Cat People

cat person. But every day, it seems there's at least one moment where I looked down and I see this three carnivorous creature with a with a face like a like a demented angel, working up at me, and and and for at least a second, I have this sober moment where I just realized how strange the whole thing

is that did here. This this creature lives in my house now, exclusively in the house, with just a little porch on the outside of the house that she can access so that she doesn't run away or be run off by feral hordes in the evenings, as was the

case a few months back. Um. But but yeah, I have this moment where I'm just I just realized how strange it is that we that I have this relationship with this other species and that it and that you know, you can you can go crazy and start calling it like love or friendship or whatever, or you can or you can strip it down to just base scientific realities,

which we're going to do in this podcast. But there's this bond there and it's it's strange and it's and it's pretty ancient and uh and it's really fascinating to really pick it apart and look at just why this relationship exists. Yeah. I've thought about this before too, just and I've thought about it in the way of you know, you always here that the Eskimos have you know, X amount of words for the words snow because it's so

important to them. And then I think about my cat Owen in the amount of nicknames that I have for him, such as the importance um of him to me, you know, and then my husband will look at me so oddly some days when I just, you know, out of thin air create a new nickname same like you know, so rushed about I don't know, uh own and Ski in the Sunshine seven. It just goes on and on and on like that. It's pure nonsense. But I have thought before to what extent am I just insane? Or is

this cat bringing out the insanity in me? And that's what we're going to talk about today. Um as cat people and you dog people out there to tune into this, because I think it would be very interesting to get your insights onto what degree you feel like you're being manipulated by your furry little creature. Right at two points I want. First of all, I think everybody I know

who happens to have a cat have multiple names. And my wife and I we have multiple names for ours given name Biscuit, Biscuit cat Heath on the official forms, but we we call everything like Bosco Bisco, the Scotty Sisty B yard Master B. While she's no longer yard Master B. Now she's just housemaster b Um Bruskie d with I don't know where that one came from, but you know, you just end up rattling off all these names and the cat doesn't know. The cat doesn't recognize

its own name. It just it works more with tone. I understand. But uh, and then the second point that you made, Wait now I forgot the second point. I got manipulation. No, there was another point. What was it? Oh? Yes, cat people. Uh. If you're new to the podcast and you're thinking, oh, well, Robert Julie, their cat people, that this is their bias at play. I will point out we do have an earlier episode titled does My Dog

Really Love Me? And that one explores the bond between humans and dogs, which, despite the kind of snarky title, is a is a fair and balanced look at the scientific bond link between canines and humans. Yeah, and we also talk a lot about oxytocin exchange. This is the field gives hormone, and we won't talk about that so much today because a lot of that's in play and we covered it. That's what cat's end dogs, so we

know already that it's a beneficial baby. It's the eyes of the baby to pick it up and all sorts of hormonal things are We all snuggle with our with our cats and dogs and we feel better for it and they do too. Um. So let's talk a little bit about the stats here, because according to Scientific American in their article the Evolution of house Cats, a third of American households have feline members and more than six

hundred million cats live among humans worldwide. This brings us back to our previous episode on the bat, where we pointed out that the bat is arguably the most successful mammal on the planet when you take into account that both domestic cats and the rat have had a little human help and spreading. Yeah, indeed, so the cat has very much had our our help. There. We're partners in crime with the cats and and they're everywhere for it.

That's true. And uh, we know this. We know that a cat is a descendant of the African wildcat, and that the domestication of the cat has been in the years, making uh something up to like twelve thousand years and then making Yeah, you look back on the what we can piece together about the history of humans and cats. I mean we you can you can look back to ancient cultures like the Egyptians. Obviously they had a love of the domestic cat. They they would mummify the cat.

We have the remains, you've seen the cute little sarcophagi that remained today in our museums. But yeah, when we start looking at the fossil evidence, it's, uh, it's pretty fascinating. Uh, as far as we can tell, you know, cats were first domesticated roughly twelve thousand years ago, and it's worth trying to remember what else was happening at that time about twelve thousand years ago. Also, agricultural societies were really beginning to flourish in the Middle East, in the Fertile Crescent.

That's where this is happening. So we've been hanging out with dogs for a while. Humans and dogs went way back because what we were we doing, we were roaming around, digging stuff out of the ground. We were we were chasing down animals, treating them, pulling them down, cooking them up, throwing a few scraps to the to the wolf like animals that gathered on the the the outskirts of our fire. And so we had this bond with the dog because the dog could get something from us, could and could

offer something in return. The cats really didn't have anything in the game up until that point. But then we started growing our own food. And one of the great things, i mean, the society culture building things about agriculture is that you're able to grow a surplus. You're able to grow enough to sustain you through the through the winter months. You you grow enough to where where food becomes dominant enough that you don't everyone doesn't have to engage in

the creation of it. People can specialize in other things. And out of that though, again you have this surplus of food setting around, so income the rodents to to help you with that surplus of food. There's like, I see you've got some some extra food there, Let me help. And then the cats come and they say the same thing, but they're talking about the rodents. They say, hey, I see you have some some my thing and out around

your food. Let me eat them. And as this happened, suddenly we're living in the same space as those cats. We see that the cats are doing something that benefits us, and uh and and they bond begins to form, domestication begins to take hold, which makes perfect sense because cats really are mainly solitary creatures. I mean, they do bond with humans, and they do bond with other cats and sometimes dogs, but they don't hang out in packs as dogs do. And as you noted, a dog would you know,

follow around and have a pact mentality. Um. So, once we established ourselves and weren't as nomadic and yes, all of a sudden we were storing lots of grain, then that situation could allow for domestication. And this is pretty cool. Mitochondrial genetic analyzes shows that domestic cats are likely descended from five mother cats from this region, the Fertile Crescent and whose descendants were transported across the world by humans.

And then in five five the mitochondrial eaves of the cat world and the earliest evidence of cat human reaction comes from archaeological remains in Cyprus dated two around undred years ago. Um and I interpret this as archaeological remains in terms of depiction of Yes, Cyprus is pretty interesting and how it impacts our our ability to understand the

history of our relationship with cats. Uh three, Archael just found a job owed dating back eight thousand years two thousand four, they found a site about fifteen hundred years old that that showed a human buried with a cat. And and one of the things that's important with Cyprus, this is an island. And so the argument here is wildcats are not just wandering up making boats and traveling over.

Humans are not going to bring I mean, if you've ever trapped a feral cat or in a cage and seeing how wild it is, your your first thought is not, hey, let me take that on a little boat with me. You've taken on a boat ride and release it all the way over in Cyprus. No, it's uh, it's a it's not something you want to to travel with so the ideas that they brought over domesticated animals, right, which

again would be great for pest control on a ship. UM. I should also point out that Uh, in ancient Rome, cats were also prized by scholars because mice are going to get into your house. Not only they're gonna go after your grain, but they're gonna go after your your paperwork. You're gonna go after your your manuscripture scrolls. Right. So the cat becomes surprised in this society because he's gonna

help you protect your information, which I thought was pretty fascinating. UM. And I mentioned that Egypt already, but just to put that in in sort of grizzly context, scientists found a cat cemetery in Benny Hassan Uh that apparently contained three hundred thousand cat pies. And you know they had they had Bastete, the Egyptian goddess of love, with the head

of a cat. Um and UH. To be convicted of killing a cat in Egypt often meant a death sentence, which which reminds me of there's an HP Lovecraft story called The Cats of of Althar where it's like a modern setting but the cats kind of run the show and if anyone kills a cat there then meet with death. But it's at the hands of the cats. It is interesting too from a cultural perspective, because I was just thinking about how we house cats and and give them

a nice, pretty place to live. In other parts of the world there's roaming around, like literally in Rome where there are so many cats, it's almost like their pigeons. Yeah, it's also interesting to look at the again, that's like the relationship you go back to, you know, ancient Egiant, Middle East Greece people have this bond with the cat. But for a long time in Europe it's during the Middle Ages you see them um associated with evil and

the night uh and particularly with witches. Uh. Not to derail too much into witchcraft, which we hope to cover in a little in an upcoming episode, but I was reading about witchcraft in England and uh and at the time, persecuting witches in England was a little, uh, little tamer than it was on the continent, because in the continent you could use all sorts of torture to get exactly the kind of ridiculous uh store array of satanic intrigue

that you wanted, you know, it's like, basically, here's the script. You just torture the person until they reproduce it. But you can use these methods um to the full extent in England. So the story has tended to be far less wild and but and one charge in particular found its way into a lot of the accounts, and that is that this old woman is living in this house

by herself except for this strange cat. Clearly, what's going on here is the cat is there familiar, it's a demon, and she is suckling it with some sort of bizarre third nipples somewhere. Of course, yeah, that makes total sense. But it wasn't like the the six hundreds until they

really got over all that in Europe. I was gonna say, I can see how people would look to a cat and think that it might have some sort of magical attributes to it, only because if you've ever seen a cat jump up like ten feet in there on you know, some sort of surface that's maybe like, you know, two inches wide, it does seem sort of like this magical, crazy skill. And uh so I can see how the

imagination would lend itself to that. They seem like they can teleport, they can their masters of of stealthy movement and uh, and all of this comes down to what are what are they basically designed for? What if they

evolved to do? They're killing machines machines? Yeah, um recently an article came out about this and uh and I thought it was very interesting because, according to George Fenwick, he's the president of American Bird Conservacy, cat predation is one of the reasons why one in three American bird species are in decline. And if you have a cat that has access to the outdoors, you're you're probably familiar

with this. Chances are they have brought home either a live board bird or a portion of a live bird, or some sort of bloody trophing that may or may not have come from the insides of a bird. But the thing is that, apparently, umu, the cats only bring home a quarter of what they kill, so left forty rod where they died. So if your animals bringing home bloody trophies, just remember that you're only seeing part of

the equation here. Yeah, this is really interesting to Researchers at the University of Georgia attached something called kitty cams to sixty cats, so each owner would put a small video camera mounted on a breakaway collar on the cat in the morning, and then let the cat out, and then they'd removed this camera and mountain and they would download the footage of the carnage. Really basically a Faces of Death, except except with some of some added napping

and and butt licking thrown in. Yes, yes, but looking yeah, well and that's a different kind of thing. But um. Each cat's activities were recorded for seven to ten days, and the cats usually spent anywhere from like four to six hours outdoors. But the really the most surprising thing they found is that the majority of the house house cats weren't hunters, and that only forty percent of the cats in the study again house cats uh stopped chased

or killed other animals during the day. And another thing they discovered is that and then you'll have to think about this in next time your cat cozy's up to you and and nezzles you. Um. Cats were seen eating road kill, climbing down into storm trains and lapping up sewer water, and eating insects like walking sticks and earthworms. Well, the bug eating doesn't bother me. That doesn't so much either. I think it's it's probably more the road kill and

certainly the risky behavior. You know, because because and I say this is, you know, the cat that we have, Biscuit wandered up to us as like an outdoor previously owned animal, and then was outdoor for a little bit, then indoor outdoor for a long time, and then we moved to an area where there was a feral pack nearby, and she's getting kind of kind of up there, and the best theory that we have is that it came to the point where she couldn't defend her turf anymore.

The the young you know, criminal element came around and they said, hey, this is our turf now, and she's like, all right, that's cool, I'll find some more humans, I guess. And so we had to find her, bring her back, and now she's indoor. But but ye had just to to to know all the dangers that this animal to give this bond with can encounter during the day in

an outdoor environment, particularly in an urban environment. Yeah, and a lot of this was caught on camera so they could say, yeah, cats do actually engage in risky behavior, I mean, are younger ones and the other side, because I know this becomes an argument between cat owners, you know,

the whole outdoor versus indoor outdoor scenario. I mean, the other side is that, yes, an indoor cat is safer, but they they spend six days the indoor oudoor and spend six d eight hours outdoor because they love it. That's what they've evolved to do. They've evolved to live in an outdoor environment, eating varmints, not living in a living room, chasing balls and listening to whistles and you know,

and eating all day. So it's it's it's weird. We find this is what happens when humans manipulate the course of nature. We find ourselves and in uh, in some strange and not particularly satisfying places. You know. Holly Fry of pop stuff is our residant cat experts. Oh did she like cats? That's a joke. Um, yeah, yeah, she's she's the one. She's got the library. Yeah, we all come to her, We do all all our cat questions

and problems. She will answer them. Um. But she had told me that this is interesting that in feral cat colonies that they actually work in concert, almost like a pack together, and that they will take turns in groups, both sleeping in different places and hunting, so we'll share a particular space whether or not author using it to hunt or to sleep in together, which shows a level

of cooperation I didn't realize was actually in cats. Yeah, And I mean the feral situation is it's a whole topic unto itself, because then we we've you know, it's like, do you we want to control that in that population because it's an invasive species. It's killing all of these birds and and shipmunks and what have you, um and uh, and potentially endangering domestic cats. You don't necessarily know what kind of of diseases the feral pack is carrying and

potentially in you know, in getting involved with your cats. Uh. But then you you get into arguments, all right, to what extent can you actually do a spay and neuter program? You're never gonna get one of those programs. But then again, if you just go in and wholesale exterminate stray cats, other ferrells are going to move into the area anyway. So it's again humans start messing with the natural swing of things, and and everything gets a messy pretty quickly,

it does. It does. Um, well, let's talk about their anatomy that how what makes them such stealthy killers. Yes. One of the things I thought was really interesting is that twenty six of their two forty four bones reside in their tails, and this is actually what allows them to have the sort of crazy balancing powers that they have. UM, and the movement powers. And they also have a detached clavical which allows a catch shoulders to move back and forth in rhythm with its legs and kind of squeeze

through the space. Says that they do. And cats can feel vibrations on the ground with their paws, which alerts them to the potential prey. Yeah. You you get a taste of that. Whenever you you have like a blanket out the cat is walking across it. You know, you can tell how tenderly they're walking and how how closely they're analyzing the attention of the surface underneath. You know

they're there. Or if you have a toddler tearing down the hallway, you know, another room away, you can automatically look at the cat and the cat will sense it first, whether or not you can hear. It's really interesting. Um. Another thing about them is their whiskers are rooted really deeply into their face, and that's an area that's rich nerves and blood vessels, and these whiskers are so sensitive that they can detect the slightest directional change in the wind.

And of course, uh, and of course they also have excellent hearing. If you've ever you've ever watched a cat just setting there, like even when they appear to be kind of asleep and they're not completely asleep, their ears are very active. There's a sound on the other side of the house, and you'll see there there you're sort of listen to that. There's something going on outside. They're kind of half listening to that as well, so they kind of move slowly like a little satellite dish. That's

what I've noticed. Um. And then another really cool aspect of cats I think is just the mechanics of their per boxes. Right. It's thought that the laryngeal muscles are responsible for the opening and closing of the glottis and this is the space between the vocal cords, and this results in a separation of the vocal cords producing the pur sound. And then purring is really unique. And then it's a result of both the inhalation as well as the exhalation, as opposed to account just me owing and

using the exhalation. So there are a number of different theories as to why they purr. It's it's one of these behavioral questions that we're still figuring out an answer too. Uh. Veterinarians generally suggest that purring on a basic level, especially between a kitten and it's mom, is saying, hey, hey mom, it's me. I'm all right, I am here, and it's

also a part of their bonding mechanism. But obviously there's something else going on, or there's more going on in other situations, for instance, when cats purr to their humans, what's that about, right? Well, yeah, But here's the interesting thing too, is that um Dr Elizabeth Vaughan mougen Paler has suggested that the per with its low frequency vibrations,

is a natural healing mechanism. So sometimes you hear a cat per when it it is injured or or very upset, as you know as well as you know when you're petting in and it's experiencing some sort of pleasure from that.

But it's interesting that she says that purring maybe linked to the strengthening and repairing of bones, relief of pain, and wound healing, and that made me think about some of the studies that we've seen before concerning meditation and chanting and the vibration actually in the fruit very healing, yeah, for the body, and a lot of that though have to do more with inflammation in mucus. But I thought

that was an interesting detail. But I think that when we're talking about purring, you're talking about, um, the ways in which we can well cats can manipulate us. But before we get to that, I wanted to talk a little bit about mimicry. So I don't do you have you ever heard a cat like mimic a bird? Oh? Yeah, yeah,

to the extent that it sounds like a bird. I'm not I'm not all that convinced, but certainly they have a particular sound in the same way that there's a They make a certain sound when they're encountering cats that they probably don't like, which generally is all of them,

you know, It's that kind of kind of thing. But then there's that noise that they make when they see a cat, generally through the window, uh, you know, generally asking where they can't get to the cat, I mean, they can't get to the bird, and so they're just setting there watching and getting a little agitated and excited, and the next start going, yeah, it's so odd because those vocalizations really do sound bird like, and my cat will just kind of sluice his face up to the

window and do that and just look, you know, apopolectic. I mean, he looks like he's about to go nuts. But I thought there was really a cool mimicry A bit a piece of information here. In this two thousand and ten Live Science article, they reported that a wild cat species in the Amazon imitates a call of its intended victim, which is a small squirrel sized monkey known as a pied tamarin. They're super cute. Ever seen them before as well? I'm sure they are cute and tasty

to a cat um. So when the cat mimics the monkeys call, the tamarins are then compelled to come out and come down out of their trees and investigate because it's like, what's that familiar yet unfamiliar voice I hear? And then when they do that, of course the cat pounces. That was a little bit frightening, But it's the key here those two is to think of that power and that ability as as we try to understand cat's interactions with humans. They they there is this this inborn ability

to mimic prey. To what extent are they using that mimicry mimicry power to hack the human being that presumably on them? All right, well, let's ponder that for a moment, take a quick break, and then when we get back we will see to what extent they're manipulating us. All right, we're back, um, just to to rewind us a little bit real quick. We're talking about purring, and it's heltive properties. Uh. If you were into poetry or you're just into cats, uh,

check out a poem by Coleman Barks titled Purring. This was featured September eight on Garrison Keeler is the Writer's Almanac, and it's a really beautiful poem that equates purring with poetry and uh and and talks a little bit about the science. I can't read the whole thing, I'll link to in the blog post, but there's a great, uh, great little section um where the poet says, here's something

I've never heard of. Feline purrs and two conditions when deeply content and when mortally wounded to calm themselves reading for the death opening, which I just find kind of kind of beautiful. And and I also I have to admit, when my own cat was lost, I would have read that poem and that kind of get me a little bit of solace because I thought she wasn't going to

come back. And so I've thought to myself, well, if something has happened to her and she is injured and she's you know, on her last day out there somewhere, than she's purring, you know. Yeah man, oh okay um, yeah, Well, I think that's the That's the thing that about purring

it is it is so comforting on that level. If you've ever heard a cat pr and especially if you're you're petting the cat, it is there's something about it that just makes you feel like you're more, you know, in a nice warm quilt on a winter's day with a mug of hot chocolate. I sound so much like a crazy cat leader right now. So I'm gonna acknowledge that there's some I freaking who it is. I want

to say it was like Kick Kuala or somebody. There's a musician who used some some purring noises in one of his tracks and it's like a really soothing kind of ambient track and selling this is kind of purring noise in the background. Well that's the thing about it, um, there is a level of manipulation behind it that's making you feel all uh, you know, kitten parts and rainbows.

Researcher Karen Macomb documented something called a solicitation purr. Yeah. Now, this is apparently the purring that occurs first thing in the morning. Like to put you in my situation, I am waking up in it where I'm not the only beginning to wake up. The cat believes it's definitely time to wake up. So it's like five or something, and uh, and she'll come and she'll want a walk on my pillow, which is the one place I mean she she doesn't walk on the kitchen cabinets and in the kitchen and

the cutting boards and all that, thank goodness. But but aside from that, the one area that I'm like, this is my place. Please don't sit here with your your paws that have been God knows where my pilloup. This is where my yeah, just leave this place sacred to the humans. But first thing in the morning, course she's walking on that pillow, purring and wants to set right next to my head. And this is end. This is the solicitation purring. And it's apparently it's like an alarm clock.

It's not the the you know, some people have cats. It will be a little more aggressive that'll like to do a little swiping of the face to wake him up in the morning. But but this is basically the cat trying to wake you up with with with a more subtle means. Yeah, it's it's funny though. That kind of perr has a lot going on behind it, and it's different from any other purrs that you're going to encounter. Yeah, actually,

technically it's it's pretty amazing. Um. Macombs says that it's produced with a low fundamental frequency and its harmonics by muscular activation, but then also voices a cry. She says, probably with the inner edges of the vocal chords, which is then superimposed on the sounds frequency spectrum. And she said that cats have just about the right size of vocal folds to produce a cry that is similar to

a baby's. So there is a coincidental element, she says, to this, and she said, in fact, the meow can some remarkably like a crying child, which actually is true, um, different from the purr, of course, but she's saying that they might have there's there's this idea that there's sort of natural selection in play that is creating these sounds emanating from the cat. In other words, it would behoove them to just put a slight bit of a cry behind a purr that's nearly you know, perceptible, in order

to get you up to feed them. Yeah, it's kind of like it's almost like a backhanded compliment or something where somebody's like saying something really sweet. It's not a backhanded compliment, but where someone saying something really sweet, but with an agenda, you know, like like like oh, you're you're so great, honey, especially when you um, you know, fix me coffee? Could you give me some coffee? That kind of thing, you know. So it's this is fascinating

because the owl. Obviously I can definitely see that, like because because the cat will me out and it's either really sweet or it's really irritating. Um, And I can definitely equate that with a with a baby's scream. But the purr, it's like the purl with this hidden agenda of of infant mimic cree. It's kind of like the medicine with the jam on top of it to soothe

it going down. Because because when the when the cat's purring next my head in the morning, I may be irritated about the pillow sitting, but I'm not irritated about the purring, because the purring is soothing. But but subconsciously it's waking me up. I know. It's it's an amazing ability right to both soothe you but also to get you to get up and get them food. Also, speaking of me ow and mewing, there's a there's a two Cornell University study and they were looking like a hundred

different vocalizations from twelve cats. And and again, if you live with a cat, you know they have varying ways of saying things. They it's not language by any means, but there they're they're their pitch, their tone, the way they stressed the me ow changes, and they and they found in this study particularly that on one hand you had the more pleasant, less demanding news and ease tend to be shorter with the energy spread evenly through the

high and low frequency. The sounds start high and they go low, so this would be like me ow me, okay meal. So start with the big me little now, all right, and then there's the the the other side of the colon cone. These are the urgent less pleasant and these are these tend to be longer, and they stressed the owl over the me and there with more energy and the lower frequency. So it's more like me ow does exactly. So there you go. So just that that's just a simple look at how meals can change.

And of course they change greatly, like like I imagine you've found that with your cat, there also their self there is this like pathetic version up in the owl. It will happen like like if you try and put them in a bathtub or something. Yeah, but and these sort of water is not that will be less crazy

cat calls. Um. But I didn't want to mention too that that study had twenty volunteers and some of whom I believe didn't even own cats, and they were able to pick out these or rather uh match these sort of I guess you'd say psychological states with these different kinds of me outs, which underlines that it's not just a thing where crazy person living with a cat has is reading a lot into what's going on. It's not there, No, it's that this species has learned to game the human system.

It's learned how to manipulate this, and it's it's pretty fascinating. Having said there, there are a lot of study that there about cats and cat ownership, some more interesting than others, some more impactful in others. We ran across one that was talking about gender roles and and there's some interesting statistical data is in there about how uh, women tend

to attach more to their cats than men do. And then and then there's a I don't know, it's it's interesting, but it's more just statistical, it's more about It feels like it's more about the humans and about the cats. So yeah, and it's hard to say because they didn't necessarily look at the data and say is this because is this is the nurture versus nature thing? Like women tend to be more nurturing because this is the role that they take in society, and therefore they're going to

connect with the cat more. Yeah. I mean, cats love the ladies, and lord knows the ladies love cats. But there's not really all right, well, let's talk about those ladies that love cats. The men and the ladies who love cats, and let's let's do a little versus dog people. Oh yes, yes, this is the classic rivalry dog people versus cat people. Um and and you see it like in any workplace. In this workplace, for instance, you definitely have the cat people. It's like you, me, Holly, Tracy,

I'm not sure who else offhand. But then then they're the dog people like Josh and Shock they both dog people died in the wool, hardcore horrible dog people now and then uh, my own editor that we both work closely with Alson Laddermilk very much a dog person. But is there anything is is there really something different about us as people or is it with our personality? It is our personalities different? Or is it just the fact that some people have a dog so doing cat again?

A ton of studies about this. I tend to think that, you know, making generalized, uh you know, sweeping generalizations about people's personalities and their paths. It's kind of a little bit nuts, but I think it does bear talking about. A study. This is from the Psychology Today article Personality differences between cat and don dog owners. They talked about Sam Gossling, who is a psychologist at the University of

Texas and Austin. He conducted a web based study. Now we're talking about more than four thousand people responding to this study asking whether they were dog people, cat people, neither or both. Uh. The same group was then given forty four at forty four item assessment and um, this measures them on what they call the Big five personality dimensions that psychologists often used to study personalities. Okay, now

you want to know the results, right, Okay. The results showed that dog people were generally about fifteen percent more extroverted, intent more agreeable. Those aren't he numbers, by the way, both of which dimensions are associated with social orientation. In addition, dog people were eleven percent more conscientious than cat people, and conscientious meaning that they had a tendency to show

self discipline and to complete tasks and aimed for achievement. Um. This trait also shows a preference for planned rather than spontaneous behavior. You know, the thing that really drives drives home here though, is that owning a cat owning a dog are two totally different things. And certainly if you have if you owned a cat and you're thinking about owning a dog, be aware of that because it is a it is a very different obligation. Cats dogs are more social animals, which which can lead to and in

a way a deeper bond with that dog. But there comes with that a lot of responsibilities and and and a lot of socialization that has to take place. So you have a dog, you haven't you need to take that dog out and it needs to go on walks, You need to encounter other humans. It needs to encounter other dogs, and needs to encounter other dogs and humans at the same time. So there's a there's a lot

of socializations occurring with the dog. And I feel like there's a lot of force socialization that is that is coming with being a responsible dog owner. Yeah, I was about to say there's going to be a level of extra version that you're going to engage in. I mean, just take a look at any local dog park and he will see this, right. So do just want to meet new people, meet new dogs, sniff new butts. That's just what they do. Meanwhile, the cats are a different

thing altogether. The cats are very much I'd rather not meet new people, certainly, no more than one or two at a time. I do not want to meet yeah, do not bring a kitten around here, or I'm gonna flip. It's a it's an end. They're they're a little more you're going out of town for a weekend, you might have somebody come and check in on the cat or

the cats. That's cool. But the dog you get, generally you're gonna have to board that that creature, or you're gonna have to take it with you, or you're gonna have to arrange for somebody to really dogs set hardcore for it. There, it's a little more of a hands on engagement. So I wondered what this study seems to argue that different types of people grab take towards one animal or the other. But I feel like it's just as much ownership in relationship with that creature molds the person.

Are you saying is the tail wagon? That? Yeah, exactly, because you know it mentions the ming more task and goal orient it or whatnot. When when you're a dog owner, you have to be otherwise you're gonna have a horrible, horrible dog. Okay, Well, let's talk about cat people. What's happening with them? All right? So they are about twelve

more neurotic. However, they were also eleven percent more open than dog people, and the openness trait involves a general appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, and unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, curiosity in a variety of experience. And then people with high scores on openness, of course we know this already are more likely to hold unconventional beliefs, while people with low scores on openness, and they say in parentheses dog

people tend to have more conventional, traditional interests. I think part of and this is me just reading the stuff, but that maybe to be a cat owner you have to sort of create a lot of ideas. You have to There's a lot more mystery with the cat to read into, like why doesn't the cat want to hang out with me? What's it? What's it doing in the next dream? Why is it talking at the wall? You

know where? So now it's the tail of wagging the cat. Well, I think on a very basic level, cats are harder to understand than dogs, and they're harder to train, certainly because the dog is a social animal. So there are a number of ways to mold the dog based on its social interactions, and it's it's it's natural um need for a social order and you know, a dominant male, m alpha male figure and its environment, that kind of thing,

whereas the cat doesn't have that. So you know, you you want to train up a dog, right, you can call up a dog whisper, you know, or take the dog to a dog academy. That for the most I think there's somebody that calls himself the cat whisper for but for the most part, there is no cat whisper, and there there are for the most part, there aren't other than ali and there are no cat academies really to take them take the cat to. I mean, cats are and I'm generalizing cats are more of a mystery

than dogs. Now, Holley's is that they can be trained through clicker training. Yeah, you have to do it when they're younger though, of course, um and then many many treats are involved, which makes sense because again the cats just gaming you. Um. Alright. So again I think of these things more as sweeping generalizations. But it's interesting to talk about. And this of course leads us. All roads

lead us to where do cats really reside in this world? Like, where's the one place where they are front and center? Because otherwise they're they're behind closed doors. We don't see them much, right, Yes, cats basically own the Internet. They're just everywhere. Like every other YouTube is is a cat clip cats attacking bags, cats looking weird, cats, sounding weird, cats, being good cats, being bad cats leading a hitler. It's

you could just go on and on. It's like there is a generation of memes that that they are a rise. You have Internet superstars that are felines, like it's so, I think it's Maru, the Japanese cat that's adorable looking. There's a there's a grumpy cat that's uh, that's suddenly a big hit. It looks like a grumpy human. It's where there's l O L cats and of course the

whole I mean there's Yeah. Actually Wired magazine Wired dot com has a great article about everything cat internet and cat culture internet that you could ever want to know about. The article is called Online Cat Industrial Complex. Yeah, we will link to that in the blog post that the company's this episode, and there's a lot of great info in there. They mentioned Maru quite a bit. But the really amazing thing that that really feels on target with the stuff to blow your mind is the Google x lab.

Oh yeah, yeah, this is great because what they are trying to do is to create a concept of a thing for a brain simulation project. And what did they do and what is what is the one thing on the Internet that's a simple concept that there's a ton of data on cats. So the researchers fed ten million random YouTube stills into a brain simulation and then this silicon cortex quickly, really really quickly developed the concept of

the cat. And this is amazing because basically a machine has given the chance to learn what humanity is about through its YouTube use. And the first thing they come up with his cats. So it's it's so I like to imagine again we've talked about the Internet is this complete um collection of world knowledge and in a sense, the Internet as human culture like in a way that in a in a way that is not only an outpouring of who we are, but it is who we are.

And conceivably, you can imagine an alien civilization encountering this Internet. Maybe we're still around, maybe we're not, maybe we've become something else entirely, but they encounter this Internet, this vast sea of data about who we are, and they're like, what is all this chaos? Let's let's start rooting this out, so they send something in or they analyze it with their alien data analysis ray. And the first thing they come up with is like, well, first of all, they

are these things called cats. We assume these are the masters. This is apparently the dominant species. And then there is a secondary species, a primate species called the human. And as best we can tell from YouTube clips, they occasionally hit each other in the groin with with with the with softball bats. Generally it's the the larval humans that do this. They feed the cat masters, they look after them, and then they have a lot of sex. Yeah, they like to knock boots a lot, and they like to

watch it, yes, but mostly they serve their masters, the felines. Right, they just do the knocking boots on the side. We don't know why they're obsessed with it that they must have only done that and then punched each other in odd places. So anyways, it's it's fascinating to think of that in terms of to what extent, to what extent are we just super obsessed with cats and uh and

in what will future civilization make of it? Um? In closing, I mentioned the story that the cats of Althar by HP Lovecraft and and I'm just gonna read just a quick ex excerpt from that. It is said that in Althar, which lies beyond the river sky, no man may kill a cat. And this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For the cat is cryptic and close to strange things which

men cannot see. He is the soul of Antique Cagyptus, the bearer of tales from forgotten cities in the ore and oh fear. He is the kin of the Jungles lords, and heir to the secrets of oory and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language. But he is more ancient than the Sphinx and remembers that which she hath forgotten. That my friend was the cat's pajamas. All right, well, um, let's call the robot over here and seef we have a quick listener mail

to run through. Here's equipment from Jeff Jeff Wrightson and says, hi, just listen to your episode three minutes till impact. I used to work for an airline, but I stayed on the ground. I'm kind of afraid of flying. I worked with the tiny jets once I checked the flight crew to see if they were ready to board, but really had to use the bathroom. But couldn't wait the thirty minutes to an hour for the plane to leave because I drink a lot of coffee, so I used the lab.

It was stationary, the engine was off, an airplane door was open, and still I had the same reaction when I break down and use the bathroom on a plane in flight. I had to push. I guess you could describe it as the Whizz Willie's from Hell great show, and my mind gets blowing on a regular basis of Jeff, So there you go. So um, Whizz Willie's induced by fear of flying. I just I found that strange and interesting,

the mind body connection right there, there you go. So on that note, if you have something you would like to share with us, um, particularly um you cat people and dog people out there. If you have thoughts on the human cat relationship, if you have some personal experiences and I know you do, related to cat vocalization and cat manipulation of their human servants slash masters, then let us know about it. You can find us on Facebook

and Tumbler. We are Stuff to Blow your Mind on both of those pages, and you can also find us on Twitter, where we go by the handle blow of the Mind, and you can also drop us a line at blow the Mind at discovery dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is It How Stuff Works dot com