Cats' presence reduces anxiety and depression.

Dogs aid children's social development by providing companionship and facilitating interactions.

Pet-caregiver relationships are reciprocal, impacting both pet behaviors and human emotional states.

“Cats Bond Deeply with Women & Manipulate Men, Research Shows,” read a recent email. What an inspired headline, I thought. I wondered whether it was true, so I started to investigate.

I discovered that the story (from the Your Tango website) was based on research from Ankara University in Turkey published as “Greeting Vocalizations in Domestic Cats Are More Frequent With Male Caregivers.” A much more prosaic title.

The academic paper has no reference to cats bonding to women or manipulating men. It is based on video footage of 31 participants who recorded the reactions of their cats as they returned home. Male cat owners elicited an average of 4.3 vocalizations (meows, purrs, or chirps) during the first 100 seconds of entering the room, and female owners evoked an average of 1.8 vocalizations.

“Our results showed that cats vocalized more frequently toward male caregivers, while no other demographic factor had a discernible effect on the frequency or duration of greetings,” commented the researchers.

Yasemin Demirbas, the lead researcher, suggested the large difference between the way the cats in the study responded to their male caretakers compared to their female ones was because female caregivers are generally more verbally interactive, more skilled at interpreting feline vocalizations, and more likely to mimic the vocalizations of their cats. [4] It is therefore possible that cats have learned over time that to attract their male caregiver’s attention, they need to engage in more directed and frequent vocal behaviour.

Socialized cats display what might be called “friendliness to humans,” which in turn affects human attachment to the cat. Studies have shown that women speak and interact more with cats than men do. Cats respond in kind. Consequently, women have been noted to enjoy closer relationships with their cats than men. However, I am sure there are many men who have a warm, affectionate relationship with their cats and many women who do not. It seems that the cats that feel emotionally neglected will greet you more dramatically, their vocalizations signaling, “Are you happy to see me?”

Some of the most suggestive research doesn’t even require vocalization. Studies using non-invasive brain-imaging techniques have shown that cats’ temperaments and interaction styles measurably influence human emotional states and physiological responses.

The mere presence of a cat in the household (as well as interactions with the animal) reduces anxiety, depression and introversion. Depressed owners initiate fewer interactions with the cat but usually respond favorably to the cat’s behaviour marked by vocalizations, and head-and flank-rubbing. Women’s moods are lifted more by cats than men’s.

Studies from many areas of science suggest that regular contact between children and dogs can influence social development, emotional regulation, learning and physical health. A comprehensive review of child–dog relationships found that children interacting with dogs often show greater social confidence and reduced fear of social rejection, partly because dogs provide non-judgmental companionship and facilitate conversations with others.

Experimental and observational studies indicate that children who develop strong attachments to pet dogs often show better emotional regulation and fewer behavioural problems, with the quality of the child–dog relationship mediating these outcomes.

However, researchers emphasize that the quality of the relationship, rather than mere dog ownership, is the key factor determining whether these interactions produce beneficial outcomes. Experts recommend parental supervision, education about dog behaviour, and proper training of both the dog and the child.

Amalia Bastos and colleagues at the Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, investigated whether domestic dogs trained to use augmentative interspecies communication devices, better known as soundboards, understand the referential meaning of the words produced by the buttons, rather than merely responding to contextual cues from their owners. The study represents one of the first controlled experimental tests of soundboard-trained dogs.

The findings showed that dogs responded in ways consistent with the meaning of the words at rates significantly above chance. For example, when hearing “outside,” dogs oriented toward doors or engaged in behaviours typically associated with going out, even when contextual signals were minimized. Similarly, responses to “play” reflected play-oriented behaviours rather than generalized arousal. To isolate word meaning from environmental or human prompts, the study used controlled conditions in which recorded button words were played without the usual situational cues or owner behaviours that typically accompany those activities.

Methodological biases rather than cognitive limitations have constrained scientific research on the cognition of the domestic cat. Kristyn Vitale and Monique Udell, at Oregon State University, in a review of cat cognition research have argued that cats discriminate visual and auditory stimuli with precision, recognize their owners’ voices, and retain long-term memories for tasks and environments. They can learn through rewards and consequences, pick things up by watching others, understand that objects still exist even when out of sight, and even make simple judgments about “how many” of something there are. Importantly, cats show social flexibility: they form attachment bonds with humans, respond to human attentional and emotional cues, and can use certain social signals, such as pointing.

While we may never know what it is like to be a cat or a dog in the strict psychological sense, it is evident from the studies cited here that pet-caregiver relationships are reciprocal, in the sense that owner’s behaviours influence pet behaviours and bonding.

What scientific research has clearly shown is that cats and dogs enrich our lives and keep us healthy physically and mentally. Or, as one of my friends said, cats and dogs are the nicest people.

This article is excerpted from "The Inner Lives of Cats and Dogs”, The Globe and Mail, March 27, 2026.

Demirbas, Y. S., Kerman, K., Yildirim, T., & Şimşek, S. (2025). Greeting Vocalizations in Domestic Cats Are More Frequent With Male Caregivers. Ethology. 132(2), 87-94.

Turner, D. C. (2021). The mechanics of social interactions between cats and their owners. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 8.

Prato-Previde, E., S. Cannas, C. Palestrini, et al. 2020. “What’s in a Meow? A Study on Human Classification and Interpretation of Domestic Cat Vocalizations.” Animals 10, no. 12: 2390.

Mertens C. Human-cat interactions in the home setting. Anthrozoös. (1991) 4:214–31.

Huber, Ludwig. How dogs perceive and understand us. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2016; 25:339–44.

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