Cat and dog question

[The Snark]

Has there been a study on the comparative evolution of dogs vs cats? Specifically, why have dogs evolved such a far greater degree of intelligence?

Examples.
Our cat is a very capable predator. It's focus while hunting is very acute and it uses it's physical abilities to the utmost. The dog is likewise a very capable predator but above and beyond the cat, it applies reasoning of a sort. The cat in the yard will always stalk birds, usually resulting in failure. The dog has learned the traits and capabilities of the birds and will only hunt them when it has worked out a reasonable chance of success. End result, the cat has killed 2 birds, the dog, 16 in the same period of time.

Ant invasion. The dog has learned about ants and recorded a number of different scents. Random wandering ants are located automatically and it chooses places to sit or lie down accordingly. With mass ant invasions the dog searches out where the trails are, their origins and their destinations and relocates as required. The cat is oblivious to ants until it gets covered with them with the exception of when there is a major invasion on the porch. The cat detects this, usually within 5 to 10 seconds, and retreats into the house. If it can't get into the house it goes into a panic running needlessly far away and stays in an agitated mode for several minutes after being corralled and rescued.

Traffic. The dog had some close calls on the street. It learned and now innately knows the sounds of impending traffic, their speeds, and where on the road they will be. The cat is clueless and will become a pancake if not watched closely.

See? The dog has learned and now reasons things. Why is the cat remaining so focused in predator mode and only slightly aware of the immediate environment. How did they diverge so widely?

 

[pouchedrat]

I seriously don't know, we have had cats while growing up who would look both ways before crossing the street. They'd sit their butts down on the side of the road, look, wait, and cross. Most dogs I meet are a drooling mess and not the sharpest tool in the shed.

I feel like it's an individual animal thing. I've met some fairly dumb cats (my mom's male for one, who will walk right off the countertop), but I've also met and owned some brilliant ones. My current male cat has learned to do tricks with very little practice (the standard sit, beg, shake paws, lay down, roll over, etc). He has figured out how to open the front door with the lever handle, even though he is NOT allowed outside alone. He walks on a leash and harness like any dog can, and we can communicate by various meows, and I know what he wants. He'll open counters in the kitchen to get into our food and stuff (especially above the fridge), and is an all-around jerk, too.

Almost all cats I've owned in my life has been either a former barn cat, or a former feral cat. Only one cat was from a breeder, and she was a himalayan and not that smart. VERY sweet and loving, but not smart. The barn cats and feral cats were caught as kittens and were from long-established populations. They don't always bond with people, though. The barn cats always came from my aunt's barn, which is surrounded by woods and has an active bobcat and bear population. The cats don't usually have long lives on the barn, and living in upstate NY in freezing temps and serious snow, they go through a lot. That may be part of it, the need to survive...

 

[Aviara]

I think that while you are definitely picking up indications that your dog is more intelligent than your cat in terms of higher reasoning, I'm not sure I'd apply that to the species' in general. I currently own two cats (both domestic shorthairs AKA mutts) and two dogs (Siberian husky and border collie/corgi mix). One cat had a troubled kittenhood and was bottle fed, and turned out very unintelligent. He is physically normal, but mentally has tons of issues and quirks, including a bad case of pica. Our other cat is much more intelligent than either dog.

 

[Kazaam]

End result, the cat has killed 2 birds, the dog, 16 in the same period of time.

It might be an idea to keep your pests indoor for the sake of the ecosystem.

 

[The Snark]

I used our animals as examples and should not have. This will rapidly digress into our --- can do this and that thread. These are not the foo foo poofy fully domesticated animals but basically half way between the primal and full domestication. They are both predators and they always eat what they kill.


Now take the basic hunting. The cat stalks it's prey. It's white against a dark green brown back ground and thus it fails most of the time. The dog isn't much better off, blotched white. The cat stalks in a very predictable manner without much variation. All cats are similar. The dog has taken it one step up, as the wolf and dingo. It judges the distance to the prey taking into account how fast it can move, how quickly the prey is likely to react, and how high the bird will get off the ground before the dog arrives. Thus the dog ignores most of the birds and just sits on the porch and watches. However, when a bird fits the criteria, the dog tenses and goes. Being extremely agile as it's wolf ancestors, the bird taking flight has no effect.

So the dog is operating at a higher order, brain wise. The knee jerk response is minimized. As for depredation, the primary prey of these animals are doves. Read: ongoing avian orgy. And as mentioned, they are food and are eaten as a supplement to their diets.

The point of the thread is swinging back a few million years. The cat locked in to a limited if effective modus operandi while the dog has evolved it's primal capabilities. Why? When? Why have they diverged so greatly?

 

[The Snark]

Arrrgh!

With all due respect to everyone and if I offend please accept my sincere apologies before hand. I really despise talking down to people and filling in obvious blanks smacks of exactly that. So let me get Bio 101 out of the way.

Speaking generally. Felidae and Canidae evolved upon similar lines in similar environments. The canis had a marginally more sophisticated brain while felis had marginally better body mechanics. Felis diverged into far more genera than canis and diversified into a much greater range stature wise. Canis diverged into two tribes, canini and vulpini. Felini diverged into 13. (Genera). The canini continued to evolve it's brain and developed a much greater awareness of it's environment. Felis diverged but the brain sophistication remained quite similar to it's primal ancestors. Interestingly, felini and vulpini have been much more successful predators down through the ages while the more sophisticated brain canini would barely exist at all today if it wasn't for the most feline of all canidae, lupus.

So, again, what I am looking for is why has the dog developed the more sophisticated brain and why did the cat get parked somewhere in the primordial soup, brain wise?

PS By itself, this is basically a search for thesis stuff and as exciting as the average dusty biology professor with a tenure the size of Mt. Rainier. But there are some odd interesting aspects. The canini failed miserably in many ways. There are much larger felini, and pound for pound the felines are vastly superior strength and agility wise. (Nothing remotely canine produced in the past 200 million years would last more than 10 seconds against a lynx or bobcat.) Similarly, the best the canini had to offer speed wise was the Saluki-Afghan-Greyhound et al which is a remote second to the cheetah.

 

[Kazaam]

These are not the foo foo poofy fully domesticated animals but basically half way between the primal and full domestication. They are both predators and they always eat what they kill.

Yeah, that totally validates the damage that they're causing, we should also forgive cane toads because they're wild while we're at it.

Dogs are fully domesticated, your dog is not a special snowflake that isn't.

 

[The Snark]

Kazaam, I need to know better where you are coming from and get a greater understanding of you, not the problem. My stance on environmental protection over several decades speaks for itself and the only reason we have two animals is they are hunters of animals that are seriously over breeding in this area. They not only are fitting in well in the ecosystem here, recovering second growth rainforest, they are expected to conduct themselves in proper predatorial fashion and so far, have been. There are no endangered species in the immediate area that may be depredated. We also understand that they are also subject to the laws of nature and could easily succumb to the venomous snakes that frequent our vicinity. So be it. That is the law of nature they are expected to live by.

But let's get droll and mundane for a moment. Protecting animals means protecting their environment. My credentials. Jersey Wildlife Preservation trust, member, 20+ years. Earth First! member, around 20 years. Greenpeace supporter, 25 years, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society contributor, 20 years, Senkenberg Research Institute supporter, 2 1/2 years to name a few efforts. How's your track record doing?

 

[Kazaam]

and the only reason we have two animals is they are hunters of animals that are seriously over breeding in this area.

Yes because obviously your pets instinctively know whether it's one of those animals.

They not only are fitting in well in the ecosystem here

[citation needed]

There are no endangered species in the immediate area that may be depredated.

Because that obviously gives you the right to introduce exotic predators to an area, how do you think animals become endangered in the first place? it's partly because of that 'Well, they're not endangered (yet?) mentality of yours'

We also understand that they are also subject to the laws of nature and could easily succumb to the venomous snakes that frequent our vicinity. So be it.

What the hell is wrong with you, laws of nature do not apply to domesticated pets.
Pets are supposed to be taken care of, not thrown in a snake pit.

 

[PlaidJaguar]

Interesting question. I would suspect it has something to do with the social nature of dogs. I think dogs have to have a theory of mind, or at least something approaching it, in order to hunt together. They have to communicate well and adapt their strategies based on the situations they find themselves in.

Cats have no need to communicate with other animals beyond the basic needs of mating and territorial disputes, so they're inherently more selfish and less inclined to think about how others will react to their actions.

It's also fairly well known that scavengers tend to be smarter than more specialized eaters. The reason being, a scavenger has to be able to identify novel food sources, remember which foods were good or bad, and remember/figure out where to look for various types of foods. Animals with more specialized diets don't have to think as much because their highly developed instincts take care of it for them. I suspect that cats have had enough success using the same hunting pattern to catch the same animals for so long that they don't need to think about other ways to get food.

Additionally, wild felines rarely display non-camouflaging colors--your cat isn't necessarily stupid, he's just at a severe disadvantage being white. If he were a brown tabby I bet he'd be catching a lot more prey.

 

[Truffs1178]

Just because an animal is domesticated doesn't mean it won't kill another animal.

Cats are a lot more independent than dogs which is why Lions are the only cats to live in family groups with the exception of some Cheetahs. Many wild species of dogs like wolves and cape hunting dogs live in family groups in the wild and they cooperate with each other. African wild dogs are some of the most successful hunters with around 80% of hunts ending with a kill. This is because of their intelligence and hunting technique.

Anyway I agree that dogs are more intelligent and while I will agree that a cat fighting a dog of the same size will most often end in the cat winning your crazy if you think a bobcat can kill any dog. Sure there are cases of bobcats killing domestic dogs but can you honestly imagine a bobcat killing a Tibetan mastiff or an Akita? Those are big dogs and a Tibetan mastiffs coat is so thick. A puma would be different but a bobcat, well I doubt it.

---------- Post added 11-07-2013 at 06:48 PM ----------

Yes because obviously your pets instinctively know whether it's one of those animals.

Lol that's a good point.

 

[The Snark]

One interesting article on the subject: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120504110504.htm though they only report generalities and not the specific findings. Other related links on that page are also worth a read.

One conclusion that is widely being reached is that canines are evolving, or metamorphosing from their interaction with humans and that this has probably been going on for 10,000 years. This reenforces the theory that the canine brain is highly interactive with it's environment. Far more so than the cat.

So the canine chose adaptivity in order to be successful but the origins of this evolutionary side step are... ?

 

[Kazaam]

Because their ancestors needed to be very opportunistic in order to survive, they live in harsh environments where food can be scarce in the winter, this is partly the reason why they're able to live on human food even though it isn't exactly healthy for them.

The ancestor of housecats, the African wildcat is native to a stable environment in which food is always present.

 

[The Snark]

The problem with that being both canidae and felidae evolved from Miacoids, splitting into the two between 40 to 50 million years ago. Hence they both had the same environmental opportunities. What separation and environmental divergence went on after could explain, at least in part, the canines development. However, what fragments the fossils have so far revealed show that both groups radiated over most available land masses. Two of the caniforms went extinct and the third, canidae prevailed. This is the crux of the question. It appears that the hypercarnivorous diet caused the extinction of the other two. So the ancestors of the canines were well on their way in their own evolutionary path around 35 million years ago. That they had an environment entirely different from the feliforms is extremely unlikely.

 

[PlaidJaguar]

Perhaps the feliforms, being physically superior, pushed the caniforms into a different evolutionary niche? The hypercarnivorous caniforms could have died out due to direct competition with the feliforms.

 

[Kazaam]

The problem with that being both canidae and felidae evolved from Miacoids, splitting into the two between 40 to 50 million years ago.

Which is not relevant, since we're talking about the direct ancestors of modern pets and not the ancestors of their ancestors of their ancestors.
These adaptations are from the last few million years.

 

[The Snark]

Perhaps the feliforms, being physically superior, pushed the caniforms into a different evolutionary niche? The hypercarnivorous caniforms could have died out due to direct competition with the feliforms.

And thus forced the canine to evolve along other lines. A theory with a lot of conjecture, but is interestingly similar to hominid evolution. Take that one step further, the canine is emulating the hominid on a lower order. But the competition wouldn't have been the only factor, would it? That seems highly unlikely.

I'm beginning to see why there is so little information on this. Toss another monkey wrench into the works. Both felines and canines thrived throughout Asia but the canine established itself in Australia and there is no evidence of any feline there at all. Why? The dingo supposedly came from a central Asian wolf where many feline species were common.