Experts find cats are not emotionally dependent on their owners

Humans and cats person a long, ancient history of companionship – but really attached are our feline friends to us?

While dogs are perpetually clinging to quality reassurance, cats are acold much independent and could arsenic activity comfortableness from a alien than their owner, investigation has discovered.

The struggle scientists person faced successful testing nan enslaved betwixt humans and cats is that companion cats thin to beryllium difficult to trial successful a laboratory because they dislike leaving their homes.

Researchers from Eötvös Loránd University successful Hungary tested 15 therapy cats, which are trained to bask travelling to caller places, on pinch 13 regular companion cats. The cats were placed successful a room and tested connected really they reacted to their proprietor compared to a stranger.

The results were published successful nan diary Applied Animal Behaviour Science and showed therapy cats tended to beryllium arsenic friends pinch a alien arsenic pinch their owner, moreover erstwhile their proprietor near nan room. However, nan companion cats didn’t respond overmuch to their proprietor aliases a stranger.

The study recovered “no motion of attachment to nan proprietor successful immoderate of nan feline groups”, moreover successful “highly friends and amicable cats”. It concludes that cats did not request to create “dependency-based bonds pinch humans”.

Dr Péter Pongrácz, who led nan study, told The Independent: “Cats developed a successful coexistence pinch people, which comes pinch communal benefits (e.g. emotional) for some parties. However, while dogs achieved this done their domestication history by becoming limited connected humans (asymmetrical relationship), cats remained independent from america (they remained effective predators connected their own). Thus, for cats, nan classical attachment enslaved towards their proprietor is biologically irrelevant, because they unrecorded pinch nan proprietor arsenic 'equals'.

“In our experiment, nan main novelty was that we tested therapy cats, who were comfortable astatine an chartless place, pinch chartless people. Thus, we could trial them successful nan ‘strange business test’, conscionable for illustration dogs, without utmost stress. We showed that these friends cats did not show differential responses towards their owners aliases a stranger, which would beryllium a prerequisite for attachment.”

To find if animals are limited connected their owners, researchers measurement really attached nan pet is to their owner, really overmuch worry they show erstwhile nan proprietor is absent, and finally, nan acceptance of a friends stranger.

This “strange business test” has antecedently been utilized connected dogs, and recovered they person a highly limited child-parent narration pinch their owner.

Signs of attachment see staying adjacent to nan proprietor wrong a metre, watching their proprietor and playing pinch their proprietor erstwhile they waved a toy.

The cats displayed small to nary quality successful really they interacted pinch their proprietor and nan stranger.