The Conversation extends the dog-owner’s friendly game of fetch to feline friends who, researchers have found, can also enjoy bringing back toys that are thrown for them to retrieve:
In our newly published study, we found that more than 40% of cats described in our survey data played fetch, compared with almost 80% of dogs. We also outlined several possible reasons for fetching, including play, selection during domestication, and learning effects.
…[O]ur group teamed with University of Pennsylvania researcher James Serpell, who developed two survey-based tools to assess dog and cat behavior. The surveys include basic questions about each animal’s breed, age and living environment, followed by dozens of questions about their behavior, including traits such as predatory behavior, sociability with humans, activity level and fearfulness. Both surveys also included questions about fetching.
Using these survey results, we analyzed data from thousands of cat and dog owners to explore just how common fetching is and what characteristics of a cat or dog and their environment are likely to predict fetching.
We found that fetching was much more common in cats than we anticipated. Over 40% of cat owners had a cat that “sometimes, usually, or always” fetched. For comparison, we also provided the first estimate of the prevalence of fetching behavior in dogs. Almost 78% of dogs represented in the data were reported to fetch.
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But both cats and dogs will carry prey items away from the kill site, which may also partially explain how a behavior such as fetch could arise.
Although cats often are viewed as independent and aloof, recent studies have found that cats can show attachment to humans, pick up social cues from humans and even recognize their owner’s voice. We hope that our study further encourages people to understand that cats are capable of loving relationships with humans, especially when these popular pets are well socialized and provided with an enriched and safe environment. Including fetching, if your cat is so inclined.
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You can read more of Mikel Delgado and Judith Stella’s research here, in Plos One.