No, I’m not going to be discussing the poorly made 2001 movie that probably made your childhood slightly uncomfortable.  However, I will be discussing how loyalty differs between the animals.  If you’re like me, you’re a dog person through and through.  I’ve had a dog my whole life and I love my dog more than some* (most*) family members.  Inversely, I hate cats.  The whole species makes me sick.  I believe that dogs are inherently more loyal than cats by a long shot.  This got me thinking, is there any science to support my belief? Let’s take a look.

Behavior towards humans differs between the two animals based on how they have socially evolved in the wild.  Dogs travel/hunt in packs and are subservient to a “pack leader” (Hartwell).  Because of this, domesticated canines view their owners as the pack leader and act submissively and seemingly loyal towards them.  Cats on the other hand, are not pack animals with an inherit form of leader or hierarchy.  They are used to hunting alone and only socializing with other cats if enough food is present.  This is why domesticated cats seem more distant and cold to their owners; owners need to prove their worth to the cat if they want loyalty or affection.

The loyalty of dogs have been tested quite literally to their limits.  Around a century ago, a brutal experiment vivisected dogs in order to test their loyalty.  Owners abused dogs to the point where they actually removed a fully conscious dog’s eye from it’s socket. Despite all this, the dogs proved to remain “loyal” to their owner by continuing to lick their owners hand throughout the abuse (Hartwell).  Now, thankfully these experiments would never happen in today’s society, but we still have to take the findings under consideration.  Although disgustingly unethical, these experiments prove that dogs will continue to remain loyal to their owner regardless of how abusive; they simply don’t know what else to do.  Because cats do not have the same sense of rank as dogs do, they do not tolerate this type of behavior regardless of what kind of attachment they develop with their owner (Hartwell).  At a very evolutionary and biological point of view, it can be found that dogs are innately more loyal than cats.

An experiment with a dog interacting with a robot has yielded some pretty interesting results.  As you can see in the picture above, scientists put hand like gloves on a robot with a monitor and had the robot interact with the dog.  The robot would point out food to the dog and the dog would actually go fetch the treat.  The dog would subsequently display affection to the robot, almost as if it were a real person.  Scientists found that the dog responded better when they displayed a human face on the monitor with real recorded speech as opposed to a blank screen with robotic beeps.  One could definitely argue that the experiment was faulty since it only tested one dog and failed to test any other breed. I would love to see a trial in which they pinned several breeds of both dogs and cats with said robot and observe how they respond.  Seeing how a cat would interact with the robot could potentially be very interesting.  Would the cat respond positively to the robot and fetch the treat, or would it treat the robot with the same cold behavior cats often treat people with.  What can we take away from this experiment?  Well, dogs definitely respond positively when given a treat.  It’s quite clear that, when proven that it will be cared for, a dog will reciprocate that loving behavior back to its owner; or in this case, a robot.  I look forward to continuing this discussion in a further blog exploring more behavior patterns between cats and dogs.

Works Cited:

DailyReporter. “Proof That Dogs Are Loyal to ANYTHING That Feeds Them: Scientists Find They Will Even Bond with Robots (you Wouldn’t Catch a Cat Doing That).” Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 14 Sept. 2013. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.

Hartwell, Sarah. “Are Dogs More Faithful Than Cats?” Are Dogs More Faithful Than Cats? Messy Beast, 1 Jan. 2001. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.