Who is smarter, a cat or a dog? Who is smarter, a cat or a dog? What dogs can do

Who is smarter - a cat or a dog? Whose intelligence is more developed, whose mental abilities are more diverse? Over the past few years, many studies have been conducted on this issue. What conclusion did the scientists come to?

Most fans of the cat family believe that cats are smarter than dogs. This is evidenced by differences in the cerebral cortex: cats have twice as many neurons as dogs. The latter have to constantly follow the owner, faithfully carrying out his instructions, while cats are self-sufficient.

Representatives of the cat family have much better developed sensorimotor intellectual abilities. This means that they are more sensitive and precise in their movements; if necessary, such animals can hunt large individuals relative to their own size.

Successful hunting is the goal of life for such pets. That is why even domestic animals living within four walls are constantly training: chasing toys, playfully attacking a person - all this indicates the instinctive honing of the hunter’s skills.

Rational intelligence is another characteristic feature of furry pets. Cats can be smart in those things that are truly useful to them, and completely dull in those matters that do not interest them. Such selectivity speaks of creative intelligence (the so-called reproductive intelligence is found in dogs, which simply mechanically reproduce previously learned information).

Features of intelligence in cats

In terms of observation and attentiveness, the cat has practically no competitors. You can be convinced of this simply by observing how your furry pet behaves in an unfamiliar environment: the animal first of all carefully explores the new space for itself and inspects all the corners. At the same time, it will be impossible to distract him from his studies. The cat will quickly find safe areas and a warm place to rest and sleep. In this situation, the dog will be less observant and cautious.

What is curiosity? Seeing an unfamiliar object for the first time, the cat silently creeps up to it, sniffs it, and only after that touches it with its paw with its claws extended. Having made sure that the item is safe, the pet will turn away from it and is unlikely to be interested in it later. It is precisely this kind of cautious curiosity that a dog lacks, and this quality does not destroy the animal, but contributes to full survival in unfamiliar conditions.

Both cats and dogs can easily remember their names, and cats can follow a few simple, carefully memorized commands (for example, going to the toilet in the same place). Are representatives of the cat family able to use the information received in their own interests? A few years ago, it was believed that only monkeys, who in their intelligence are as close as possible to humans, possess such abilities. It soon became clear that cats also have such abilities. They can get food for themselves in places inaccessible from a human point of view, and, if necessary, demonstrate a creative approach to finding their way out of the labyrinth.

Differences in social intelligence

But social intellectual abilities are much better developed in dogs. These animals prefer to hunt in packs, because in order to successfully catch prey, it is important for them to communicate with each other. At the same time, during the hunting process, the roles of the members of the pack are clearly distributed.

Dogs understand people much better, because humans are also social creatures. That is why these animals, especially if they are specially trained, can carry out up to hundreds of different commands.

Who has the better memory?

Who is smarter - cats or dogs and why? Some believe that cats have a much better developed memory, because they are the ones who are able to take offense at a person for a long time, as well as show their dissatisfaction and resentment in various ways. However, here again, lovers of these animals make a mistake.

Canadian scientists conducted an interesting study: in front of two animal representatives, they hid delicious food in one of the boxes (there were four boxes). The dog remembered exactly where the treat was and could easily find it even after a few minutes, while other animals forgot about it almost immediately. The conclusion suggests itself.

However, these pets' good memory does not extend to all situations. Other researchers conducted an equally interesting experiment in which animals were asked to find a treat in a fairly large maze. It turned out that rats and wolves orient themselves in space much better, which means that the possibilities of dogs are not unlimited. There is one note here: as soon as the four-legged friend has seen how the owner solves a certain problem in one way or another, he can remember the algorithm and cope with the task on his own.

What is the secret of dogs' genius?

The secret of such intelligence in dogs is their ability to fully interact with people. Unlike other animals, they can accurately read and guess human gestures. Every owner of such an animal has at least once helped him find his favorite toy, simply by pointing in the direction in which it is located.

So whose mind is more developed? If we rely only on the above research results, we can conclude that dogs are superior to cats in intelligence. However, this conclusion is not entirely true, because each type of pet is considered the best in one area or another. What one species cannot boast of is easily given to other living beings.

Based on the above, the following conclusions can be drawn:

1. dogs have a well-developed memory;
2. dogs are better able to interact with people;
3. cats are more precise in their movements and better able to hunt alone and survive in general.

Dogs have twice as many neurons as cats in their cerebral cortex, the area responsible for thinking, planning and complex behavior, scientists have found. The results of the work were published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroanatomy .

“In this study, we wanted to compare different species of predators and find out how the number of neurons in their brains correlates with its size,” the researchers explain.

A predatory lifestyle is one of the factors believed to contribute to the development of an animal's intelligence, the authors of the work write. High intelligence is required to outsmart prey.

One way to characterize an animal's intelligence is to determine the encephalization coefficient, the ratio of brain mass to the animal's body mass. However, although it provides a rough estimate of an animal's intelligence and can be used to identify trends and potential in different species, it does not provide an accurate picture of intelligence.

“I believe that the total number of neurons in an animal’s brain, especially in the cortex, determines the richness of its intellectual abilities and the ability to predict events based on past experience,” explains professor of psychology and biology Suzana Herculano-Ouzel, one of the study’s authors.

Scientists compared the brains of several species of animals - ferrets, mongooses, cats, dogs, hyenas, lions and brown bears. As it turns out, dogs have about 530 million neurons in their cerebral cortex, while cats have only 250 million (for comparison, there are about 16 billion neurons in the human cerebral cortex). According to the researchers, the number of neurons in this area determines the animal's ability to draw conclusions based on past experience.

"Our discovery suggests that dogs are biologically adapted to much more complex mental processes than cats,"

However, according to scientists, cats are probably not stupid, they are just more difficult to study. So, at the beginning of 2017, Japanese scientists came to the conclusion that cats are no more stupid than dogs - they are able to remember what happens to them and, if necessary, retrieve the necessary information from memory.

The researchers also found that the number of neurons in the brains of predators does not exceed the number of neurons in herbivores, as they initially assumed. This hypothesis arose from the assumption that a predatory lifestyle requires greater intelligence from the animal. However, the number of neurons in herbivores and carnivores of similar sizes turned out to be approximately the same. Probably, in the process of evolution, herbivores had to put in no less mental effort in search of a safe place where they could hide from predators.

Brown bears turned out to be the least intellectually gifted. Although their brains were 10 times larger than a cat's, they had about the same number of neurons.

And in general, the larger the animal, the fewer neurons it had in its brain - for example, the golden retriever had more of them than hyenas or lions.

Hunting requires a lot of energy, especially for large predators, and the intervals between successful hunts are unpredictable. Therefore, large predators, such as lions, rest most of the time. The brain is the most energy-consuming organ, and these costs increase in proportion to the number of neurons.

“Eating meat largely solves the problem of providing energy. However, it is clear that predators are forced to maintain a delicate balance between body size and brain performance,”

- scientists explain.

The researchers also disputed the widespread belief that domestication contributed to the stupefaction of animals - ferrets, cats and dogs were not much different from their wild relatives, mongooses, lions and hyenas, in terms of the number of neurons.

And researchers recognized the raccoon as the most “brainy” animal - despite its modest size, the number of neurons in its cerebral cortex turned out to be almost the same as in dogs. According to the researchers' calculations, the density of neurons in the brain of raccoons is approximately the same as that of primates.

Most animal fans are sure that cats are much smarter than dogs. They prove this by the fact that cats have twice as many neurons in their cerebral cortex. Dogs relentlessly follow their owner wherever he goes, while cats are completely self-sufficient. Moreover, sometimes it seems that cats consider themselves real kings of nature, the rulers of this planet, in contrast to simple-minded dogs.

However, recent studies have shown interesting results, based on which we can conclude that dogs do have hidden genius. Dogs are able to understand about a hundred different commands that they associate with various actions or objects. Other animals have the same abilities, for example, parrots, dolphins, and some species of monkeys. But the main difference between dogs and other animals is how they learn words.

Consider a little experiment: if you show a young child red and blue cubes, and then ask him to give a cube of azure color rather than a red one, he will most likely give the blue one. The child deduces that azure probably means a shade of blue, since you are asking for a cube of a different color than red.

Juliana Kaminsky, a scientist from the University of Portsmouth in the UK, conducted a similar experiment with the dog Rico in 2004. The dog knew the names of almost a hundred different things. She was offered 8 different objects, 7 of which she already knew by their names. The researchers asked Rico to bring the toy, the name of which she did not yet know. And although the dog heard a new word for the first time, she concluded that it was about a new toy that she had not seen before. The experiment was repeated several times with other dogs. Based on these studies, it was concluded that only dogs have this interesting, “human” feature.

However, some people believe that a cat's memory is better than that of a dog, since cats are capable of being offended by their owners for a long time, and also actively demonstrate their dissatisfaction with something. But here animal lovers are wrong again.

Canadian researchers from the University of Moncton conducted a scientific experiment: right in front of dogs and cats, scientists hid a treat in one of four boxes. The dogs remembered where the treat was and could find it even after four minutes, while the cats forgot about it after just a minute.

However, good dog memory does not apply to all areas. Researchers from the University of Western Ontario conducted an experiment in which dogs had to find a treat in a maze. Similar experiments have already been carried out with rats, and they far outperformed dogs. Even wolves, which are considered the closest genetic relatives of dogs, are much better at navigation. But there is one correction here: as Hungarian researchers noted, as soon as dogs see how a person solves such a problem, they remember and could cope with such a task themselves. Thus, the secret of canine genius is their ability to interact with humans.

For example, these "social" skills of dogs are manifested in the dogs' ability to read human gestures. Every owner has at least once helped his pet find a toy, simply by pointing in the direction where it might be. No other animal is capable of understanding our gestures so clearly.

What happens, who is smarter - cats or dogs? Strictly speaking, based on the above facts, we can say that dogs are superior to cats in intelligence. However, this will be a rather rough conclusion, since Every species of living being is created to be the best in completely different areas. What one species does not succeed in, another can do with ease and ease.. As for cats, perhaps their intelligence is already manifested in the fact that they ignore stupid games and simply do not give reason to doubt their ingenuity.

People can be roughly divided into “cat people” and “dog people”. These two camps are in a constant state of cold war. Let's try to resolve their dispute by determining who is man's best friend: a cat or a dog.

Services to humanity

One of the main arguments of “dog lovers” is the long-standing friendship between the dog and the person. The first dogs were domesticated more than 30 thousand years ago, while cats became companions of people only 10 thousand years ago.

Over the many years spent next to humans, dogs have mastered many useful professions. They started, of course, as hunters. The first, still half-wild, dogs helped people hunt down game, and received their share for it. Guard dogs guarded the sites of primitive people. Shepherd dogs looked after the flock. Later, man learned to use dogs as draft power: sled dogs appeared, the ancestors of today's huskies.

Progress has given dogs a whole range of new professions. Nowadays, police dogs, rescue dogs, and guide dogs come to the aid of people. During World War II, dogs searched for bombs, conveyed messages, and blew up tanks at the cost of their lives.

Well, cats... “Cats are useless animals!” - this is the slogan of most “dog lovers”. But is it? The cat was domesticated in Egypt, the largest agricultural center of the ancient world. Egypt traded in grain; huge reserves were stored in its barns. In addition, mice and rats lived in the barns and destroyed this grain. To combat this scourge, man tamed the cat: a small predator perfectly adapted for hunting rodents. Nowadays, cats rarely perform their direct duties. More and more often, people are getting them as companions (while the concept of a “companion dog” appeared not so long ago). “We don’t need any special reason to love cats!” - say the “cat people”.

What are the dogs talking about?

Communication abilities are very important for pets. Therefore, people (consciously or not) tamed primarily pack or herd animals, accustomed to interacting with their fellow tribesmen using facial expressions or voices. The exception is considered to be cats. They say that a cat is an individualist, she is attached to the house, and not to the owner. Is this statement true?

Let's look at a dog: it has many ways to communicate to a person how it feels. Even children know the simplest signs of dog communication: wagging its tail - “I like you”, laying down its ears and growling - “better don’t come closer!” Experienced dog breeders understand the dog’s “language” very well.

But cat owners will rightly argue that their pets also have very developed communication skills, and this despite the fact that they descended from wild steppe cats, which live alone and only meet a few times a year to have offspring.

Modern cats perfectly express their feelings through facial expressions, looks, and movements. They are able to very accurately recognize human intonations, and, moreover, they can even imitate them! And they apparently learned all this during the process of domestication, without having the makings of a pack animal.

There is, however, another explanation for the extremely developed communication system of the domestic cat. When animals lose their owners and find themselves on the street, they quickly run wild. It is quite difficult for them to survive alone, and cats gather in packs. In these packs there is a strict hierarchy and distribution of responsibilities. Some researchers consider such flocks to be a sign of secondary feralization, that is, a return to a wild state. Does this mean that the wild ancestors of cats were collective animals?

Animals that lie

Austrian scientist Konrad Lorenz received the Nobel Prize for his research in ethology (the study of animal behavior). The question of the relationship between a person and his closest neighbors - a cat and a dog - is considered by Lorenz in the book “A Man Finds a Friend”.

The scientist considered the main manifestation of intelligence in his charges to be the ability to lie. He describes several comical incidents that demonstrate the amazing intelligence of dogs. The hero of one of these stories is the old bulldog Bully. With age, the dog began to see poorly and sometimes did not recognize its owner from a distance. The dog was barking and rushing toward what seemed to him like a stranger, but as he approached, he realized that he was barking at “his own.” Then, as if nothing had happened, he ran past the owner to the fence behind which another dog lived, and pretended to bark at him. This “deception” was revealed only when there was a blank fence behind the owner’s back. The dog ran past and after a moment's hesitation barked at a completely empty corner of the yard.

Lorenz believes that the cat was a victim of stereotypes. She is often called an insidious liar. But years of observations have not given the scientist a single example of cats lying or being cunning. On the contrary, he considers cats to be one of the most honest pets. “However, I do not at all consider this inability to deceive as a sign of the superiority of a cat; this skill characteristic of dogs, in my opinion, proves that they are mentally much higher,” writes Lorenz.

The question of who is smarter, cats or dogs, is the subject of eternal debate between dog breeders and cat owners, as well as the reason for numerous studies by biologists.

Intellectual abilities of cats

A consequence of cats' high intelligence is sometimes stubbornness.

Cats have developed sensorimotor intelligence abilities to a greater extent than canines. That is, these predators are more sensitive and precise in their movements, so they are excellent at hunting from ambush.

At one time it was believed that cats are dumber than dogs due to their smaller brains. However, years later, scientists have proven that domestic cats have almost twice as many neural cells, so their brain activity is more active. In addition, short-term memory works better in cats.

Cat intelligence has not yet been studied as much as that of dogs. This is explained by the fact that dogs are more social animals, and therefore are of greater interest from the point of view of their practical use.

What dogs can do

Some scientists believe that a dog's intelligence is equal to that of a two-year-old child.

Dogs have more developed communication abilities. The ancestors of domestic bobcats hunted in packs, which means they had to interact and “negotiate” with each other, correctly distributing roles. Dogs are easier for people to understand because they are intellectually more similar to us than cats.

Dogs perform tasks faster and better than cats under experimental conditions. This is why for a long time scientists believed that they were smarter. As a result, it turned out that properly motivated cats cope with tasks no worse than their rivals.

Who's smarter

Dogs are biologically adapted to much more complex mental processes than cats."

There is no clear answer to this question. Operating with the standard concept of intelligence, we must not forget about the characteristics inherent in each species. The difference in the thinking abilities of cats and dogs does not mean that one is dumber, but only that they are different.

Cats and dogs are smart animals. They have good intuition, adapt well to environmental conditions, analyze and use incoming information, but they just do it in their own way.