Are some pussies smarter than others?
While I suspect someone will come along and claim certain breeds (Siamese?) to be more intelligent, I’ve never seen it. Some breeds do seem to be less graceful, however. For instance Russian Blue cats seem to “fall off of” stuff more than other breeds.
Some pussies are indeed smarter than others, but this can vary hugely within a single litter. Grace, too. We have a pair of littermates that could hardly be more different in terms of smarts and style: Bridget, the Ninja Princess, is faster than fast and always trounces her brother if she goes for him in a sneak attack. She has defeated countless attempts to keep her out of stuff she shouldn’t be getting into and can balance on pretty much anything. I can’t recall ever having seen her fall. Oliver is… not so fast. He’s bigger, so he generally kicks Bridget’s butt in brute force attacks, but he falls off the banister every time, and catches the dangly feather toy once for every five kills Bridget makes.
IANAGeneticist or a veterinarian or anything, but I think I can safely generalize that cat breeding is not pursued on anything like the scale dog breeding has been. Also, it’s been argued that at least some of what we consider “intelligence” in dogs is really a desire to please people and apply themselves to the intelligence-testing tasks we give them.Cats tend to lack this quality.
Yes, and it is easy to measure. Just count the number of kids, rate the living conditions they are in, and then count the total number of fathers involved in all this.
The formula is:
(Total # kids)(living conditions scored one to five with one being the highest)(The number of fathers)
This is an inverse scale like golf where the lower score the better. A score of 1, 2, or 3 is the ideal whereas a score of 320 (858) is less than ideal on the Pussy Intelligence Scale (PIS).
We have brother and sister siamese attack cats. The female is quiet, concise and will pounce on the male whenever he is not paying attention i.e. most of the time. The male is more adventurous and will hang out all morning in the cob-webby basement fighting the powers of greyskull.
Both cats learn from their mistakes and both cats are extremely smart. Opening cabinets, unlatching doors, waiting until exactly 6:01am to pounce on my feet through the blankets in the morning.
Are they smarter for doing this? I dunno, I’ve only owned siamese cats.
Although some breeds of dogs are clearly smart and some are clearly dumb, it seems that the methods used to measure intelligence rely heavily on obedience and ease of training. It seems like this could be a flawed measure at best. Cats on the other hand, tend not to obey. A cat who refuses to learn could be stupid, or it could not deign to lower its intellect to a mere human level.
Yeah, but there’s other things they do besides herding sheep that indicate intelligence. I have one cat that can open any door that you didn’t absolutely latch fully. I have another cat who’s only smart enough to close doors. My third cat will stand in front of a door that’s open a few inches and waggle his paws at you through it, but it never occurs to him to try and push the door open. This is a stupid cat.
Odd. I’ve never heard that, nor have I observed it (I’ve owned three Russian Blues, all females, and all three are/were very graceful). Maybe this applies more to the males, who seem to be somewhat bigger and more solid than the girls.
Some breeds (like Bengals for a while) had “hybrid vigor” and were smarter and healthier that other breeds. But since most cat breeds (and most dog breeds) are bred for apperance alone, most pure breds are slightly dumber than yous average moggie.
It may also be an anomalous situation involving one highly inbred line. Almost all the Russian Blues I’ve ever seen have been from one local breeder. It is from her lines that I have seen three unique fractures, all involving silly falls from places like a windowsill.
Are there breeds that are better at being cats than other breeds? For instance are there breeds of cats that are better mousers than others?
In my observation, that would be a non-breed – the one-step-from-feral common domestic cat, especially one that is at least part-time outdoors. Cats raised indoors have (we hope) little opportunity to catch live prey, and any inborn advantage is not exercised and developed. Once you get several house-cat generations, the selection, if any, is for other traits and the good mouser has no more advantage. Feral cats, on the other hand, either have the ability to catch prey or they die even sooner than the better hunters.
Please note that I am not advocating letting your domestic cat run outdoors or that the feral cat population should continue to increase. Outdoor cats live shorter and generally miserable lives for the most part.
That’s probably true over general populations, but my ex-feral is the dumbest cat I have. He does eat the occasional roach, but he has no special skill at it.
False premise. Intelligence in dogs varies by individual, not by breed.
Well, maybe.
As noted above it’s pretty dicey sorting out what intelligence actually means in any given species. A review of one attempt to sort this out: http://www.heatherweb.com/writing/coren1.html. If you accept Coren’s concept of canine intelligence as being some combination measuring a combination of adaptive, obedience and instinctive intelligence, then you definitely should see an overall trend by breed. Some breeds have been bred to respond promptly and precisely to orders and if that is a contributing factor to your overall assessment, it’s going to skew that data in one direction or the other.
If you don’t like Coren’s version of intelligence, you still have to come up with some other definition to use :).
As for cats, as noted they generally haven’t been bred for particular “working” characteristics, so issues like obedience are going to be much more randomly distributed on average.
But it’s all so subjective. I refer affectionately to one of my cats as “retard”, but it really has nothing to do with his problem-solving abilities ( which seem normal ). Rather it is that he is as rambunctious as a kitten at age two, is ridiculously friendly and shows no normal caution about anything ( also he lets his tongue hang out when he is relaxed, making him look rather goofy ). He loves strangers and dogs, whining to be let out to play with my neighbor’s ( friendly ) pitbull and huge lab mix. Even after getting out once at the same time as them and having been chased like a rabbit, he still loves those dogs. My other cat is pretty blase, but he displays the typical slightly standoffish behavior with strangers until they prove themselves safe. Poor Rupert on the other hand wouldn’t survive too many encounters on the mean streets. As cats go he seems to me to be a bit of a happy idiot.
Is such incautious behavior a mark of lower intelligence? I’d argue it would certainly is in terms of impacting survivability in the wild. But he is a domestic pet. Does that mean that such a measure should be tossed as inapplicable? I dunno.
I’ve noticed that Maine Coon cats tend to be more “doglike” than the average cat and more interactive with people as well. They tend to be talkative and have a wide range of noises they use–our MC has very specific noises he makes when he’s just talking to us versus the noises he makes when he’s being disciplined or scolded, and both of these sets of sounds are different from the ones he uses with other cats, which are different from the sounds he uses with the dogs. MCs tend to be good at doors and problem solving as well, and tend to be calm and competent animals that don’t panic and lose their cool much, which is a trait I associate with intelligence. I’ve been rather spoiled for regular cats after having been exposed to MCs.
Perhaps, statistically. But would the same kind of figures arrived at for human “breeds” (i.e., races) be accepted on their face? Or would that engender a debate about testing, and environment, etc.? My experience, when I was a dog trainer, tells me–by definition, anecdotally–that I’ve never come across a breed of dog that didn’t include its share of stupids and smarts. I’ve worked with some retarded Goldens, and some very smart Cockers. So even in the face of such statistical trends, I’d argue that they’re not relevant on the ground, with your individual dog.
Ah, but have you ever seen an intelligent Irish Setter? Gotcha, ha? 