Cats and dogs have inherently different temperaments. Even when living under the same roof, they often don’t get along, either resorting to physical confrontations or cold hostility.
Usually, it’s the cat that picks on the dog. Instead of just watching the drama unfold, let’s explore why cats and dogs often end up fighting.
Table of Contents
Key Reason for the Conflict: Different Species
The main reason, of course, is that they are different species, and language barriers naturally lead to misunderstandings. For a cat, a raised tail is seen as a sign of provocation, while a wagging tail is considered mockery or a declaration of war.
To a dog, however, wagging its tail is simply an expression of joy and excitement. So, every time a cat sees a dog wagging its tail, it might slap the dog with a couple of big swats.
The dog, feeling quite wronged, thinks: “This cat is a troublemaker! I haven’t done anything wrong, yet I’m being beaten up—everything I do seems to make things worse!” But with limited space at home, there’s nowhere to retreat. Eventually, the dog might resort to scaring the cat or simply endure the situation.
Why Does the Dog Keep Chasing the Cat
They are like the quirky couple in a soap opera, with their constant bickering adding a bit of spice to the show. But, in reality, this behavior is often nothing more than daily turmoil.
However, the question remains: Why does the cat hit the dog, yet the dog keeps chasing the cat to play?
Beyond the fact that cats’ movements trigger the dog’s natural chasing instincts, there are other reasons. A research team abroad, led by Christy Hoffman from the Department of Animal Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, conducted some fascinating experiments to determine which traits in cats most attract dogs. Is it the sound of the cat or the scent around it? Their findings were published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science.
The results revealed that dogs are most attracted to the sound of cats, possibly because they perceive the sound as coming from somewhere they cannot see. Hoffman explained, “As humans, our first thought is to test how dogs react to visual cues similar to a real cat. However, our findings suggest that dogs rely more on their sense of hearing than sight. This is often overlooked because many people focus on the visual stimuli when evaluating why dogs chase cats.” Moreover, dogs with negative past experiences with cats are particularly sensitive to these sounds.
An interesting conclusion from the study was that a slowly moving, quiet cat doesn’t attract unnecessary attention from a dog. So, if a dog is bothering a quiet, still cat, check the surveillance footage—it might be because the cat just ate the dog’s food.
Real-Life Example: Dog vs. Cat
On a more serious note, a user on Zhihu (a Chinese Q&A platform) shared a real-life example: he had both a cat and a dog at home, and typically, after their playful scuffles, the dog would have scratch marks from the cat. When things got heated, the dog might pin the cat down and lightly bite it, but the cat wasn’t harmed. Later, when his friend went on vacation and left their own cat at his house, this cat also scratched the dog. However, because it was scolded by the owner, the dog didn’t attack it.
One night, after the user went downstairs to throw out the trash (a 10-minute round trip), he returned to find scratch marks all over his dog’s face, while his friend’s cat had been killed by the dog.
From this case, we can see that dogs aren’t actually incapable of defeating cats. In fact, the tolerance dogs show towards cats is often due to conditioned behavior from their owners’ scolding, or because they recognize cats as part of the family and don’t want to cause serious harm. This creates the illusion that “dogs can’t beat cats.”
In reality, dogs are incredibly strong. So, don’t buy into the internet myths about “cats’ agility” or “cats’ cleverness”—when it comes to raw strength, no amount of skill can overcome it.
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