Tonight I saw a flier for a lost cat. These always sadden me, because as capable as they are, cats are also tiny. Dogs, especially dogs midsize and up, strike me as having a better chance of being found. Which got me to wondering how many lost cats turn up later.
According to this source this source it's about three quarters. Less often than dogs, yes, but at least it's a majority of cases, even if the keeper of a lost cat may be expected to fret. So, that's something of a relief.
According to this source this source it's about three quarters. Less often than dogs, yes, but at least it's a majority of cases, even if the keeper of a lost cat may be expected to fret. So, that's something of a relief.
2 comments:
It's hard to generalize about these things but as far as pets are concerned there are some major differences between dogs and cats. Dogs and humans have been close associates for thousands of years - they're intelligent, social, and deeply emotional. In other words, dogs are dependent on us. Cats not so much. Cats have been domesticated much more recently - mostly they were used as rodent exterminators on farms. They are generally territorial, predatory, and very independent.
So a lost dog is likely to be pretty upset. It's not so easy for a dog to survive on its own as it has pretty much no hunting skills. At the same time they're far easier to catch.
Missing cats, on the other hand, are less likely to be lost than to have moved to someplace nearby where better food was on offer.
That's good to know about cats, that they're still more hardwired to survive in the wild. Well, for a certain definition of "wild", given the number of them that live in cities and suburbs. If they do hop over to a place with better food, that's a comfort to the old owner. Well, if they ever find out.
Dogs, or at least the medium-large breeds I tend to be more interested in, do have potential as hunters. They are closely related to wolves after all. It's just not something that gets reinforced, except for those that are kept as hunting dogs.
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