All four of our dogs like cats and are especially smitten with our current cat, Pete. They play with Pete, go for walks with him and sleep with him.

Lucky for us, (and for Pete), our dogs would definitely fall within the category of ailurophile (cat lover).

But, of course, this is not true of all dogs. Many are not fans of the feline race.

Some dogs are afraid of cats.

Others hate cats.

And some are conflicted.

Where a particular dog falls on the cat-loving to cat-hating scale is an important consideration for shelter staff and rescue folks who are attempting to place dogs into suitable homes. In many cases, they have no way to know whether or not a particular dog is safe with cats. While there are several behavior assessment protocols available, none include a validated test that predicts how a dog behaves towards cats.  Since this can vary dramatically and because aggressive or predatory behavior towards cats can have fatal consequences, this is important information to know.  Recently, Dr. Christy Hoffman and the Canine Research Team at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, studied cat-loving and cat-hating dogs to determine what behavioral cues might be helpful in developing a reliable test for ailurophilia (or its opposite) in dogs.

The Study: They hypothesized that dogs who had a history of having either harmed or killed cats or other small animals would be more attentive to visual, auditory and visual cat cues than would dogs who had no such history. They also speculated that, given the dog’s highly refined senses of smell and hearing, dogs would generally be highly sensitive to cat sounds and cat smells. They examined the reactions of 69 adult dogs of varying breeds and breed-mixes to a visual cue (animated white kitty toy), an auditory cue (recordings of cat meows and growls), and an olfactory/visual cue (a tube of cat urine placed inside the cat toy). Each of these experimental conditions was paired with a control  (white pillow case containing a motorized ball, recording of coins falling, and urine tube placed inside pillow case, respectively). The study design involved exposing dogs to each stimulus and its paired control (for example, the animated cat toy and the animate pillow case) and recording responses.

Results: The dogs reacted differently to the various types of cat stimuli, and dogs who were not fond of cats behaved somewhat differently than those who liked (and lived with) cats:

• Altogether, dogs were more sensitive to cat vocalizations than they were to the sight of a cat (or at least to the sight of a mobile toy that looks like a cat).
• Reactions to smell were a bit more complicated. Interestingly, dogs did not spend more time investigating and sniffing the cat toy when it was baited with the smell of cat urine than they did when investigating the pee-free kitty. (Makes one wonder if the dogs were thinking……”Huh. Why did this kitty wet himself?”). Rather, the dogs spent more time sniffing the visual control (pillow case) when it was laced with cat pee than when it was pee-free. The authors suggest that there may have been a “surprise” effect occurring. Because dogs do not normally expect to smell cat pee on a pillow case (well, not in most homes, anyway), they may have spent more time investigating something that they found to be incongruent with their past experiences. There is evidence for this type of response in other circumstances with dogs in previous studies.
• Last, dogs with a history of killing or injuring cats or other small animals spent significantly more time orienting to the sound of a cat meowing or growling that did dogs without such a history. These dogs did not show enhanced interest in the sight or smell of a cat, however. Although not statistically significant, dogs with a history of predation tended to orient more strongly to the control sounds also, suggesting that dogs who are not safe with cats may be hypersensitive to auditory stimuli in general.

Take Away for Dog Folks

There are several interesting things that we can learn from this study. The first is that dogs attend to cat vocalizations and may be more sensitive to cat sounds than to the sight or smell of a cat.  The results with dogs who had a history of predation (either towards cats or other small animals) support the inclusion of various types of cat vocalizations when developing shelter tests that assess a dog’s reactivity to cats. While such tests require refinement and validation, it appears that including vocalizations may be helpful for differentiating between dogs who are safe with cats and dogs who may not be.

And last, dogs are interested in cat pee, especially when it shows up places where one least expects it.

This study also brings another question to mind of course – Do we need a study that distinguishes between cats who are cynophiles (dog lovers) and those who are misocynists (dog haters)?

Cited Reference: Hoffman CL, Workman MK, Roberts N, Handley S. Dogs’ responses to visual, auditory, and olfactory cat-related cues. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 2017; 188:50-58.