Are wild cats smarter than domestic cats?

The question is a difficult one to answer because we're not really comparing apples with apples as the intelligence of wild cats has evolved in the wild to deal with the challenges that they face in that specific environment whereas cat domestication over the past 10,000 years has resulted in the domestic cat evolving their own intelligence to deal with living within the human environment. There are difficulties in making a comparison. 

However, have always thought that the wild cats should be smarter than domestic cat because they are challenged every hour of every day of their lives. They must meet these challenges and surmount them to survive. That requires brainpower which means the brain is more exercised and elastic.

They are liable to be smarter than the pampered domestic cat living in a comfortable home where practically everything is done for them. This can detune the brain, make it more passive and less exercised. You know what they say about human dementia. If you exercise the brain when you are elderly you can stave off dementia because the brain needs exercising just like the muscles.

To summarise, it is difficult to compare wild cat intelligence with domestic cat intelligence because they live in two different environments and have different challenges and have evolved in different ways. However, a study recently published asked whether domestic animals in general are more stupid than their wild relatives.

Study

What they did was to look at many previous studies related to this topic. They analysed them and came up with a conclusion. In all, they reviewed 88 studies comparing the intelligence of domesticated and wild animals.

The conclusion was that in 30% of the studies they found that wild animals were indeed smarter than domestic animals. But countering that finding they found that in another 30% of the studies the scientists had concluded that domestic animals were smarter than wild animals. Of the remaining 40% the scientists found that both domestic and wild animals had a similar cognitive performance i.e. intelligence.

This study which is the first of its kind, came up with an inconclusive answer. Neither the domestic cat nor the wild cat is smarter than the other. The obvious conclusion of that is that they have a similar level of intelligence.

I still tend to disagree with it and this study concerned animals in general whereas I am focusing on domestic and wild cats. There may be a difference here because domestic cats are particularly pampered in good homes whereas not all domestic animals are such as livestock.

Therefore, it is probably slightly inaccurate to use this study to conclusively state that domestic cats are of a similar intelligence to their wild cat counterpart.

I'm going to stick with my original thoughts that domestic cats have been dumbed down slightly, in general, over about 10,000 years of domestication.

Living with exotic cats - F1 hybrids and wild cats

Interestingly, when people adopt by which I mean purchase a wild cat hybrid or they purchase a wild cat as a pet, such as a serval or caracal, they say that it is like living with a domestic cat on crack or on steroids. It seems to them that the cat is too hyper, too energetic, to wild and indeed to intelligent.

This is anecdotal evidence but the high filial hybrids such as the F1 Savannah and F1 Bengal cat also behave somewhat like the wild cats as exotic pets. They are very challenging to live with by comparison to the more placid and laid-back regular domestic cat.

And I think this is a reflection of the animals' intelligence. If they are hyperactive and demanding, it means that their brain is working harder. They demand more stimulation. They demand more challenges. This is a brain which seeks challenges and therefore on that basis I conclude the brain is smarter than that of a domestic cat.

The study title: "Are domesticated animals dumber than their wild relatives? A comprehensive review on the domestication effects on animal cognitive performance."

Purebreds

I also have a theory that with the sometimes-heavy inbreeding of purebred cats can affect their intelligence. I'm sure this is a plausible suggestion which can probably be supported with scientific evidence. Inbreeding not only compromises the immune system and the general anatomy and physiology of a domestic cat but can also dumb down the cat I believe. So, it might be arguable to state that some purebred cats are definitely dumber than wild cats. I think that would be quite a firm conclusion.

Silvervine is non-addictive and safe for cats to enjoy

Although the general opinion has been for many years that silvervine is nonaddictive and safe for cats to enjoy, it hadn't been proved beyond reasonable doubt until now so I'm going to report on this Japanese study led by the biochemistry professor Masao Miyazaki of Iwate University's Faculty of Agriculture.

Tabby cat rolls around on silvervine. Image: courtesy of Iwate University. 

The Prof and his team: Reiko Uenoyama, Sae Ooka, Tamako, Miyazaki, Hiroki Mizumoto, Toshio Nishikawa, Jane L. Hurst, tested silvervine extensively on 17 cats. The active ingredient of silvervine is a chemical under the category iridoids. It's a substance which is designed to protect plants against herbivores and pathogens. It has a bitter taste which stops animals eating the plant. It seems that cats don't mind this bitter taste because sometimes they chew on it.

They found that the silvervine increased the blood concentration of a substance that works in brains and which makes the cat happier. They decided it wasn't addictive because the cats only stayed in contact with silvervine extracts for about 10 minutes and over time they lost interest.

And they decided it was non-toxic after they analysed possible indicators of liver and kidney damage in cats who had been enjoying silvervine for three years. The blood sample indicators remained at normal levels even after the cats had just enjoyed the plant.

The researchers say that there "was apparently no statistical tendency for the values to increase even after a long period of silvervine reactions".

The overall conclusion by the professor was that:

"For the first time, we are able to demonstrate the scientific basis for giving silvervine to cats with peace of mind."

Before the professor carried out this study, the general consensus, as mentioned was that silvervine was unlikely to be addictive and unlikely to cause any health problems. People were generally fairly sure but it's nice to know that it is entirely safe with no negative side effects.

It is unusual in the human world for a drug to make people happier without any negative side effects. Does that sound unique to you? And is properly fair to say that silvervine is a kind of drug and veterinarian say that all drugs are essentially poisons because you alter the brain chemistry or the metabolism of the patient. When you alter the metabolism which nature gave the cat or human, you can expect some negatives but that apparently not the case with silvervine.

Silvervine is also called matatabi and it is very similar to catnip in its effects which is also, I believe, safe to use and nonaddictive.

Ogling and carrying on about a "double-snouted moggy" is an act of gross speciesism and it is ugly human behaviour

There's been a story going around the Internet from the UK about a rescue cat, a moggy, who has an anatomical defect with respect to their nose. There are three nostrils and the news media are talking about a one-of-a-kind 'double-snouted moggy'. And it's unfair. It is speciesism to parade this cat all over the Internet.

There, I won't show the nose. This is a fine cat and she should be respected and not ogled at by voyeuristic humans. Image in the public domain and modified by me.

Humans are being voyeuristic. This is like a Victorian freak show. You know back in Victorian times when in their ignorance entrepreneurs put on shows with people who were victims of a congenital anatomical defects which made them look strange. This is exactly the same thing but we are doing it with a cat.

It devalues the cat. It is making the cat a curiosity; something 'weird'. To ogle at her is just not right. It is morally inappropriate.

But the news media does don't get this at all. They completely miss the point about this kind of gross speciesism.

The cat, by the way, is at the Cats Protection Warrington Adoption Center. They have named the cat Nanny McPhee after the fictional film character with a distinctively shaped nose.

Doctors have checked out the cat and they call it a "congenital malformation". Exactly, that's what I've just said above. It's a birth defect. It is a developmental defect when inside the womb. It is inherited and it's unfortunate for the cat.

It is doubly unfortunate because humans are seeking pleasure from looking at this cat and I don't like it. It's about time people respected the cat and behaved in a slightly more moral way if that's possible.

Can I keep a stray kitten that came into my house?

Image: MikeB

There are two major aspects to the question. There may be more. But this is what comes to my mind: there is the legal aspect namely does somebody own the kitten that came into your home. You don't want to be accused of theft, do you? That goes to answering the question in the title but there is a second aspect; one of animal welfare. You will have a compulsion if you are a sensitive individual concerned about animal welfare to adopt the kitten if in a place to do so. To at least look after the kitten and then rehome them. There will always be pressing welfare issues under these circumstances.

This is a complex question actually. You're going to have to find out whether the kitten is owned which would be unlikely under the circumstances and I'll tell you why. And then you're going to have to look after the kitten and protect them before adopting them if that's feasible and legal or before rehoming them all reuniting them with their owner. You can guess the complexities.

Unowned almost certainly

Perhaps I am making it more complex than it really is because I am sure that in 99% of cases when a kitten comes into a home, they don't have an owner because their mother is a stray or feral cat nearby and their kitten has come in for warmth and feeding. Their mother might also come into the warm and/or other kittens. 

Health often poor

The typical scenario is that kittens under these circumstances are in a bad way with upper respiratory infections, often, and they are commonly flea infested. There is work to do on health issues.

Wait and see

You could just look after the kitten if you want to adopt them and carry on as normal. You can wait and see what happens. Sometimes these things resolve themselves in a natural way over time. For example, if the kitten does have an owner, the owner will come around perhaps and chastise you for stealing their cat at which point you will return the cat to them. All you might argue that you should keep the kitten because you've looked after them and they are in a better place. You will play that card as it arrives.

Rules?

There may be legislation by which I mean local rules in your neighbourhood as decided by city administrators or county administrators or perhaps even state laws if you live in the United States of America. You might wish to check the local laws on this but I don't know of any federal laws which dictate how you should handle this situation.

Circumstances

The natural and normal thing to do is to take the kitten in and look after them. Of course, you might not be in a position to look after a kitten for various reasons. You might have too many cats already. You might have a dog that doesn't like cats. You might have a husband who doesn't like cats or if you are a man, you might have a wife who doesn't like cats. You have to take these things into consideration.

Microchip scanning

As to ownership, you might scan the kitten for a microchip. This would depend on how old the kitten is. If they are very young then they won't be micro-chipped probably. If they are a sub adult by which I mean a kitten that is somewhat grown-up, they might be micro-chipped. You can buy microchip scanners on Amazon quite cheaply. Or you could take the kitten to a veterinarian for a checkup and they scan at the same time.

In fact, this is what normally happens. If the first thing to do is to check for ownership and in parallel the next thing to do is to check the health problems then the natural consequence of those obligations is to take the kitten to a veterinarian for a quick check and scan for a microchip.

Due diligence

If there is no microchip and if on the face of it there is no owner, you can go home and look after your kitten. Or, if you might do due diligence on ownership and knock on a few doors and ask whether they have a mother cat who has given birth to kittens and if so, you can tell them that you have a kitten and can you keep her. That may be the way it pans out. There is an obligation here to try to find the owner but I don't think it extends to trying massively hard. It's just a natural step to take.

Rehoming

If you can't keep the kitten then you might take them to a shelter for rehoming. Or you might rehome the kitten yourself by talking to people you know. I would tend to prefer the latter because you can't always trust shelters as sometimes, they are euthanised even when healthy. But kittens are very adoptable normally and therefore there shouldn't be a problem in this regard.

Personal

The bottom line is that it comes down to whether there is an owner and if not whether you want to keep the kitten and look after them as an adult for the rest of their lives. This is a big obligation and if you've not cared for cats or pets until that moment then you would have to think about this seriously as a cat will change your life. It restricts you and you take on a responsibility in terms of expenditure (it can be quite expensive) and in terms of time and commitment. It's a big step like I say. I wouldn't take it casually.

Why do cats seem to like uncomfortable positions?

Obviously, the question has been asked by a human with human perceptions. That I think is the point. To humans, cats can seem to enjoy snoozing and resting in uncomfortable positions and in uncomfortable ways and on uncomfortable substances. But to the cat they are not uncomfortable otherwise they wouldn't do it.

Here is a famous picture now in the public domain of a cat seemingly in an uncomfortable position where he is fully asleep! It is on an associated website - click here to see it.

I believe his name is Tigar.

So, cats are more tolerant of these so-called uncomfortable positions or they might even find them comfortable. In fact, that is likely in many instances because if a cat is sleeping and resting in what appears to be an uncomfortable position to a human it has to be comfortable to them. If it wasn't they'd get up and change their position.

For example, initially it surprised me that my cat, Gabriel, likes to sleep across cables that are on my duvet. The duvet is very comfortable for him. It keeps him warm and it's soft but if there is cabling for my computer on the duvet he will sleep over the cabling and not select a part where there is no cabling. Very strange. Or is it? He just doesn't feel it or care about it.

One obvious factor is that the fur on a domestic cat creates a nice buffer or barrier between irregular surfaces and their skin. This must help to iron out any wrinkles on the surface which makes them less noticeable.

What about this? Should make you smile. From Twitter X.

And I'm going to speculate and say that one reason why domestic cats don't care about sleeping on a regular surfaces is because they've inherited this trait from their wildcat ancestor. Wild cats must, by default, sleep on rough surfaces sometimes such as stones or twigs and rough ground. They have to accept it. They might have found a nice den which is safe but the ground is rough. They prioritise the safety of the den over the rough ground and accept it.

The domestic cat has inherited this trait I would argue. And another reason why cats appear to be in uncomfortable positions because they are inherently very flexible. This once again goes to their wildcat ancestor. The wildcat has to be flexible to be a good hunter which requires being highly manoeuvrable, a good climber, able to keep balance well and being able to wriggle around and over obstacles. Flexibility is built into the domestic cat so when they look as if they are distorting themselves in a very uncomfortable way, it isn't uncomfortable for them.

Perhaps another reason why cats might accept uncomfortable positions is because the place where they have taken up the uncomfortable position is particularly warm. For example, cats sometimes sleep on computer keyboards. The computer gives off heat and maybe the keyboard is not particularly comfortable for their head but they accept it. Cats are very tolerant actually of many things. There brain processes input information differently to humans.

Image in the public domain. He is perfectly comfortable than you very much.

I believe this is another factor in this discussion. The tolerance of the domestic cat. They tolerate cold very well and of course heat. Cats like it warmer than humans because their body temperature is higher than that of humans and once again, we have to refer to their wildcat ancestor, living in dry, arid conditions in North Africa.

Domestic cats are inherently inquisitive as well which is part of their hunting skills and mojo. When investigating things, they have to be flexible and agile. I'm back to agility and flexibility here which makes them more accepting of contorted positions.

All in all, cats don't mind being in uncomfortable positions as perceived by humans because they are not uncomfortable to the domestic cat.

This is about human perceptions. There are many instances where human perceptions can misguide the human about cat behaviour. And sometimes humans project onto their domestic cat companion their own thoughts and attempt to read their cat in a misguided way. This is all normal actually and to be expected. Domestic cats are often a member of the human family and treated as an equal. It's no surprise that they are sometimes regarded as little humans resulting in expectations that they should behave like a human!