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Dogs More Intelligent Than Cats?

Naughty_Felid said:
good lad - you've survived a major beast attack!

I love evil cats. I just love them.

I love going to sleep and waking up with an insane kitty staring at you at 3 in the morning.
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One of the missus's cats was a coconut matting one called Tigger. Used to wake me up in the morning with a gentle claw massage so I'd open my eyes and be staring at its completely expressionless face. It was my second favourite among the cats.
 
Souleater said:
I had a dumbass cat later that used to sleep on my pillow above my head and nead it in the mornings, my daughter, when she was about 2 used to walk around with him under her arm, his front legs sticking out straight infront of him and his back legs dragging on the floor, he was also scared of heights, many a time i had to get a ladder and rescue him from the kitchen roof.
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Awwwww, that's so cute!! (the cat).
 
Both Cats and Dogs will, from the comfort of the windowsill or pet bed, gladly watch you trundle off to work, and be in the exact same place when you return. So I’d say from that respect honours even in intelligence!
Homo Sapiens - “ superior”-? Yeah. Right...
 
I was watching an episode of Seinfeld last night in which Jerry does a short piece about dogs.
"If aliens are watching us through telescopes, they're going to think the dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them is making a poop, the other one's carrying it for him....who would you assume is in charge??"
 
Dog leads police to car crash

https://www.mynbc5.com/article/mans-best-friend-helps-police-find-owner-in-car-crash/38668476#

HARTFORD, Vt. —
A Vermont man is thanking his loyal — canine — companion after a crash on Interstate 89 this week.

Tinsley, a year-old Shiloh Shepard was spotted running on the interstate's Memorial Bridge that connects Lebanon and White River Junction around 10 p.m. Police initially tried to corral the dog but said they were eventually led to a damaged guard rail.

“Almost alerting them to what was off the roadway, which they discovered a truck which had been overturned with two gentlemen that were ejected from the vehicle,” said Lt. Daniel Baldassarre of New Hampshire State Police.

One of those men, Cam Laundry, was later identified as Tinsley's owner.
 
Does anyone own a dog who tells them which way to go on a walk? If we do a particular route a couple of times and then, (even if it's a week later) I want to do a slightly different variation of the walk, she will root her bum to the ground (and you cannot move her) and she'll say ''no, we go this way''. I'll reply, ''yes, we went that way yesterday/last time, but today I want to go this way''. ''No, it's this way or I'm not moving''.
She'll even sit in the middle of the road sometimes.
She does do a pretty good Ranulph Fiennes impression though;
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Surely depends on the dog breed?
My brother and sister in-law had a miniature poodle and my son and his wife have a pug, neither of which strike me as particularly clever dogs.
I suspect most streetwise cats could run intellectual rings around those lovable but daft mutts.

Alsations, labradors and the wily little Jack Russell, on the other hand, always struck me as very clever dogs.
 
Some dogs, including ours, will only cross the road at certain points and to get them to cross futher up the street can be difficult. I don't know if this shows 'intelligence' though. She does, however, know what time it is because she'll come down at 5.55pm wanting her dinner. Also, she knows beforehand on what I am going into the cupboard for. If I open the door with the intention of getting her food or brush, she's fine, but if I am getting her flea treatment or ear drops etc she knows as soon as I put my hand on the door to open it and will go and hide. It's very strange to have you mind read like this.
 
Floyd1 said:
Some dogs, including ours, will only cross the road at certain points and to get them to cross futher up the street can be difficult. I don't know if this shows 'intelligence' though. She does, however, know what time it is because she'll come down at 5.55pm wanting her dinner. Also, she knows beforehand on what I am going into the cupboard for. If I open the door with the intention of getting her food or brush, she's fine, but if I am getting her flea treatment or ear drops etc she knows as soon as I put my hand on the door to open it and will go and hide. It's very strange to have you mind read like this.
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I have had numerous cats that have done these same behaviours. I have seen cats watching and waiting to cross the road when there is no traffic.

And don't get me started about flea drop application! My one cat hates it. I can open the little package upstairs, have it loosely hidden in my hand, get her food, NOT make any eye contact, and she still disappears on me. I always have to do her drops first as if any other cat is done beforehand, she totally avoids me. Sometimes I have to wait for the next day to get her.
 
As others have said, dogs and cats have different types of intelligence, and deciding which is superior is probably impossible. Being trainable is certainly not a measure of intelligence. As my cousin once said when arguing that gorillas are more intelligent than chimps, a chimp will easily learn complex tricks to please humans; a gorilla will say "I'm not putting up with that crap."

I have seen countless videos of dogs who can't manage to carry a long stick through a narrow doorway or between two posts; the thought of tilting it or sticking one end through first never occurs to them. Yet we have all heard stories of loyal dogs doing remarkable things when their human companions are in danger.

Cats, on the other hand, will usually demonstrate their cleverness to suit their own ends, such as finding their way into all kinds of places. While they can show true affection and do form social groups among their own kind, they are mostly "me first" types.

I think the reason cat social groups are not obvious to some people is that the cats like it that way. We once had to move from an old apartment to one on the next street over. Rather than pay a moving company or rent a van for a long time, we moved a lot of our stuff on foot, using hand trucks and the like. After a while we noticed a network of "spy cats" as we called them. One would be on evey corner, watching us approach and subtly signaling the next cat down the line. If we made it obvious that we saw them, they'd pull an "I'm not watching you" move.
 
If I may be permitted to bump a post I made 4 years ago:

We keep cat food in a kitchen cupboard along with some cat treats and dried catnip, which was stored in a sealable small plastic bag inside an old tin.
Puss has obviously seen us getting the catnip from the cupboard and sprinkling a small amount near her scratching post for the occasional treat.
One day, a year or so back, she waited until we'd gone out. Pulled open the cupboard door. Knocked the tin out. Either pulled the top off, or it may have fallen off when it hit the floor. Dragged out the bag of catnip. Bit a hole in it and shook it over the kitchen floor.
We found her rolling in it, high as a kite.

That shows memory and a surprising degree of methodical planning.
 
ChasFink said:
I think the reason cat social groups are not obvious to some people is that the cats like it that way. We once had to move from an old apartment to one on the next street over. Rather than pay a moving company or rent a van for a long time, we moved a lot of our stuff on foot, using hand trucks and the like. After a while we noticed a network of "spy cats" as we called them. One would be on evey corner, watching us approach and subtly signaling the next cat down the line. If we made it obvious that we saw them, they'd pull an "I'm not watching you" move.
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Cats will wake you up though, if they sense danger.
You're reminding me of our outside kittie, Scooter, who knew everything going on in the neighborhood. If someone was moving out, she watched the entire event, and then when someone new was moving in, she was there for that too.
The oddest thing was our next door neighbor decided to build a huge 2 story double garage in his backyard - Scooter parked herself behind the metal fence every morning after breakfast to watch them putting up the beams, the walls, even nailing on the shingle roof. Then she proceeded to watch in fascination as they installed a stone driveway (the noise was horrendous and went on forever). The other kitties paid absolutely no attention whatsoever, but I'm guessing that Scooter enjoyed everything as her personal 'entertainment'!
Either that, or she was a reincarnated construction worker.
 
I've met a few border collies who were amazingly smart. Most other dogs I've encountered, sadly, were not. This list puts papillons in the top ten smartest breeds. I lived with a couple of papillons and they were dumb as rocks.
 
James_H said:
I've met a few border collies who were amazingly smart. Most other dogs I've encountered, sadly, were not. This list puts papillons in the top ten smartest breeds. I lived with a couple of papillons and they were dumb as rocks.
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I'm surprised about the papillions, my mum had one that did agility and obedience and knew loads of tricks, and they used to be really popular in circuses (along with poodles).
 
Fluttermoth said:
I'm surprised about the papillions, my mum had one that did agility and obedience and knew loads of tricks, and they used to be really popular in circuses (along with poodles).
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It might have just been these two that weren't the sharpest tools in the shed, I haven't met many others.
 
I had to read that carefully. I couldn't understand why a dog would want a beefsteak. Finally I realized that the article is referring to beef steak. Oddly, I don't know why it wasn't referred to beef or steak as that, to me anyways, means meat. I only know of a beefsteak tomato. :dunno:
 
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That reminds me of one of my favourite dog anecdotes;

The family had a dog that was considered very stupid, as he would always bark at the door to the cupboard under the stairs when he wanted to go out, instead of the back door.

"Daft old dog!" they would proclaim, as they gave him a biscuit and opened the back door for him.

Then someone realised; if the dog barked at the back door, he got let out. If he barked at the cupboard door, he got let out after a biscuit and a fuss for being stupid.

:chuckle:
 
We judge animals' intelligence purely according to our own fairly arbitrary definitions though. And according to our own, pathetic, human limitations. Like the flea products, people say that their cat or dog 'knows' when you're hiding that in your hand or are about to use it on them - I expect, to a cat or dog, that stuff smells nasty and they can smell it through the packaging. They can smell when you've put it on others in the house and know it's their turn next. They can smell stuff that we don't think smells at all, and pinpoint which cupboard it's in.

Is this 'intelligence', or just animals having abilities that humans don't?
 
catseye said:
We judge animals' intelligence purely according to our own fairly arbitrary definitions though. And according to our own, pathetic, human limitations. Like the flea products, people say that their cat or dog 'knows' when you're hiding that in your hand or are about to use it on them - I expect, to a cat or dog, that stuff smells nasty and they can smell it through the packaging. They can smell when you've put it on others in the house and know it's their turn next. They can smell stuff that we don't think smells at all, and pinpoint which cupboard it's in.

Is this 'intelligence', or just animals having abilities that humans don't?
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True, but how do they always know when it's a trip to the vet day?
They hide before the cat carrier even comes out! LOL
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
True, but how do they always know when it's a trip to the vet day?
They hide before the cat carrier even comes out! LOL
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They read our body language. They may even hear certain 'trigger words' - after all, their hearing is also more acute than ours, usually.
 
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