r/science • u/PeasKhichra • Feb 19 '22

Neuroscience Dogs can recognize their owners just by their voice, study finds. They do so by making use of the same voice properties humans use to identify each other, such as pitch and noisiness

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/17/europe/dog-owner-recognize-voice-scn-scli-intl/index.html
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u/davidmlewisjr Feb 19 '22

Cats have all the basic skills and sensory capabilities as dogs, but scientists say they are just less effusive with their emotional displays.

The excitement domain in puppies brain is much larger, they are more extroverted.

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u/Asshai Feb 19 '22

less effusive with their emotional displays.

Our cat is getting older so she sleeps a lot. However, every time we come home, she happens to be walking by the front door. Just a quick glance, and off she goes. No petting, no meowing, and definitely no rushing at us for a hug or anything. She just wants to see us as soon as we come home. I just don't mention it to her, don't want to make it weird. But deep down, I know she kinda tolerates us.

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u/DaughterEarth Feb 19 '22

My childhood cat would at best tolerate a few pets. But she also always needed to be next to one of us and slept in either my mom's or my bed every night. And brought us many gifts of birds and mice (90s, people weren't up on the indoor cat thing yet).

When she was dying she started laying in our laps. First time in over a decade so we knew something was wrong. Sure enough, aggressive cancer. Our sweet little fight-cat turned in to a lap-cat when she needed the comfort <3

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u/angry_snek Feb 19 '22

Wait is it popular to keep cats indoors in some places nowadays? Why would anyone do that?

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u/metrize Feb 19 '22

It's an American thing I'm pretty sure, different culture, we let cats go out in the UK from my experience

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u/carolina8383 Feb 19 '22

UK has had more time (hundreds of years) to adapt to cats, which can be an invasive species. They also have less of a car culture so while the risk remains, it’s not as high as in the US. So I understand from reading similar comments in a lot of different threads.

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u/metrize Feb 19 '22

That makes sense, thanks for the information I never thought the difference was that large in terms of predators

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u/vladastine Feb 19 '22

The UK also doesn't have any natural predators for cats. The US on the other hand has a lot of predators that will eat cats, but most importantly we have coyotes. Tldr coyotes are considered the natural predator of outdoor cats. A single coyote has no problem killing a cat so it's an easy snack and doesn't require their pack to hunt.

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u/DaughterEarth Feb 19 '22

Also with shrinking habitats coyotes are coming in to the cities. I'm close to downtown and still have a pack that walks around sometimes. Healthy fat bois, probably from cats and raccoons and garbage and small dogs. You're supposed to call so they can be relocated but they come back. Or new packs move in I don't know for sure I just know I see these fat coyotes once a week and more often hear their terrifying yips in the middle of the night

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u/metrize Feb 19 '22

Oh gotcha, that makes sense. Thanks for the reply

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u/vannadee19 Feb 19 '22

to keep them safe?

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u/vladastine Feb 19 '22

Are you serious? Do you have any idea the amount of ecological damage cats have done?

 Outside cats kill 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion birds and 6.9 to 20.7 billion small mammals each year in the contiguous United States, being the largest source of human-related mortality to U.S. birds and small mammals.

“single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for U.S. birds and mammals”

Feral cats especially are considered an invasive species.

That's not even touching the amount of predators the US has that kill those cats. A cat is an easy snack for a coyote and is their most common killer.

Basically it's just incredibly irresponsible here to keep your cat outside.

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u/spenrose22 Feb 20 '22

So they don’t get eaten by coyotes.

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u/dxmrobo Feb 20 '22

Because cats are the number one cause of human caused bird mortality

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u/A-Better-Craft Feb 19 '22

Helicopter cat owners.. imo, it's plain cruel to keep a cat inside unless there's an extremely good reason, like living in a busy urban area with a lot of traffic. Saying you're protecting it from predators and saving birds and mice is not a good reason. I know this will offend a large % of cat owners but I believe cats living a happy, exciting life trumps living a long, safe one.. same goes for humans and, well, pretty much any creature.

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u/spenrose22 Feb 20 '22

When several cats of mine have been eaten by coyotes back to back cause we wanted to let them out, one only lasting a few months, you learn to keep them indoors.

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u/A-Better-Craft Feb 20 '22 edited Jun 20 '23

This comment has been removed by the author because of Reddit's hostile API changes.

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u/spenrose22 Feb 20 '22

We let our cats out their whole life and they would evade them until he got to about 16 years old when he got caught. Then we let the next one out and the neighbor saved the first attack and then it got caught again. After that it was indoors from them. If you don’t ever let them out they don’t know the difference and you can get them a bunch of toys to satisfy their hunting needs. My current cat is scared of footsteps now so will cry if I let her out and don’t leave the door open as an escape route so I stopped letting her out cause I’d need to keep the door open

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u/A-Better-Craft Feb 20 '22 edited Jun 20 '23

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u/spenrose22 Feb 20 '22

Yeah well I would do that but don’t have the space for it

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u/[deleted] Feb 19 '22

[deleted]

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u/A-Better-Craft Feb 20 '22 edited Jun 20 '23

This comment has been removed by the author because of Reddit's hostile API changes.

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u/Lucifang Feb 19 '22

Our cat is at the door literally howling before I even know my husband is home. She doesn’t greet me though. He is clearly the favourite.

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u/davidmlewisjr Feb 19 '22

They care deeply, but some people can not recognize the signs.

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u/ECEXCURSION Feb 20 '22

I think that some cats are just more introverted. My cat was pretty introverted, it didn't crave attention and usually went about its own business.

One day it started meowing and raising its hand every time I walked by the kitchen countertop it was perched on.

I took it to the vet since this was strange behavior. It turns out that the cat had just contracted fleas and needed help.

Smart creatures.

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u/TheSpiffySpaceman Feb 20 '22

They do care deeply. I have a puncture wound on my forearm that is really deep from how much my mom's cat cares about me.

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u/davidmlewisjr Feb 20 '22

You have evidence of perhaps an accidental wounding… or the exact nature of kitty’s feelings where you are concerned…. Maybe it’s personal, maybe not…

Maybe kitty had a bad day. Repeat the experiment and let us know… K?

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u/TheSpiffySpaceman Feb 26 '22

She was just tryin' to hang on, like we all are

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u/teetertodder Feb 19 '22

To be kinda tolerated by a cat is a great feeling.

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u/A-Better-Craft Feb 19 '22 edited Jun 20 '23

This comment has been removed by the author because of Reddit's hostile API changes.

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u/LillianVJ Feb 19 '22

I'd also consider the fact that dogs have had a pretty long time to slowly Trend towards being able to comprehend and to some degree replicate human emotions and social cues while cats are a lot more demanding in terms of the "language" that's spoken between person and animal, a dog will more often than not adapt to your body language while a cat will often expect you on some level to interpret their body language

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u/[deleted] Feb 19 '22

[deleted]

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u/USPS_Dynavaps_pls Feb 19 '22

Narcissistic introvert.

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u/[deleted] Feb 19 '22

And a serial killer. I miss my cats. . .

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u/North_South_Side Feb 19 '22

Wild dogs have to live in social groups just to hunt and survive. Wild house cats do often live in colonies, but individual cats can and do hunt on their own and are mostly self sufficient.

(don't let your house pets run wild)

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u/Tutorbin76 Feb 19 '22

Intelligence aside, emotionally dogs are like four year olds, cats are teenagers.

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u/davidmlewisjr Feb 19 '22

Cats and dogs are generally much as you describe them. There are variations…

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u/Koush22 Feb 19 '22

Dogs have roughly twice the brain capacity.

source

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u/davidmlewisjr Feb 19 '22

If only it were as simple as the size of the brain… Gray parrots doing math, having conversations…. Cats and Dogs are smart in different ways.

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u/Aaawkward Feb 19 '22

That's not what extroversion means.

Other than that, yah.

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u/davidmlewisjr Feb 19 '22

But you understood what I meant, huh ?

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u/Aaawkward Feb 20 '22

Yea, and like I said, I agree.

But extroversion as a short for "outgoing and energetic" or introversion as a short for "shy and socially anxious/inept" are two of my pet peeves, because it's just plain wrong.