Cats and dogs

Aparently, when a cat that has never met a dog before finally meets one, she reacts instinctively. She just KNOWS the dog is evil! Or at least very scary. How come?

Sara took ?abu here today, and we decided it was time for her and Zelda to meet. Outside. So that the inside would not be scary to Zelda. That part worked really well.

However, Zelda hissed and growled at the dog, and gave me clear signals that said “Don’t you dare take me any closer to that thing, or I won’t be held responsible for my actions… and you know my claws are sharp!”.

We tried to show Zelda that we all could pet ?abu, without anything dangerous happening, but Zelda could not be reasoned with. I guess maybe with time she’ll understand that ?abu is no threat to any of us.

Anyway, how did she know to react that way?

Smell? No… All of Sara smells like that, and Zelda has no problem with her.

Size? What about the humungus humans?

Movement pattern and/or sound? This seems to be the logical conclusion. It must be printed in her brain by genetics or something.

But if it is, what does cat’s brain say about humans? And what about dogs? They both accept us as packmembers even though they are so different from each other. We can’t be similar to both animals, now can we?

Do they only accept us because we where there from the start in their lifes? Or is it more to it? Maybe there is more behind my words than I know when I say I speak cat and that I am learning to speak dog to ?abu… But probably not. I behave pretty much the same way around both cat’s and dogs. That makes the dogs go into confusion mode… =)

Still, I can’t stop wondering if our domestic animals see us as big harmless monkeys. The cats probably think of us as THEIR pets… Or at best their equals.