Is it possible to bond with a cat

This study used both pet cats with owners and shelter cats. A study Attachment bonds between domestic cats and humans. Vitale KR, et al. Current Biology ;R—R looked at how cats responded to an attachment test that has been used in humans, other primates, and dogs. For the test, each cat or kitten was brought into a room they had never seen before along with their owner. Cat and owner were together in the room for two minutes, then the owner left for two minutes. They were reunited for two minutes.

The SBT classifies attachment styles as secure or insecure. Insecure attachments are further broken down into ambivalent, avoidant, or disorganized see the sidebar for descriptions of each attachment style. The study looked at 70 kittens ages 3 to 8 months and 38 adult cats over 1-year-old.

Of the kittens, Of the Of the adult cats, The kittens were then retested six weeks later, after half of them went through a training and socialization intervention.

The results remained consistent, with All over Europe, the Catholic Church tortured and executed cat owners for witchery. Since having cats could get you burned at the stake, people began slaughtering domestic cats—a trend worsened by the misconception that cats caused the Black Death , which began ravaging the continent in the mids. For instance, people might say this about specific dog breeds—pit bulls or poodles, say—but not about dogs in general:.

And, scientifically speaking, this bias is unfair. Recall that dog genes have been shuffled around for millennia to suit human needs. This brings us back to the evolution issue. Again, house cats are mainly a product of natural, and not artificial, selection—they domesticated themselves, you might say.

Dogs, not so much. The ease with which humans can breed them also means that humans have selected for genes that make dogs more appealing to them—and not just for skills, but also for aesthetics and personality.

That lack of mystery might have something to do with why Hollywood, the media and the general populace is more inclined to relate to dogs than cats, notes Mikel Delgado, a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley and a professional cat behavior consultant.

Dogs, by comparison, are thought to act on their whims and readily reflect what seem to humans to be familiar emotions. But dogs have probably been bred for these traits, says Delgado. This goes for communication, too. In fact, dogs now automatically treat humans differently from how they treat other dogs, notes Bradshaw in this National Geographic interview.

Genetically speaking, though, cats come out of the box less programmed to socialize with humans than dogs do. In fact, they treat humans much as they treat other cats, says Bradshaw.

Cats also tend to be much less reliant on people than dogs are. They are good at taking care of themselves—e. Mutual dependency is therefore more balanced than it is with dog ownership; pet and pet owner both have to work to understand each other, negotiating emotional and physical needs in a similar way to how human friends do, says Bradshaw.

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