Domestic cats are harder to read than domestic dogs

Although I can't find the actual study, the Mail Online reports on a study led by Prof Daniel Mills from the University of Lincoln, UK which explores how cat and dog owners recognise the emotions of their companion animals through their expressions. The study asked 438 pet owners to state whether their dog or cat displayed a list of 22 different emotions from disappointment, frustration to sadness and joy.

Frustrated cat? The facial expression is perfect for a frustrated cat showing anger. But we know how a feline's facial expression can mislead us. Often it is due to the cat's anatomy e.g. Grumpy Cat. I am yet to be completely convinced that domestic cats can feel the emotion of frustration. I think they find a way around it by substituting what frustrates them with something else.

Unsurprisingly, dog owners were better able to recognise their companion animal's emotions than cat owners. I don't think this study really advances our knowledge of cats and dogs that much because we know that cats are less facially expressive than dogs because they are essentially a solitary animal whereas dogs are a pack animal looking up to their alpha male leader for guidance and interacting with other members of the pack which requires communication including body language which in turn includes facial expressions.

In the study, on average, 65% of dog owners compared to 58% of cat owners believed that their companion animal can express a certain emotion.

Based on the study's findings, dogs are more able to express subtle emotions such as guilt and empathy. There probably has to be a word of warning here in that sometimes dog owners project their feelings onto their dog companion and believe something which doesn't actually exist.

It appears that, according to cat owners, cats excel at demonstrating anger! Around 85% of cat owners said that their cat can express anger compared to less than 60% of dog owners. Comment: there may be a misconception here. It may be that people are not relating to their cats properly and are inadvertently provoking them into being defensively aggressive perhaps. This might encourage cat owners to regard their cat as demonstrating anger more commonly than dogs do so with their owners. It is not uncommon, for example, for people to pet their cats too much or in a way which can cause scratches or bites. This may colour their perception of their cat's aggressive nature when the root cause of the issue is how people interact with their companion cat.

Another factor which coloured the study findings would be that cats are less predisposed to looking directly at their owner whereas dogs are more likely to do this as they look for guidance from their alpha male leader which would be the human owner.

In fact, it is said that people should not stare at their cat because they find it intimidating. That is not entirely true nowadays because domestic cats are very well integrated into the human environment but it is probably fair to say that cats are less likely to look into the eyes of their human owner than pet dogs which would mean that the owner is less likely to spot facial expressions indicating an underlying emotion.

Prof Daniel Mills said, "When cats turn on their owners and scratch them, it can be because owners miss subtle signs suggesting it is time to stop touching or patching them. So, it's important to understand our pets, but these results suggest we may not be as in tune with cats as we are with dogs. This could be because dogs may have been bred to have more expressive faces than cats."

He adds, "But unfortunately we still don't know whether cats and dogs generally show different emotions, or whether people project more emotions onto dogs and cats, because we often work more closely with dogs so need better communication."

The research is published in the journal Animals. The researchers questioned people who had lived with their pets for at least two years and therefore knew them well. They asked the owners whether they had seen six central animal emotions in their companion animal: anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness and surprise. And they asked them how they were expressed through facial expressions and general posture and eye contact.

The owners said that they were better able to recognise anxiety, boredom, confusion, and the, frustration, guilt, shame, pain and positive anticipation in dogs compared to cats.