Are Dogs More Faithful Than Cats?

Animal trainers know that dogs react well to a reward system, being praised when they do the right thing. In the dog's eyes, this is acceptance and approval from other members of its pack; the alternative is pariahship.

Though dogs very obviously display affection, joy and altruistic behavior towards their owners, when you talk about your dog being faithful to you, you must also consider "is it individual affection or is it canine submissiveness?" Much of what we consider to be faithfulness are behavioral traits arising from the dogs wild instincts.

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Cats form attachments to humans but are not submissive and will not tolerate the same amount of abuse that a dog will. Cats do not have a sense of their rank in a pack and do not consider that it is your birthright to bully them into faithfulness. A mistreated cat will leave if it can. A mistreated dog will often come back for more because it learns that its place in the human pack is the pariah position.

Where several cats live in a confined or isolated colony, there may be a pariah cat. Unlike a pariah dog it will not show appeasement behavior (begging or groveling) but will normally isolate itself to avoid being bullied. If possible it will leave the area. If not possible it will avoid its tormentors. Unlike dogs, cats have no vested interest in staying in a pack. If they can't leave the area e.g. they are confined or it is the only available food, they will eat, urinate or defecate when the other cats aren't around.

Cats have not been selectively bred for as long as dogs, so they retain far less infantile (kittenish) behavior. Traditionally cats were kept to control vermin. This did not require them to be especially faithful to individual humans. Only in the last few decades have cats been bred for appearance or for temperament (some breed standards contain clauses relating to temperament).

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