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If It Feels Like Your Cat Doesn’t Care About You, It’s Because They Kind of Don’t

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If you’ve ever gotten the sense that your dog is trying to help you find something you’re looking for, you were just imagining things. But, at the same time, if you’ve ever gotten the distinct and quite chilly sense that your cat couldn’t care less, you were also correct.

A study published in Animal Behaviour found that dogs are far more likely than cats to help a familiar caregiver, even if they aren’t necessarily equipped to do so. In some cases, the researchers even say that their behavior was similar to that of toddlers, who have developed enough to identify that a caregiver might need help but can’t really offer much in the way of genuine help.

Researchers from Eötvös Loránd University and the HUN-REN–ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group compared untrained companion dogs, companion cats, and children aged 16 to 24 months. In the experiment, a parent or pet owner hid a neutral object, like a dishwashing sponge, in plain view of the subject and then searched for it without asking for help.

More than 75 percent of dogs and toddlers either indicated the object’s location, often by expressing it in the exact form of cartoonish physicality you’re probably imagining — looking at the thing, looking at you, looking at the thing, and looking at you. Sometimes, they would just go and grab it for them.

Cats Can Help You, They Just Don’t Want to

One clear thing was that all three groups paid attention to their caregiver in the midst of their search. The difference is in what they did next. Dogs and toddlers felt compelled to help in what limited way they could, while cats maintained their distance, watching their caregiver frantically search like a fool from a distance.

The researchers wanted to test if the cat’s response had anything to do with a basic sense of indifference, so they ran a control test using objects the animals valued, like a favorite toy or a treat. Only when cats had a vested interest in the search did they engage at levels comparable to dogs and toddlers. They are absolutely capable of helping, but if they are not going to directly benefit from it, they want nothing to do with it.

The researchers say the explanation is evolutionary. Dogs transitioned from wolves to man’s best friend by being our doting companions, which got refined over the centuries through domestication. Cats have always been and still are solitary hunters who were never bred for cooperation. They still seem to form bonds with humans, but those bonds are almost strictly on bare terms, whereas a dog is predisposed to treat a human’s problem as its own problem, even without the promise of a reward at the end.

So, yes, cats are the assholes we’ve always known them to be, but that doesn’t mean they don’t like you. They’re just dicks about it.

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