Cat owners more intelligent than dog owners?
It appears the long-standing cat vs dog fight has moved up a notch and now the fight is being taken to the owners. According to research from academics at Bristol University, the characteristics of a cat owner as opposed to a dog owner show that cat owners may indeed be more intelligent than dog owners. The findings were published in Veterinary Record.
Dogs are more likely to be owned by larger households and less likely to include those educated to degree standards whereas cats are more likely to live in rural or semi-urban areas and the household is likely to contain at least one graduate.
A study by Canterbury Christ Church University in 2009 on the other hand states that although the cat owners themselves might generally be better educated than those that own dogs, the pets themselves are less intelligent. In tests to measure an understanding of cause and effect, cats were less successful than the dog participants.
The Cats Protection lecturer for feline epidemiology, Dr Jane Murray, said that the education level standard for cat owner vs dog owner is more likely to be due to practical issues of pet ownership as the better educated may find themselves working longer house with less time therefore for caring for dogs.
