Dogs are known to like fetching, but it is less well known that cats like to do it too.
Retrieving combines elements of predatory and social behavior in both animals, despite their very different hunting and playing styles, researchers from the University of Lincoln, UK found. It was reported by The Washington Post.
Although their domestication and natural behavior are very different, cats and dogs have a lot in common. Both types of animals are predators, they live together with humans and enjoy fun times with them. Scientists in the newly published studied found that 40.9 percent of 8,224 cats and 77.8 percent of 73,724 dogs surveyed “sometimes, usually, or always” retrieved.
The researchers followed up on research from 2023 that examined 924 cats and found that all of them showed some key characteristics of retrieval. Pets have brought back to their owners all sorts of items from toys to paper balls to pens, bottle caps and even shoes. But cats were usually not trained to retrieve, so they behaved completely spontaneously. At the same time, they preferred to initiate the fetch game themselves and played more often when the toy was brought back to their master than when he threw it.
A key question in the British team’s study was why some cats fetch more often than others. In dogs, fetch is one of the most common forms of human-dog play, as many dog breeds have been specifically bred by humans to aid in hunting and retrieve prey. What both carnivore species have in common is that they carry away their prey after killing, which may partly explain the origin of the retrieving habit.
The results show that males fetched more often in cats and dogs. Old age and health problems, on the other hand, reduced the likelihood that animals would play in this way, as well as in cases where there was a dog in the household with any animal. In terms of cat breeds, the researchers found that Siamese, Tonkinese, Burmese and Bengal cats were the most frequent retrievers. This was related to their activity: the more the cats ran, jumped, played with new objects and initiated play with their owners, the more often they retrieved.
Source: zpravy.tiscali.cz
