Sure, but this is the dog’s social instinct adding to the mix, because when they are both kept as pets the cat is perceived to be part of the dog’s pack. It’s a complex scenario for the dog whose instinct (if anything) is to negotiate a dominance hierarchy with an animal that just does not have those instincts. Wolves can fight to the death to establish dominance, but of course most domestic dogs have a lot of that aggression bred out.
Do you really think (larger) feral dogs that encountered a (smaller) feral cat would hesitate to kill it?
When the two see each other they literally get the wrong message.
Of course, there are loads of examples of cats and dogs getting along. My experience is it is more up to the cat. Dogs tend to try to make friends.
Anecdote: I had two cats and a dog and they never got along well. They lived together and mostly let each other be but they were never buddies. I blame one super-bitchy cat for that (the other cat was friendly but bitchy cat dominated). Bitchy cat could be friendly.
Well, not exactly those instincts. Our old cat Spunky, for instance, had a very clear notion of what a dominance hierarchy was. It consisted of two categories, one category of Spunky, who was supreme high empress of all she surveyed, and one category of everything else. Our dog Bear quickly learned to accept her definition, and after that, they were fine together.
As for the “different languages”, it’s more complicated than that. A dog’s happy-wag is a very different gesture from a cat’s angry-twitch, and non-idiotic dogs are quite capable of learning the difference (though, granted, there are a fair number of idiotic dogs out there). And every dog I’ve ever known who’s lived with cats has learned at least some of the language, such as purring (which non-cats can’t actually do properly, but the dogs will always come up with some sort of approximation). It’s not too different from dogs learning from us to smile, even though I don’t think that’s a natural thing for them.
I don’t think they are related. Domestic cats came from North Africa and domestic dogs are descended from gray wolves and were probably domesticated in Siberia.
But there are canid and felid species that share habitats.
African Wild Dogs and African Wildcats are about the same sizes as larger domestic dogs and domestic cats. I’ve never heard of any interaction - the wildcat is more nocturnal and would never go anywhere near a pack of dogs, it would be an instant snack.
Wolves and Lynx or Bobcat. There are videos online of wolf vs lynx encounters. They have a typical predator-predator relationship - not buddies! The size discrepancy is not that great, and a lynx may hold its own against a lone wolf, but is obviously going to lose against a pack. They will kill each others’ young if they encounter them.
I don’t think the question is, will predators attack and kill each other sometimes. Yes! Of course they do. We’re talking about dogs and cats, and I think the OP was about the pets, not canines and felines in general.
Huh? You yourself just quoted OP’s question about the relationship between dogs and cats in the wild. It provides some context for their instincts as domesticated pets.
Of course, while most dogs are bigger than most cats, there are some dogs that are about the same size as typical cats, or even smaller. If it were just a matter of relative size, we could be asking the same thing about relations between large dogs and Jack Russells.
The OP is a question, not a premise, so I’m not sure what you’re disagreeing with. The relevance of wild species is that they give some indication of the behavioral traits of the recent ancestors of domestic pets.
Well, yes, and vice versa - to the extent that their ancestors were predators, and most predators that share a habitat tend to be in conflict with one another.
However, superimposed on that ancestral behavioral “template”, we have a very interesting scenario in domestic animals where
(a) domestic animals have been bred to reduce aggression;
(b) they are cohabiting, creating an odd situation where the dog will likely perceive the cat as part of its pack, and attempt to negotiate a relationship from that perspective, with neither animal having a clear repertoire of instincts to handle this situation.
It’s understandable that both dogs and cats are improvising a relationship that doesn’t come naturally to them, and that we see a range of outcomes in domestic dog-cat relationships.
Man, I think you’re reading a lot more content into this OP than is there, but that’s fine. I don’t really want to spend more brain power on the question of cartoon dog and cat wars.
Why is the cartoon animal chain mouse-cat-dog?* Is this some immutable law of nature, something evolved in humans, or are we being manipulated by the mice? Stay tuned for the surprising answer!
Evolutionary biology is still strongly in force! As you note, when there’s plenty of water, food, and shelter, confrontation doesn’t help either animal gain anything, but only introduces risk of injury. And it’s evolutionary pressures that push the animals to avoid conflict in those circumstances. Those animals that picked unnecessary fights tended to have fewer offspring than those who didn’t.
Our lab mix has very different “window reactions” to dogs and cats. Any time a dog walks by, he barks happily or whines because he wants to go out and meet the dog. Doesn’t matter if it’s a micro teacup dog or a German Shepherd as big as he is.
But a cat gets a low growl that’s all menace.
We adopted him at five months; no idea if he’s had any experience with cats. But I wouldn’t be surprised if one put him in his place when he was a pup.
Border collies are herding animals, they are bred to treat other mammals nicely unless they threaten their herd. Generally this means sheep, but they exhibit the behavior with other animals, sometimes human children.
There are of course breeds and individual dogs with aggression issues towards other animals, some of which is hard to train out. But generally they get along if raised together, even if they have aliens psychological profiles. One exception might be coursing breeds - greyhounds, whippets (and I suppose Italian greyhounds, but any cat could kick their assess) who get along with cats in the home, but have a prey drive that says “small fuzzy thing + running = kill it” so in the yard they’re not necessarily good with cats. Then there’s wolf dogs and the like which weren’t specifically bred for sociability, so they’re a wildcard at best.
@dolphinboy mountain lions are naturally skittish, so they avoid competition. I’m sure they eat bobcats, jaguars can eat ocelots.
@thorny_locust our lone cat got along with the dog until we introduced more cats, then she became antisocial and hated everyone except humans and especially me. She especially has a contentious relationships with other cats.
Yes, I have a Labradoodle who is the same. If she sees an animal fleeing, she’s going to chase it, and if it squeaks or whimpers, she’ll shake it until it stops. Nothing personal, just predator business.
I’d like to get a kitten, I think the dog could be trained to coexist with one, but I’m not really up for the effort and anxiety.
I don’t think “hate” is the right word, even then. What would ordinarily happen in the wild is that adult canines and felines would avoid each other. The canines would prefer a meal less likely to put a claw in their eye in the process of being eaten (bear in mind that that could easily turn into a death sentence in the wild, even though the cat got eaten), and the felines wouldn’t want to take a chance because a particularly hungry canine might decide to eat them anyway. Yes, in the wild I would expect either species to eat the other’s pups/kittens if they found them alone and too young to fight back.
But none of that is “hate”. It’s just hunger, fear, and practicality. As none of those are really applicable to most situations with domestic pets, and there’s no essential antagonism involved, behavior between the two species comes down to ‘impulse to chase small running thing’ combined and often countered by the prior experience of both parties and the social instincts of both parties (yes, cats have social instincts also, though if they’ve been reared from young kittenhood with only humans for company their social skills may be massively screwed up. Some wild cat species are solitary by nature. Domestic cats aren’t; ferals, given the chance, form colonies sized according to food supplies.)