāre just trying to be cute and fun.
You know what, youāre right, framing it as a āscientific discoveryā isnāt cool.
Cats meow at other cats besides their mother too. Itās a complete myth that they donāt.
I have 4 cats age 11, 11, 6, and 1. I also grew up with cats in my childhood home. In 34 years, I have never had a cat meow at another cat.
My two meow at each other, humans, and the dog.
I have 2 cats. One of them meows at people, cats, dogs, birds, butterflies, toysā¦
The other only meows when sheās suffering horrible torture, like being picked up, or needing to scratch at the door the times without it opening.
Is the first one a siameseā¦?
Extremely chatty critters, thoseā¦
Theyāre both āeuropean shorthairsā we got from the pound. But she might be, sheās definitely chatty and mean like one.
How to say you are not a cat owner without saying you are not a cat owner.
I'm not backing the take itself, as other said it is widely extrapolation, but i don't really understand how the fact that cats meowing only/mostly at their mom and humans would invalidate the theory that humans and cats are the same category in cats' minds, since they use it for both cats and humans. It could indicate that they consider humans kinda like parents cats or just parents, maybe, but i don't see how it indicates that they could consider humans as non cats.
Cats have great singing voices especially when humans are asleep. Do cats sing for humans? Maybe they sing because they love opera?
NaichYou shouldnāt put the words ācatsā and āthinkā in the same sentence.
Correct - cats donāt āthinkā, they know, with a certainty obtained through the kind of instinctual perfection which only cats are enlightened enough to possess.
Swedneckthis is, of course, excepting orange cats.
Then why did you?
Do you even understand the word āthinkā?
I have doubts that any credible and serious scientific discovery would involve this degree of anthropomorphism when it comes to assigning motivation to an animalās behavior.
But letās say I ended up with a hecking case of brain worms who devoured the vast majority of my critical thinking skills and was able to completely ignore that first point, this still doesnāt quite compute. If youāve ever had cats and/or dogs in your life, then you are probably also aware that each one has its own unique personality and behaviors. Even if we assume that they have human-like rationalizations and emotional capacity, does it even make sense to believe that they all uniformly perceive people in the same uniform manner?
Venus_ZiegenfalleI have doubts that any credible and serious scientific discovery would involve this degree of anthropomorphism when it comes to assigning motivation to an animalās behavior.
But letās say I ended up with a hecking case of brain worms who devoured the vast majority of my critical thinking skills and was able to completely ignore that first point, this still doesnāt quite compute.
This part was very obnoxious and not needed fyi.
In all fairness. That is exactly how I feel about your reply.
And now my own.
yrs iz kool
Sure but Lemmy seems to be trying to keep away the redditness and the best way to do that is pointing out when people are deing dicks for no reason.
I mean, heās walking through his very solid reasoning for why the headline fails the sniff test, despite being a factoid that is frequently repeated through many channels by many people.
People talk all the time about how we need to strengthen critical thinking skills in the general public. Outside of formal training, this is what that looks like: a culture of publicly explaining the thought process that leads you to question something that many others have accepted without question. The knee jerk reaction of criticizing such statements as rude or overly negative is a big part of why these skills have such a hard time spreading, since people who have the skills feel itās not socially acceptable to share their conclusions.
Youāre very lenient with what you call a skill considering the part I mentioned doesnāt convey any reasoning. Maybe Iām glossing over something but to me it sounds like a bunch of self-righteous filler. Iām not arguing with the contents of the statement that follows, I actually agree there. I just felt compelled to address the pretentiousness because it almost made me skip the informational part.
āThis claim leans heavily into anthropomorphizing non-human things, and that is very rare in rigorous science. Therefore I suspect this is not an accurate representation of rigorous science.ā
Is clear and valid reasoning
Is clearly conveyed by the part you mentioned
Presents a straightforward reasoning tool people can apply more generally to help them identify cases where scientific results are likely being misrepresented. Exactly the kind of tool that someone can adopt to become better at applying critical thinking in their life.
Is much more useful in a broader set of circumstances than the more specific arguments that appear later in the comment to further deconstruct this specific case.
Itās based on way too many reinterpretations of descriptions of studies into how cats communicate. Basically cats without human interaction will only meow as kittens communicating to their mom and their mother might meow back, and as they grow older they will learn to communicate with each other purely by body language and pheramones. Cats who interact with humans have learned that meowing at us like kittens gets our attention and is effective at communicating with us.
Some have interpreted that to mean cats see us as really strange kittens, which of course gets miscommunicated by well meaning people repeating something they half-remember. It seems the reality is just cats have learned to adjust their behavior to better coexist with humans.
Impressively, cats and their humans also will develop complex enough communication that humans can interpret the need of the cat purely from their meow
At least this is my memory of research I half-remember reading about