Which is smarter, Dogs or Cats?

[Monstercloud]

Cats, if only because I've never heard of a cat eat their own, or another species, sh*t..

[cptaylor38]

Cats in my opinion.

I only say that because I have lived with them all of my life. I've had dogs as well, but when you have as many pets as I've had you realize that it's not really a matter of intelligence, it's a matter of personality. Cats won't do something they don't want to do. They're independent, and sometimes a little clumsy or untrained, but they're not dumb. lol

I've had some pretty smart cats though. I think they are smartest in terms of manipulation. I get some of you would disagree and say I'm a crazy cat lady because you don't think animals have feelings or personalities, but they do. My cat used to fetch till she got lazy. lol Most cats will have the owners fetching long before the owners have them fetching. (Unless they want food and then they know how to get what they want.)



Dogs are generally sweet and eager to please, but I wouldn't say they're smarter. (As usual, it's more about the individual animal than the species. :P)

[Deleted]

Personally I think it's apples and oranges. We can't really measure how smart an animal is as that would be projecting our intelligence on them.

They've both developed differently. Is it smarter to be able to survive in a pack? Or is it smarter to be able to survive alone?

[Jakexe]

In reality it boils down to the individual animal but having owned several dogs and cats if I were to take the smartest of them i'd have to say the dog comes out on top. A good tests of intelligence is the self awareness test aka the mirror test, if an animal can recognise their reflection then they're considered intelligent. Unless i'm mistaken I've never heard of a cat passing this test whereas a select few dogs have.

Granted one of my dogs has hour long barking match's with her reflection in my oven so it's fairly subjective.

[Billy Idol]

i vote for Dogs

[Duncanîdaho]

My cat makes my dogs look dumb in some things. They will chase him sometimes and he will own them in some way every time. Then jump on them when their back is turned, its great. My cat also comes on command like my dog no matter where he is in the neighborhood. I live in a nice one so we let him just roam free outside. Which surprises a lot of people. Dogs have their bright side too though.

How are we measuring their intelligence here? Are my dogs are smarter because I can teach them to obey commands easier then my cat? But if I left my dogs alone outside they would die because they are so reliant on me. Or is my cat smarter? Because he can own my dogs in any play fight, harass them at will, and come on command? My cat could easily survive on his own outside and be self sufficient without me as he brings home mice nearly daily.

I'm going to go with my cat I think since he can survive on his own. It a really hard call though because both animals are very intelligent in their own ways. It's just one historically was a sole survivor while the other was a pack animal so their brains/instincts have different priorities.

[BrokenHearthstone]

Dogs have more intelligence, while cats have better reflexes and stuff like that.

[Drekker17]

I'm assuming we're only talking domestic, well I personally find Cats smarter, dogs can't take care of themselves and never solve tricks unless you teach them...cats are harder to teach though.

[KickThatGuy]

Dogs just seem smarter that cats imo

[Mormolyce]

Humans have a biased assessment of animals' intelligence. We tend to view animals as intelligent when they behave in ways similar to us, and also when the animal is more social. Dogs are more social than cats, they exist in a structured society and so they interact with humans more than a cat would. Because they are so social they are more attuned to the mood of other dogs, and by extension their human masters, so there is more emotional back-and-forth between a human and a dog. Cats are more independent. Cat and dog intelligence is also quite different, it's focused on each one's style of hunting and interacting with other animals/humans.

I'm not sure if the old stories about smarter and dumber breeds of dogs is actually true, but I do remember reading about tests on cat intelligence. Turns out breed did not have a strong influence on intelligence, despite what many cat lovers believed, and in fact cats are highly individual when it comes to problem-solving and so on. When presented with puzzles containing food, some cats would figure it out right away and could easily get at the food whenever they were presented with more tests, while others never showed any interest in the puzzle or understanding of its purpose. Cats don't really think like humans, I think dogs are more like us.

So basically it's subjective and possibly unknowable. People's answer to the question really just reflects how they are personally interpreting certain kinds of behaviour as intelligent.

Here's a link:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/...r-cats-or-dogs

Incidentally, brain size is no indication of intelligence. Horses have a bigger brain than humans and they're dumb as a post, while crows have smaller brains than cats or dogs and they're extremely intelligent (again, this evaluation of "intelligence" is relative). I also read while googling that despite having a brain half the size of a dog's, a cat's brain has almost twice as many neurons. But again, not a measure of intelligence.

[Deleted]

Pointless argument. People judge the intelligence of animals by how obedient they are. Dogs want nothing more than to please their masters, while cats don't care about the concerns of humans.

Dog people tend to be more outgoing and outspoken than cat people, therefore dogs are more likely to be represtented in cat vs dog arguments than cat are.

Each are smart in their own way. But dogs are more likely to gain votes in a debate like this.....

[Chaochamp]

Cats, because they are able to keep themselves clean without a clean source of water - and they have a lot more survival instincts. For example, my cat is able to kill a very small bird and carry it around in its mouth, and my dog would never be able to do such a thing. If we could look at a specie's survival timeline at some super speed, I believe that we would see cats living longer than dogs.

Though, that doesn't really measure out how smart they are in every way possible, but I think it would be the most important kind of smart.

[Deleted]

Well intelligence and smartness is two different things! A dog is by far the dumbest animal of both, but it's also the most intelligent.

Cats= Smarter, more efficent thinker, craftier. By far a better predator than a dog and have it way easier to make split second decisions when it's needed.

Dogs= More intelligent, kinder , easier to teach. It's capable of giving something a "deep" thought, and they understand that a certain action can cause harm to another individual before they actually make that action.

However, you can actually teach a cat everything that you can teach a dog if given enough effort ^^ It's just lazy cat owners who don't have patience enough to train their animal to behave civilized

[Razeo]

Dogs, let me see a cat that can open a fetch his toy ball and rinse it on his water dish then give it back to you, let me see a cat get the newspaper on the front yard and leave it by the kitchen counter, let me see a cat that rings the bell by the glass door to the backyard so he can go to the bathroom, not to mention he knows about a dozen commands. Yep, my beagle does all this and he's only 16 months.

[Rioo]

Dogs, let me see a cat that can open a fetch his toy ball and rinse it on his water dish then give it back to you, let me see a cat get the newspaper on the front yard and leave it by the kitchen counter, let me see a cat that rings the bell by the glass door to the backyard so he can go to the bathroom, not to mention he knows about a dozen commands. Yep, my beagle does all this and he's only 16 months.

Cats don't do useless gestures for their masters to get something. If your parents made you stand on your head before you're allowed to eat and you would be happy because you're pleasing them you would be a retard.

[AdriWar]

I'm a cat man myself, but I'd have to say this one goes to the dogs, I haven't seen many smart cats (maybe a handful?), but most dogs are a lot smarter compared to cats.

[Deleted]

It's like this:
-a dog is your slave, he follows your every command without question
-a cat uses her brain and seems to understand emotions better of people and reacts based on their personality

So, cats. Since they're independent and not slaves.

[Frozenbeef]

cats...if i locked my cat outside he would find food for himself...if i locked my dog outside he would sit at the door crying

[Velthy]

My vote goes to dogs. They have bigger brains.



What do you think.

So? Rats have smaller brains and they are smarter.
Im vote goes to the cats anyway, they seems smart. Dogs are always dumb and funny.

[Deleted]

Dogs, let me see a cat that can open a fetch his toy ball and rinse it on his water dish then give it back to you, let me see a cat get the newspaper on the front yard and leave it by the kitchen counter, let me see a cat that rings the bell by the glass door to the backyard so he can go to the bathroom, not to mention he knows about a dozen commands. Yep, my beagle does all this and he's only 16 months.

My cats can't ring the doorbell but they use their claws to claw at the base of the door, making a really annoying sound and I know they want out. Also, some of my bigger cats I have used to jump on the door handle and actually open some doors themselves. And I have them fed in the kitchen, and there's a door not fully closed towards basement through which they can get outside after, so they open said door and go. When winter was here, their exit was covered in snow, but they made a tunnel exactly where the exit was (they were all outside before the snow came). They catch bugs when said bugs appear in kitchen.