I mean, this is straight up not true. The closest truly wild house cat is a weirdo that looks like a lanky house cat, and house cat brains are physically smaller and dumber than wild ones. Also need I point out how cats also have their pug versions complete with health issues normal cats don’t have?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-taming-of-the-cat/
TL;DR: You’re not wrong really, but the comic isn’t all that far off either.
The thing I think is most interesting about cat domestication is that wild cats do not meow and a domesticated cat’s meow is at a similar frequency as the cry of a human baby.
Wild cubs/kittens do though.
And dogs geneally make wolf puppy noises.
The real difference is dogs have had about 30,000 more years of domesticated selective breeding.
Yeah, they weren’t exactly easy to handle from the beginning.
Actually, current estimates shows us dog domestication happened some time around 30000 years ago while cats were domesticated at the dawn of human civilizations, around 12000 years ago, so less than 20000 years of difference. Also, dogs were domesticated in multiple regions at different times, whereas cats are exclusive to two domestication events. I’m open to evidence of the contrary, of course.
I asked my cat and they said they didn’t remember it that way, but refused to say any more. Then ran off into the closet and disappeared.
Aslan?
Smartest animal I ever met was my indoor/outdoor cat.
Then again she was brindle and looked like a wild cat.
You should go to the zoo
Do you mean so I could meet primates? Our zoos don’t let you do that.
No I mean just for fun
you should go to the movie theater and have a great time watching a movie
You should go bowling
I like this game
You should go fu---- nvm
Thanks for the suggestion.
Same, my rescued, fully indoors cat is the smartest non-primate animal I’ve ever seen. They can clearly understand some sentences, subtle body language, and they’re the cutest manipulators you’ll ever see, knowing exactly how to get me to stay by their side for “only 5 more minutes”.
Cute!
Do you have a newsletter I can sign up for?
More like:
- Dog - “humans are friendly! They give me food! I shall serve them!”
- Cat - “humans are friendly! They give me food! They shall serve me!”
I remember a version of this, but the last line was “you/I must be god!”
Yeah, I’ve always said that dogs think we’re the gods and cats think they’re the gods.
They didn’t just come inside. They also infected us with brain parasites that makes us like cats, and learnt to meow in specific frequencies that make us treat them like human babies…
They also helped keep grain stores free from vermin that would otherwise have cost countless lives throughout history. Our ancestors knew damn well why they wanted to keep them around.
I don’t treat cats like human babies. I like cats way more
They’re that good at it. (Also the toxoplasma help.)
Really, it’s babies’ fault for not staying ahead of the game. With all the germs they roll in and all the poop they produce, they should have something to show for it by now.
I’m not even a cat person and I had a baby and they’re still better than babies. Cleaning a litterbox vs. cleaning a diaper? No question which I would never do again and it’s not the litterbox.
Also, you don’t have to teach a cat how to eat.
And yeah, they can wake you up at night, but probably not every single night, possibly several nights, over the course of months.
I dearly love my daughter, but definitely cat over baby.
My cat told me not to believe these lies spread by dogs.
Only about 11% of the US population has toxoplasmosis, and healthy people recover without treatment. It’s not a life long thing.
Why do I keep seeing people spread this “toxoplasmosis makes you like cats” myth
Because is funny joke comrade.
Cat domestication is mainly about making them small enough so that when they randomly decide to slap your face with their clawed paws you wouldn’t die.
Domestic cats aren’t shrunken down big cats, the cats we take into our homes were always this size. They originated from Felis Silvestris Lybica, a species from Egypt and North Africa… Which look fairly similar to just regular cats.
Then our domestication was becoming larger than cats.
Make sense.
Some people say we didn’t domesticate cats, but they cats domesticated us.
What if cats are responsible for human civilization by domesticating us?
Toxoplasma gondii, which needs to reproduce in felines, can infect any warm blooded animal. It’s been observed to increase risk taking behaviour which could have helped to contribute to the development of human society.
Well, they certainly helped keep our granaries pest-free.
(Also, when people started killing cats instead of rats it probably had quite negative consequences for civilization… though, to be fair, the black death probably set the right circumstances for the rise of the middle class, and the renaissance… so lose some win some, I suppose.)
They certainly manipulated us. Their cries attempt to mimic that of human babies in tone and frequency so they can get a response from us.
I’ve heard the argument for this but I suspect that humans don’t have domesticated traits, its that domestication imbunes animals with human social traits. Which makes sense since the whole point is to make them get along with us.
Barn cats are the natural domestication of cats.
You need a friend to protect your grain stores.
Early domestic dogs were probably ratters, too. The domestication process for both were probably pretty similar.
The biggest difference is that domesitc dogs were then also able to be bred into companion hunters.
what really happened was that a caveman saw a wolf and was like aw good boi
You’re alrigh boah
Although, neutering a cat can stop the territorial urination.
May*
Some fuckers just don’t care.
My brain just went down a rabbit hole of of breeds vs strays and whether it’s fucked or not and how the world would look if people treated cat breeding like they did dog breeding and how things would change.
I had this comment open for like 20 minutes
There are definitely designer cat breeds.
Yeah, it’s just not really common knowledge to the same style. Seems like most house cat videos are Scottish folds
Both cats and dogs are bred a lot and not to the animal’s advantage. Though I guess dog breeding and its disadvantages are a little more prominent and known than cat breeding is. Correct me if I’m wrong
Most people don’t care for cat breeds is the thing. The more feral they are, the cuter they look anyway.
Though I guess dog breeding and its disadvantages
I mean, the cuter an animal is the more humans want it. Pugs might have health issues, but selective breeding has certainly made them very popular. That is, to the animals advantage.
Taking pugs as an example, being bred into an existence filled will medical issues that majorly impact your health and make living pain, it’s certainly not an advantage. Sure, they’re popular, but being popular is what drives them to be bred even more. The medical issues don’t go away, though
Cats lack the genetic diversity and flexibility dogs have.
People in the cat fancy have tried to changes things but for the most part a cat is a cat. Probably just part of being an obligate carnivore.
If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it
Gahhhh account sign up blocker
Put the URL into 12ft.io
Nice call out. Works great!
This is all nice and cute but how will fox domestication be represented in the future by these types of comic strips?
There’s the famous Russian breeding experiment where they were able to breed domestic foxes.
The problem is that they pee every time they get excited. Which would be bad enough if it was a dog, but fox pee smells god awful.
I believe that study (I could be mistakenly thinking of another study) also showed that their bone density decreases with domestication.
Fox’s aren’t going to be domesticated.
Foxes dont follow a hierarchical system like dogs, cats or horses where there is an Alpha (the owner of the animal) whom they fall under in the pecking order.
Foxes like to shit and piss all over everything and burrow Into couches. Good luck with the fox thing.
Nope, none of that is true. None of those animals have Dominance hierarchies.
Sorry, meant pack hierarchy.
None of them really have a hierarchy at all. Dogs, cats and horses are usually just a breeding pair and their offspring. Actually foxes are the only animal you named that does live in a structured hierarchy.
Aren’t most foxes solitary?
I don’t know anything about it, but apparently alpha wolves are not actually a thing. Can someone chime in more info?
The guy that claimed it later proved it wasn’t true and has spent the rest of his life yelling about how he was wrong. With way too many people not listening. Wolves just exist in social groups.
The study was on captive wolves, so it was not accurate to wolves in their natural environment. All it shows is that if you restrict wolves to a very small amount of territory, they will fight for dominance, probably because they think it means food scarcity.
That hierarchy thing was proven to be bullshit ages ago
Can you send me a link to where you heard that?
From Scientific American, “Is the Alpha Wolf Idea a Myth?”
Ah, fair enough, thank you.
I personally dont think we’re close to fox total domestication however. It seems like we’ve selective breed a human friendly temperament but there’s more to it than that for the sake of pet-ness that I’m sure people like to have. That is the main point in my OP. They love to mark, burrow into furniture and cause other problems. Those issues I think will be harder to alter than temperament. Probably not in my lifetime or most of ours in my opinion.
You might be today’s lucky 10,000, but have you heard of the Domesticated Silver Fox?
I’ve heard but I dont think that’s really considered domestication yet, only partly.
We’ve adjusted their temperament, but there is more to it than that.
They are not going to get domesticated WITH THAT ATTITUDE
No offense to anyone who has a cat, but one of the reasons I have dogs is that they’ll probably wait until they get really hungry before they decide to eat your face if you die at home alone.
Does that actually factor in? Or do you just prefer the company of dogs? Seems like a pretty irrational fear if you ask me.
I wasn’t being serious. I just prefer the unconditional love of a dog. Also, I’m allergic to cats.
I’m the opposite, I like that I earned the love of my cats. It sort of reflects me, I don’t let people into my life very often, but when I do, it actually means something.
Exact same mentality here.
the unconditional love of a dog
That’s the thing, though. A dog’s love is unconditional. You might ignore them, mistreat them, neglect them… and most dogs will keep on loving you, no matter what.
A cat’s love, on the other hand, has to be earned. When a cat loves or even tolerates you, you know you deserve it. And that, that’s worth something. And you’ll never get it with a dog.
Some of us need someone who loves us without judging us.
A cat won’t judge you on human criteria.
They’ll judge you as they would a big, awkward, somewhat dumb, and poorly socialised kitten who doesn’t know any better.
All they’ll ask for is comfort (including food, litter box, and so on), respect (from a cat’s point of view, e.g., don’t look them directly at the eyes, that kind of thing; being allergic to cats, it should come naturally; cats love people who are allergic to cats, you tend to stay out of their way and not bother them when they don’t want to be bothered), and affection (when it suits them).
If you can’t earn a cat’s trust… you probably shouldn’t be trusted with a dog either, even if the poor brain damaged critter will love you all the same.
Before my cat allergy developed to the point that I couldn’t go near them, I remember being at a friends house with their cat (that was very familiar with me) which got on my lap and was purring while I petted him, and he suddenly bit my hand and ran away with no warning or anything. I didn’t do anything to cause it either. I think it trusted me or it wouldn’t have gotten onto my lap.
Cats can be assholes for no reason. They’re kind of notorious for that. It’s just something I wouldn’t want in my life.
If you’re dead then why does it matter? You aren’t using it anymore.
I would say most people care about how their corpse is disposed of. And ‘eaten by cats’ would not be my first choice.
Nah, just throw my corpse in the organic garbage dumpster. 🤷♂️
Hey if it’s dinner time and I didn’t feed her that’s on me. I’m cool with it.
Cats don’t wait for you to be dead to bite
Yeah, but you can generally get them off your face before they eat it.
But they so cute when they do it!
Awww! Wittle baby face eater!
What if they fall asleep on it, though…?
As long as they don’t suffocate you first, they won’t eat your face.
Yeah, but you can’t get them off your face, you’d wake them up!
And then you look at Sphynx or Bengal cats.
Sphynx cats have an interesting origin story. Canadian scientists took cats with the genetic defect of hairlessness and began breeding them back in the 60s to create the new breed of the Sphynx.
At least they were considerate enough to take their boots off before they came in.
“Dogs will love you and defend you and hunt with you because you’re part of the pack… whereas a cat is a tiny tiger that lives in your house.”
– CGP Grey, Animal Domestication
