Posted on 06/22/2020 2:41:01 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Does nurture or nature matter more when it comes to a cats personality? While many people claim that cat breeds differ in personality, there has been little research in the area. Salonen, Vapalahti, Tiira, Maki-Tanila, and Lohi (2019) thus set forth to examine the behaviors of different cat breeds as well as the heritability of their behaviors that is, the extent to which variation in behaviors are due to genetic variations in the population.
Salonen et al. (2019) surveyed Finnish cat owners on their cats behaviors, which included tendency to seek human contact," aggressiveness towards human family members, strangers, or other cats," and shyness towards strangers or novel stimuli." In total, 5,726 cats were studied. The researchers then separated these cats into 19 breeds. The researchers controlled for environmental factors including weaning age, access to outdoors, presence of other cats, and general characteristics (sex, age of cat) in their analyses. They identified the breeds corresponding with the 10 following behavioral traits:
(Excerpt) Read more at psychologytoday.com ...
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Our cat is a Torti. She is a NUT.
As a long-time cat fancier, I find it kind of silly to make distinctions based on “breed”. 90% of cat owners have a “domestic shorthair” a k a house cat/alley cat, with a few Maine Coons, Persians and Siamese cats thrown in for fun.
I have found that you can get a head start on many cats based on color:
Orange cats: confident, friendly but independent, good hunters, slightly above average smarts,
Tuxedo cats: Friendly, smart, manipulative, more talkative, attaches to both places and people, not especially good hunters.
Grey cats: Good hunters, mild, friendly but not needy.
Long-hair cats: Dim and lazy, likes attention.
Black cats: Can be a bit more skittish, not terrible aggressive, graceful, average friendliness one known.
Tabbies: Friendly, relaxed, above average smarts. Playful. Not very talkative (unless very food motivated).
This is all anecdotal. No science involved. Feel free to counter or confirm.
I had a Russian Blue that liked to fetch brown-paper rolled up into balls. Only brown/grocery bag paper. Excellent hunter as well.
I have an orange/white that, in her prime, would go hunting with me when I lived on the farm. Hunter in her own as well.
We also have a young Siamese mutt. His brother (found in the same box at a car wash) was orange. He likes to kill shrews and moles, and his best friend is a dog.
Our Maine coon is a laid back doll baby who seeks out people for company. She is shy around strangers. She hugs the ground and avoids high places.
Our ocicat is a wild child! She moves at lightning speed, loves people and strangers, acts more like a dog and loves going vertical, perching at the highest levels.
I have a torti with a lot of ginger stripe fur and a personality to match
I have a Torti too and she is a character!
What kind don’t knock things off shelves?
Hell come running , head butt you and plop over on to his side, wanting his belly rubbed.
“What kind dont knock things off shelves?”
The cat breed known as “dog”.
I love cats, but my wife inherited a huge collection of original Picasso ceramics from an aunt. NO CATS ALLOWED.
I had a colony of cats that were descended from a grey longhair, and a chocolate point longhairSiamese. Over the years, I dealt with dozens of kittens. Grey tuxedos differed somewhat from tuxedos, but a lot of what you say holds for my experience. Siamese were 1 in 4 early on, increasing as the likelihood of them becoming the father of succeeding litters. Blacks, whites(Siamese) greys were all in the mix. (Dominat:color : black, double recessive, white, blended, grey) Mixing things up, there was the tuxedo gene, and a longhair gene, thrown in, so rag dolls were a possibility. Most were probably domestic shorthairs generally, but even littermates seemed to have varying behavioral traits , by color.
I have a 13 year old ragdoll cat. Lots of fun. Follows me around the house. Still playful. Always up for adventure.
We have a Norwegian Forest Cat and she is a snot. She bonded only to me and even that is a strange relationship.
She wants a lot of time on my lap but only for a few minutes at a time. She will purr the whole time and when she is done she will hiss, while still purring, then jump down. She will then come back several minutes later to get back on my lap.
I do love her and laugh at her for her antics. She doesn’t seem to like that much.
That is very good. Enjoyed your observations.
Cats have different personalities between breeds?
I grew up in Israel with an Egyptian Mau, a very old breed and pretty much a close cousin of the wild cats in our area.
He used to prance around and basically demand fealty.
My mother said it was because his kind “used to be gods around here”(a true statement) and he had delusions of past glory.
Apex predators in itty bitty body
I would classify all of my cats as complete whackjobs. But they are super friendly and most will talk your ear off.
My oldest tells me when it’s time to eat and when I tell her “don’t yell at me” she really starts talking...
I have one that will run down the hall to get in front of me and flops over on her back to get some scratching on her belly
When I head out to the barn I will have several flop over when they see me as well.
And their all extremely lazy and wouldn’t catch a mouse if it was staked out in front of them.
They love Costco shopping days because of all the really cool boxes they get to play in when we get home.
More a reference to the ever-present cat statues one finds all over the area (even Israel), but yes.
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