Posted on 09/23/2019 5:07:21 PM PDT by Olog-hai
Although cats have a reputation for being aloof, a new study says they bond with humans much like dogs do.
Researchers at Oregon State University discovered that cats — just like dogs and young children — can form secure or insecure bonds with their humans.
“Like dogs, cats display social flexibility in regard to their attachments with humans,” Kristyn Vitale, study author and researcher at Oregon State University’s Human-Animal Interaction Lab, said in a statement. “The majority of cats are securely attached to their owner and use them as a source of security in a novel environment.”
Vitale and her team wanted to study the level of attachment cats have to their owners, so they used a simple attachment test, which has been conducted before on dogs, with cats. The first group of tests was performed with the owners of nearly 80 kittens, all under the age of eight months. They spent time with their owners for two minutes in an unfamiliar room, then the owners left for two minutes, and then the owners returned for another two minutes. According to attachment theory, the different setting would make some cats stressed out without their humans present.
Upon being reunited with their owners, the scientists then watched how the cats behaved upon seeing their owner again. About 65 percent of the cats and kittens were found to be securely bonded to their owners, according to the study.
The bonding finding gives the researchers hope for how many cats could be placed in homes in the future, especially given how many cats and kittens are present in animal shelters. …
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
No kidding. That can opener practically brings the dead back to life.
If “dog people” act that way, they need help. My wife and I have had both for well over 20 years and love them all the same. Though it does feel somewhat special when a particular cat binds with you.
You are so right. Cats bond and cats remember.
A long time ago I was asked to care for a foster cat. It was temporary. Five years later I ‘inherited” the same cat. They handed it to me in a carrier where it had howled, pooped and peed for hours. The minute the cat carrier came into the house the cat stopped crying. I opened the door to the carrier (reluctantly) and the cat came out, walking low, and it immediately recognized where it was.
Five years is a long time. That’s half a life span for some cats. Cats are smart.
...”Raise them right from a young age.”
______________
Completely true. One of our cats was about to go to the vet to get spayed, got outside and came back with a few buns in the oven. Birthed 5, we found good homes for 4 and kept the one. Handled her before her eyes were open - she’s my shadow now.
Again Rush NAILS it.
He has really big exotic cats if my memory serves me.
I can’t recall the breed. My daughter would know.
Just ask my cat.
Go ahead...she’s sitting in my lap right now...
Oh, yeah...in more ways than one.
Toxoplasma gondii
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondi
“A number of studies have suggested that subtle behavioral or personality changes may occur in infected humans,[22] and infection with the parasite has recently been associated with a number of neurological disorders, particularly schizophrenia[16] and bipolar disorder.[23][24]”
Does he? I didn’t think so. He always talks about “Punkin” which seems to be a normal cat.
What I really laugh at is our dog who is afraid of the cats. When they are on the steps, he is upstairs and I call him to go out, he will either resist coming or run past them, given them a wide birth. It's hilarious. Of course he is much bigger but they stand up to him and he runs for cover.
My wife and I have had many cats and many dogs. Siamese cats, by far, show more attachment to humans.
Punkin died in 2013
She was an Abyssinian
The researchers fell for the ol’ “cats pretending to bond with humans” trick.
We once went on vacation for a week, leaving her at a vet / pet boarding house.
When we came back the entire staff greeted us, arms folded. "Is that *YOUR* cat?"
Kitty had been inconsolable the whole week, howling like a banshee, doing somersaults, knocking over her food dish.
From then on, she went with us: to Banff, to Alaska, to the Grand Canyon...
Remind me to tell you how she got us through a TSA checkpoint.
Of course the question is: They needed a study to determine this?
I took one of our little guys for surgery to remove what turned out to be a benign granuloma in the corner of his eye. He had to be kept over night. When I got there the staff were apologetic but apoplectic that he had not allowed them to clean or feed him. He growled, clawed and bit. They did not know if I could get him in the carrier.
When I walked in he melted and came to be let out and just about jumped in the carrier. I cleaned him up and we got ice cream on the way home. They know instinctively who cares for them. They are also a whole lot smarter than people give them credit for. They mistake independence for lack of intelligence.
If they don’t like you they will let you know.
“I think the kind of relationship a cat his with you is totally dependent on your personality.”
i think it’s dependent upon how much time one spends interacting with ones cats, especially when they are very young.
My cats are very communicative (and very specific) about the many things they want and how they want them done, but it’s because i took the trouble to listen and observe them when they first started to try and communicate and would carry out their requests, and as they understood that I understood and responded, they would attempt more and more complex requests ...
“That’s why its best to have them declawed”
it’s extremely destructive of their health (and horribly cruel) to have cats declawed, it’s the equivalent of having the first joint of each finger and toe of a human removed, and as a consequence, it’s illegal to declaw cats in many states and municipal jurisdictions ...
https://www.google.com/search?q=declawing+cats+health+issues
The actor was interviewed on “Fox & Friends” a while back. The one where he played a car thief was funny, but it got old after it was shown hundreds of times.
“What about that billion years of tiger DNA”
oh, it’s there and fully manifest in feral cats. But so-called domesticated cats, if handled by humans from their birth and taken care of by humans from birth, essentially never fully exit kittenhood, and will treat their human caregivers as if we are their mother(s) ... adult “domesticated” cats are in effect just big kittens who view us as their mothers ...
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