I would like to take a different angle on the question in the title. I think it's a silly debate. I think it's pointless to ask this sort of question for various reasons. Firstly it is very difficult to measure intelligence of humans because there are various types of intelligence and therefore it is next to impossible to reliably measure the intelligence of companion animals. The test that have been devised generally, as I recall, favoured dogs as being slightly more intelligent than cats but as mentioned there are different types of intelligence and how good are these tests? How reliable are these tests? I suspect they're not very reliable.
I don't think we need to know whether a cat or a dog is more intelligent than the other. We know they are of similar intelligence; let's just say that and focus on more important things which are to do with us not cats and dogs. We should ask questions as to how we can improve animal welfare. We should ask questions as to how we can improve the attitude of a minority of cat owners who are irresponsible. These are far more important question. They are questions which are not being asked sufficiently often.
I don't really wish to say much more than that.....perhaps one or two things...Dogs have bigger brains than cats but that doesn't mean that they're more intelligent. You see what I mean? It's all a little bit silly. I don't think I've read any study about cat and dog intelligence which really stacks up and is rigorously scientific. They are more about entertaining humans than pure science.
In any event it doesn't make any difference how intelligent a cat or dog is really. The most important thing is how good a companion they are and how good we are at bringing the best out of dog and cat companions.
Think of intelligence as a survival skill. Dogs and cats operate in totally different ways. Their intelligence is based on the need to thrive, eat and reproduce. It's an elitist attitude that one type of pet is smarter than another.
ReplyDeleteOne interesting factoid:
Cats have 300 million neurons in their cerebral cortex – the brain area associated with processing, problem solving, and perception – while dogs have 160 million