Cats Don’t Care When Owners Are Attacked as Much as Dogs, Meanwhile Other Study Suggests Red Definitely Is a Color

We’re guessing this one isn’t going to win any Nobel Prizes. A new study out of Japan has “discovered” that cats are more indifferent to dogs when it comes to the safety of their owners. You heard correctly, cats.

The study, which was published in Animal Behavior and Cognition, was split into two trials. Both began with trapping a pet owner in a clear plastic box and letting the cat watch its owner struggle to escape as three strangers milled about.

In the “helper” trial, one of the strangers would open the box and free the owner, whereas, in the non-helper trial, the strangers (much like a cat) would watch the owner suffer and do nothing. After the trials, each person offered the cat a treat, and lo and behold, the cat ate every single treat, showing no preference or prejudice toward any participant willing to drop a spicy nugget in its mouth.

In an identical study performed with dogs, the canines would typically avoid any strangers who they witnessed not helping their owner and would refuse any food from them. Shocker.

Here’s what the study had to say about this controversial finding: “We consider that cats might not possess the same social evaluation abilities as dogs, at least in this situation, because, unlike the latter, they have not been selected to cooperate with humans.”

In other words, cats make terrible home security tools. To be fair, the study added that the domestic rapport of cats and humans is remarkable given their ecological background. Every single cat species (aside from lions and cheetahs) are solitary hunters and territorial bastards who rarely interact with anyone, even other cats.

Before the scientists move on to study whether red is definitely a color or eating an entire bag of Cool Ranch Doritos definitely causes bloating, let’s take a moment to gratefully cuddle our cats against their will. They’re genetically structured to despise us and yet, they manage to let us pet them with our grubby human hands. Now that’s love.

Cover Photo: ajr_images (Getty Images)

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