Commission on the intelligence of cats and dogs

@trev33 said
The cat lives and the dog potentially puts its life at risk barking like an idiot. Cats are smarter, remove all the humans on the planet and cats would do just fine whereas dogs would die of starvation chasing their tail.

You may underestimate the dog as you do many people on here trev! 😉

-VR

@ponderable said
The very Definition of intelligence is a Problem here I think.

In fact cats have cunning and are more or less solitary, so the also distance themseleves from their pet human.

Dogs are well to Train and are herd animals, so they try to please their master (or bring them into Submission, as sometimes observed).

I would state it like this:

Cats have a very specific kind of intelligence. Within that limit they may well be more intelligent than dogs, but outside it they can't compete, nor can they expand their boundaries much.
Also, cats are much of a muchness. Some are cleverer than others, but rarely if ever to a great extent.

Dogs are generalists. They're not as clever as cats in catty areas, but much more intelligent in many others. What's more, most of them are more willing to learn not just new tricks, but whole new kinds of behaviour.
Also, dogs come in many kinds. Some are inherently lazy, fixated and slow to learn, almost catlike. Others are naturally curious and eager to do something new. The range of their intelligences is much wider than that of cats.

I prefer dogs, but own neither.

@very-rusty said
That joke has actually been around for a long time. Others have said it in the past.

No doubt in my mind dogs are smarter than cats. You have guard dogs, Police dogs who can sniff out drugs and chase down people when on the loose in the woods. Even dogs who save people's lives. Never heard of a cat doing any of these things.

I suppose a cat could make good company for some one.

-VR

I’m a big dog lover but I must tell you about a cat we had years ago called Tinker.

Every Mon - Thurs he used to walk down to the bottom of our hill to meet my mum as she walked home from her night shift at the hospital at 6.30am.

@drewnogal said
I’m a big dog lover but I must tell you about a cat we had years ago called Tinker.

Every Mon - Thurs he used to walk down to the bottom of our hill to meet my mum as she walked home from her night shift at the hospital at 6.30am.

Cats are very independent and need much care, can make good company though.
A lady I knew in a wheelchair had a cat that would leader her to her room where she spent most of the time on her computer. The cat would leader her there after breakfast, the go for her and dinner and go back with her, same for supper and would sometimes hope up on the wheel chair and sit on it for a ride where between where she put her feet. I've never seen a cat do that before. I believe she called the cat Kasper.

I find dogs are more useful in many ways. Guard dogs, Police dogs used for finding drugs, have been known to save lives, such as finding someone lost in the woods by smelling their scent. People drowning, wake people who were having a heart attack on a few occasions. So I consider dogs very intelligent.

-VR