Despite their great popularity, both species are vying for pride of place in their owners’ hearts.
A recent study examines people’s preferences when it comes to these animals, and suggests that they are by no means universal.
Researchers from a number of international universities set out to find out whether our personal penchant for dogs or cats can be explained. Indeed, some people tend to be more considerate of their dogs than their cats.
Previous studies have even suggested that pet owners are more willing to pay veterinary bills for a dog than a cat, but these were carried out on unrepresentative samples of “pet parents”.
“We and others have found that people are willing to spend much less on their cats than on their dogs. We wanted to find out whether cats could eventually end up having the same high status as dogs do today,” said study first author, Dr Peter Sandøe of the University of Copenhagen, quoted by Frontiers Science News. Dr Sandøe and colleagues commissioned a survey company to recruit 2,117 dog and cat owners living in Denmark, Austria and the United Kingdom.
These three European countries share many similarities, but were urbanised at different times in their history. The scientists hypothesised that felines might occupy a lower place on the socio-zoological scale than canines in territories with a more recent agricultural past, such as Denmark.
Attitudes to pets around the world
To verify this, the academics asked volunteers to answer a series of questions.
These were aimed at understanding the emotional attachment of owners to their pets, as well as their expectations in terms of veterinary care and the amount they were prepared to invest in caring for the health of their animal companions.
This methodology highlighted the fact that study participants seemed to care more about their dogs than their cats, regardless of their country of origin.
They said they were more attached to their pooches, and were more inclined to take out a health insurance policy to cover their medical needs. Dog owners also expected more veterinary treatment options to be available for their furry friend than cat owners, and were prepared to spend more to take advantage of this care offer.
However, the researchers found that volunteers’ attitudes towards dogs and cats varied from country to country.
People in Denmark and Austria, for example, were much more attached to dogs than those in the United Kingdom. Residents of Denmark were also far less likely to have insured their cat than their pooch, unlike their British counterparts.
“The British are often portrayed as a nation of cat lovers, which is certainly confirmed by our study. The Danes have a long way to go, but they may eventually get there,” Dr Sandøe told the science website.
The findings of this study, recently published in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science, show that caring more about dogs is not a universal phenomenon, but rather the result of millennia of domestication.
What’s more, it is quite possible that dog “parents” provide more insurance for their animal companions because their veterinary care is more expensive than that of their arch-enemies, cats; nothing to do with a supposedly innate preference for pooches. – ETXDailyUp
