http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32178794/ns/health-pet_health/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32178794/ns/health-pet_health/)
This is an interesting article on MSNBC right now that talks about how Cats have learned to manipulate Humans to get what they want. It mentions a couple of current scientific studies that have looked at the Cat/Human relationship and what tactics Cats have learned to use to get what it wants.
QuoteA study published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America makes the case that ages ago cats deliberately and cunningly domesticated themselves and so they could persuade people to give them free food and shelter — sometimes against their owners' better judgment.
"Cats do not perform directed tasks and their actual utility is debatable, even as mousers," wrote the study authors. "Accordingly, there is little reason to believe an early agricultural community would have actively sought out and selected the wildcat as a house pet."
Once in our houses, cats apparently began to train us to give them exactly what they wanted.
A study published this month in Current Biology revealed that today's cats have learned to motivate people to fill their food dishes by combining an urgent cry or meowing sound with the comforting sound of a purr, a noise that's annoying yet endearing and definitely difficult to ignore.
Or by jumping on to the bed via their claws in your leg, and then standing on your chest, staring at you until you get up.
Or by jumping in between your legs every time you start walking towards their food bowl, causing you to stumble and break stuff.
Damn cats.
One of our cats, Suri, is a master manipulator. Okay, it really isn't all that masterful, it's more annoying persistance. I think she has a co-dependent attachment to my wife. It will be interesting to see how that works when a new baby is in the house. Suri also has this weird quirk when it comes to eating where she fishes out her food with her paw, one piece at a time, and then eats it off the floor.
Mimicking the sounds of a human baby cry is gloriously sneaky:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17455-hungry-cats-trick-owners-with-baby-cry-mimicry-.html
Cats aren't really domestic like dogs, sheep, cows, and other social animals are. You need some ability to assert social dominance over an animal to really domesticate it. Cats, at least within the ancestors of the housecat, are solitary animals, and they don't take shit from anyone or anything. Makes it very hard to control and domesticate them.
Dogs on the other hand, descendent of wolves which live in pack or family groups where hierarchy is very important. Once you've asserted your dominance over a dog, assuming they're smart enough, it will do whatever you want it to do.
So, I'm not surprised that cats train us. We're social, they're asocial and opportunistic, so since humans are generally manipulatable due to sociality, cats can get whatever they want from us, pretty much. And if not, you get gored. Win-win for the cat.
So in terms of domestication: dog < human < cat ?
Actually, humans are much easier to domesticate and train than dogs are.
Cause we've been doing it longer. And we're even more socially inclined than wolves, just with more subtle hierarchy (sometimes).
Wait a million years and dogs will be as easy to domesticate as humans are. It just takes that much time.