"Cats are treacherous, dogs are loyal"? Why do cats seem to be more independent than dogs?

Those pet owners must have discovered that raising a cat is much easier than raising a dog. For example, when walking a dog, it has to get up and go out on time. If you don't get up, it will excitedly scratch you or dance on your bed. As for a cat, as long as you can sleep, it will stay with you until the end of time. In addition, dogs are very enthusiastic, while cats are relatively cool. So many people think that cats are more independent than dogs. They are both pets, so why are they so different? Can you analyze it from the perspective of biological evolution?

01. Why are cats and dogs so different?

There is indeed a big difference between cats and dogs, but it is a bit difficult to explain from an evolutionary perspective, because at least, I have not found any relevant research at present, and people are still arguing about which ethnic group domesticated dogs. However, I like this document. If you are interested, you can read "Chinese Scientists: Domestic dogs all over the world originated in southern my country and other places."

If we must explain it from a biological perspective, I think it may be explained by the difference in their dependence on humans.

02. Why do they have different levels of dependence on humans?

Cats and dogs have different dependence on humans, mainly in terms of food .

1. Cats have their own food source and can hunt for food (mice, fish) by themselves. Rats in particular are very necessary for the existence of cats. Cats are nocturnal animals and need to eat mice to supplement taurine. In other words, eating mice is a natural need for cats.

As you know, it is impossible for humans to domesticate mice to provide food for cats. This determines that cats need to hunt for themselves. Before human agriculture was underdeveloped, it was difficult for cats to be fed by humans, making them more independent. However, it can also be seen that cats are not necessarily domesticated by humans. In fact, one of the important reasons why cats choose to approach humans is that agriculture is developed, allowing humans to store food, and storing food will attract many mice, which cats can naturally easily prey on.

2. Dogs originally came from gray wolves. Due to their large size and being typical omnivorous animals, some gray wolves chose to migrate with humans, were domesticated, and ate the bones and meals of wild animals left over by humans. Gradually, dogs became completely dependent on this diet (they may have hunted by themselves at first, but dogs are large in size, and in areas with frequent human activities, the number of wild animals has dropped sharply, making it difficult to obtain food), which eventually made dogs completely dependent on humans.

Therefore, from the above description, it can be seen that cats are not completely dependent on humans, while dogs are completely dependent on humans . To make an inappropriate analogy, a bit extreme, cats and humans are at most similar to symbiosis, while most dogs are similar to parasitism.

03. Cats and Dogs

Therefore, there are documentaries or science fiction works that describe that once humans become extinct, cats can survive freely, while most dogs will become extinct, and only those large dogs can survive and become wolves again (ps: dogs and wolves are the same species, there is no reproductive isolation, and they belong to two subspecies, similar to white people and yellow people).

Gray wolf: Canis lupus

Domestic dog: Canis lupus familiaris

Cat: Felis catus

Some netizens also interpreted it from a sociological perspective, which is quite unique. I don’t understand sociology, but I think its content is well-founded in a certain sense. For example, the domestication time of domestic dogs is about 30,000 years (1), while the domestication time of cats is about 17,000-9,000 years ago (2). The former is in the Paleolithic Age, while the latter belongs to the mixed Paleolithic and Neolithic Age.

refer to

1 Wang GD, Zhai W, Yang HC, et al. Out of southern East Asia: the natural history of domestic dogs across the world[J]. Cell research, 2016, 26(1): 21-33.

2 Driscoll CA, Menotti-Raymond M, Roca AL, et al. The Near Eastern origin of cat domestication[J]. Science, 2007, 317(5837): 519-523.

Disclaimer: The above belongs to Li Lei's popular science series, so to a certain extent, it lacks rigor and should not be used for academic purposes.