We know much more about dogs than about cats.

Cats are the only solitary animals that were domesticated.

Today cats live in groups, but also solitary.

Whenever I give a talk about dogs, someone always will ask: "But what about cats?" People then typically tell me that they are a “cat person” and that their cat is very special.

I usually respond by saying that we don't know much about our cats. It is much easier to invite dog owners to cognitive tests with their highly motivated animals. Motivation is crucial in cognitive experiments: If an animal is not doing what we expect, we might think that it does not possess the cognitive skill that we are testing. But it might be simply that our subject is not motivated to solve the problem we confront it with.

Cats are special because they are the only domestic animal that lived solitary, at least at the time of their domestication. They derived from the African wildcat, Felis lybica, around 10,000 to 5,000 years ago in the Middle East. In fact, researchers do not describe cats as having been domesticated by humans, but rather as having domesticated themselves. This fits nicely with our perception of cats as independent and headstrong, doesn't it?

The most likely scenario is that cats domesticated themselves because humans stored food in villages and, later, in towns. Cats weren't interested in flour and other supplies, but in the mice and rats that........

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