The real truth about cats and dogs

IT’S been one of the great debates through the decades – whether dogs or cats are smarter.

Although dogs may have felt they’ve had the upper paw, the latest study suggests moggies can purr with the satisfaction of being the equal of their canine counterparts.

The Japanese University team’s experiment looked to see whether 50 cats could remember which bowls contained food under laboratory conditions. It’s a rare trait in animals and dogs have been among the few species to demonstrate what’s called episodic memory.

Now cats have passed the test.

We love our domestic buddies with a vengeance.

But what’s the REAL truth about cats and dogs?

CATS

There are more than 500 million domestic cats in the world, with about 40 recognised breeds.

Cats make more than 100 different sounds whereas dogs make around 10.

A cat’s brain is 90% more similar to a human’s than to a dog’s. Cats and humans have nearly identical sections of the brain that control emotion.

A cat’s cerebral cortex (the part of the brain in charge of cognitive information processing) has 300 million neurons. That’s almost double a dog’s.

Cats have a longer-term memory than dogs, especially when they learn by actually doing rather than simply seeing.

Cats’ brains have 1,000 times more data storage than an iPad. A cat can jump up to six times its length. House cats can run at a speed of 30 miles per hour.

Cats sleep 70% of their lives. That means a nine-year-old cat has been awake for only three years of its life. Cats have free-floating bones that attach their shoulders to their forelimbs, allowing them to squeeze through very small spaces.

Domesticated cats have been around since 3600 B.C., 2000 years before Egypt’s pharaohs.

The ability of a cat to find its way home is called “psi-travelling.” Experts think cats either use the angle of the sunlight to find their way or that cats have magnetised cells in their brains that act as compasses.

Cats use their whiskers to detect if they can fit through a space.

One study indicated that hungry cats ‘meow’ in the same frequency as a crying baby making it hard for humans to ignore.

Hearing is the strongest of cat’s senses: They can hear sounds as high as 64 kHz – compared with humans, who can hear only as high as 20 kHz.

Most female cats prefer using their right paw, while males are more likely to be “left-pawed”.

According to statistics, cat owners are healthier than those without cats. The risk of heart attack is cut by a third among people who have a pet cat.

DOGS

Puppies have 28 teeth and normal adult dogs have 42.

Dalmatian puppies are pure white when they are born and develop their spots as they grow older.

Dogs have about 1700 taste-buds. Humans have approximately 9,000 and cats have around 473.

A dog’s sense of smell is up to 100,000 times more acute as that of humans.

It’s a myth that dogs only see in black and white. They see primarily on a blue and yellow scale so can’t tell the difference between green and red.

They can, however, see better in the dark and their whiskers help them detect motion changes.

Dogs only sweat through their paw pads. But to cool themselves off they can pant at 10 times their usual level, up to 400 breaths.

The basenji is the only breed of dog that can’t bark. However, they can yodel!

Bloodhounds are able to trace scents that are over 300 hours old.

The first large dogs appeared in Russia about 15,000 years ago, there were smaller dogs in Western Europe at about the same time, and other wolves were domesticated in China a little later. Modern dogs are mostly a mixture of all three types.

Dogs are as smart as two-year-olds, and able to understand the same number of words, 200.

Dogs don’t feel guilty. Although we think they might look guilty at having done something wrong, it’s just how we interpret their reaction to being told off. Dog wee can be bad for lampposts.

Croatian pooches were held responsible for a spate of tumbling posts, while a survey of one million in the UK was conducted over fears of corrosion.

The way your dog wags its tail can tell you its mood. It’s suggested a wag to the right means happy and to the left means frightened. Low wags indicate they’re insecure.

A dog’s nose print is as unique as a human fingerprint.

Dogs dream like we do. That’s because they have similar brain wave patterns, although smaller dogs dream more often. A small breed may dream six times an hour, a big dog just one.

There’s demand for around 850,000 puppies each year in the UK.

Dogs don’t age seven years for each human year. Lifespans depend on various factors including genetics and size – small breeds tend to live longer.

You CAN teach an old dog new tricks. Although eager puppies soak up information, dogs can learn at any age.