Cats that fetch are an evolutionary mystery

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/11/cat-fetching-behavior/676078/

by bookofjoe • 3 years ago

99 110 3 years ago

bookofjoe• 3 years ago

It's simple. Cats aren't fetching per se. They're playing Chase the Ball, and they bring the ball back so their human can throw it again.

cjaybo• 3 years ago

Is this not what dogs are doing when playing fetch, as well?

SideburnsOfDoom2• 3 years ago

It's a game of 2 halves. Two complimentary perspectives.

davisp• 3 years ago

Not necessarily. There’s an entire class of dog breeds literally named “retriever”. A quick search shows the AKC saying the first retriever breed was from the 16th century which means humans have been selectively breeding dogs for this specific behavior for nearly 500 years.

Whether or not we consider the basal instinct as retrieval vs some other similar instinct that can be easily used to motivate the retrieval behavior [1], I’d wager most dog owners that have trained (or attempted at least!) would agree that some dogs are just more likely to become good retrievers which to me suggests that there’s more than just a basic pleasure stimulus response.

Similar dog behaviors based on breed that I would argue at least point towards instinctual behavior being at least a partial explanation for behavior are herding and live stock protection breeds. Take a quick watch of any of the sheep herding competitions or other fun related videos [2] to see what I mean.

However, at the end of the day I also think that most “instincts” are more of a shorthand/stereotype for some set of abstract probabilities that may or may not result in a dog being good or bad at any specifically desired behavior.

[1] https://www.wildfowlmag.com/editorial/tips_strategies_wf_ins... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FX9rviEhw

YiraldyGuber2• 3 years ago

Cats aren't breathing per se. They're inhaling air, and they relax their diaphragm so the air is exhaled again.

throwaway2902• 3 years ago

Your "X don't Y per se, they Z" macro take reveals misunderstanding. In the original, Y and Z are different actions with different intent (use human as ball dispenser vs try to make the a human happy like a dog would) whereas you just make your Z to be a technical definition of Y.

progne• 3 years ago

I once thought I saw a kid abusing a small cat. He picked it up and threw it across his front lawn, quite far. I started running over to stop him ... and then saw the cat run back to the kid, who did it again. They did it a few more times by the time I walked by. They were playing fetch with the whole cat. What's the evolutionary explanation for that?

catchnear43212• 3 years ago

dopamine

saagarjha• 3 years ago

Abuse, or play? I would guess the cat wouldn’t run back to be thrown if it didn’t like it.

groestl• 3 years ago

That's the point.

raincole• 3 years ago

What's the evolutionary explanation for that?

The simple answer is that being thrown make the cat practice how to land.

But the actual answer is probably that creatures like cats are big enough to contain a lot of evolutionary noises and legacies that it can do random shit.

benjijay• 3 years ago

My cat often enjoys being thrown short distances, we restrict this to "onto the bed/sofa" but I imagine she would be mostly okay with the floor too

mcv• 3 years ago

Kids too. When swimming, my son loves to get thrown by me. And sometimes also in other throw-safe environments. If people like it, why not cats?

blamestross3• 3 years ago

I had a cat who loved to be tossed across the room (onto the nice safe soft bed) and who would excitedly run back to be tossed again. Just don't ask how we figured it out in the first place...

But he was wierd. He liked going on walks on a leash, and demanded a chair at the table when we played boardgames and he would happily sit and watch us play (or sit in the middle of the board until we got him a seat).

The first time I met him, he very clearly, intentionally guided me to his brother who was sick (meow, runs towards me, meow then back towards his brother, repeat).

We lost him kinda without warning, he got an ear infection that popped his eardrum then he never recovered from the shock. Cats don't communicate pain or discomfort well, so we didn't even realize something was wrong until it was too late.

But yeah, consistent recessive outliers are an evolutionary advantage trait. I've seen a lot of arguments that neurodiversity is an evolutionary trait, as having multiple behavior patterns in the population helps with survival. Cats are social animals, which means a similar neurodiversity pressure probably acts on them.

ComputerGuru6• 3 years ago

I’m sorry for your loss; that sounds like a phenomenal cat friend!

denton-scratch• 3 years ago

(or sit in the middle of the board until we got him a seat)

I've lived with several different cats whose favourite position was directly between the people and the television. I'm not a cat person (nor a dog person); I know nothing. But I suppose they like human attention, so they sit where the humans are looking.

WalterBright• 3 years ago

neurodiversity is an evolutionary trait

I'm pretty sure it is, as society needs us nerds to invent new things.

corethree6• 3 years ago

What's the evolutionary explanation for the child wanting to throw the cat?

Also what's the evolutionary explanation for you trying to save the cat?

Personally I think it's genetic drift. In safe environments natural selection by definition is much less strict and thus all kinds of random mutations pass the bar of survival.

JumpCrisscross3• 3 years ago

Trust demonstration?

Demonstrating trust strengthens bonds. In the wild, that kid might be more likely to defend that cat’s interests when e.g. food ran short.

hypercube33• 3 years ago

Of all things my dad got cats to fetch celephane wrappers fairly easily. All of our cats were strays or barn cats originally.

u3202• 3 years ago

They like how they sound when handled. They have fantastic hearing, so it's not a surprise that it affects how they play.

jncfhnb• 3 years ago

Excitement is generally rewarding. Don’t need anything deeper than that

elpocko• 3 years ago

I lived with a black cat some 15 years ago. Whenever it was bed sheet changing time, it was also cat tossing time. He loved being tossed "across the room" (really just a few feet) onto the matress and wouldn't stop coming back to get more.

traceroute66• 3 years ago

He loved being tossed "across the room"

So you swung the proverbial cat ? :)

mrob• 3 years ago

My theory is that most (all?) mammals evolved a liking for fast movement to counteract the unpleasant exertion that usually accompanies it, and which might otherwise encourage them to sit around doing nothing all day. This is a simpler mechanism (and thus more likely to evolve) that something involving delayed rewards for exertion. If you can get the the fast movement without the exertion, net pleasure is even higher.

The cat being thrown probably feels the same as a human driving a fast car or riding a roller-coaster, or a dog putting its head out a car window, or a mouse stopping suddenly on an exercise wheel to let it spin it around.

Doxin• 3 years ago

or a mouse stopping suddenly on an exercise wheel to let it spin it around.

I had never considered they may be doing that on purpose.

mathgradthrow• 3 years ago

I throw my cat across the room all the time and she definitely doesn't stop walking on my fucking keyboard as a result.

smolder• 3 years ago

I did something similar with my cat growing up, tossing him onto the bed or the couch, and he seemed to enjoy it and would keep coming back. Eventually we had a sort of routine where I'd toss him into a backflip and he'd land gracefully. He also played fetch with little paper or foil balls, dropping them near my feet and panting(!) like a dog once he got a bit tired from chasing them. The last interesting behavior to me is that he liked to burrow underneath blankets to sleep next to people, but that one might be more usual.

He was a large black and white short-hair cat. I always described his behavior as very dog-like and some people were very surprised by it.

Edit: I should have at least tried to respond to your question. I agree with the sibling comments theory about how animals enjoying movement can encourage their physical development.

mgarfias• 3 years ago

My dad and once had a catch we’d play catch with. That is: we’d toss the cat back and forth between us. He loved it.

james_david3• 3 years ago

The subtitle of the article is cats who fetch. I'm sorry to be a pedant, but language matters when we talk about other living beings, and I think it's important that we recognize them as such, rather than, say, a box that opens, or a Bluetooth speaker that ran out of battery.

cnity3• 3 years ago

This isn't pedantic, it's just wrong. "Who" is for humans.

corethree6• 3 years ago

Are you implying that cats have less rights then humans or are you implying that this topic is important?

james_david3• 3 years ago

This is the point I am making. Human exceptionalism is built into our language and it is wrongheaded. Anyone who has known a cat will be aware that they are full of personality, very much unlike a box or a Bluetooth speaker.

SideburnsOfDoom2• 3 years ago

Language can be used flexibly, word choice can be used to subtly emphasise an aspect.

I think it's more permissible when it is used to emphasise that the cat as a living being is exercising agency in voluntary behaviour that they enjoy. (1)

e.g. "Cats that shed" or "rocks that crumble" vs "Cats who fetch" and "people who sing".

"Cats that shed" is definitely correct. "Cats who fetch" implies that the cat has agency and choice here, is in a small way "human-like".

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38405224

krastanov• 3 years ago

Are "humans that walk" and "people that sing" incorrect in some versions of English? I am a foreigner who is relatively good at English, but I do not remember seeing this prescription in textbooks or style guides.

On the other hand, above I just wrote "I am a foreigner that ..." and Grammarly corrected me to "I am a foreigner who ...". I am still leaving this comment here as a reference to others that wonder the same.

ComputerGuru6• 3 years ago

Yes, in all versions of English, actually. But no one will even pick up on it or judge you for it - the rules have grown lax.

Nevertheless, in formal, written English, “who” is the overwhelmingly correct choice. Cf https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=people+who%2Cp...

ComputerGuru6• 3 years ago

I agree that language matters. But we also say “the people that..” even if it’s not as grammatically precise as “the people who..”

“Who” is more often identified with individual/identity than sentience. They’re not talking about particular, individual cats.

chatmasta3• 3 years ago

Usually "the people that," is referring to a role that some people fulfill, like "the people that make the laws." Whereas if you're referring to a category of people with a shared behavior, it feels more natural to say "people who bicycle to work" rather than "people that cycle to work."

I'm not sure there is any grammatical rule for this, though. And besides, nobody likes people that nitpick ;)

corethree6• 3 years ago

Hard disagree. Language doesn't matter. Only communication and intent matters and language is only a servant to communication and intent.

If the intent and meaning came across and the intention wasn't to offend and the meaning is clear there is zero and I mean zero need to pretend to be offended. The cat doesn't even care and clearly no body here thinks of cats as Bluetooth speakers... what practical purpose does any of this serve? None.

It's all part of that pronoun thing started by transgender people. The desire to be recognized as a certain gender in language codified into a "law" and that law is now being taken to logical extremes in such a way that we have to use the correct term for cats. The next step is to teach cats English so they can actually be offended.

IAmGraydon• 3 years ago

Sometimes you don't have to overthink it everything. The explanation for the behavior is simple. Cats have a natural instinct to hunt, and when you throw a toy for them, they get to exercise that instinct. After they've done it once, the sense of reward drives them to seek the reward again. Therefore, they attempt to repeat it by prompting the thrower to throw again by bringing them the toy.

chatmasta3• 3 years ago

Instincts are such a weird concept. It's incredible how so many specific behaviors can be genetically encoded, to the point they're visible even in animals that are raised in human households. Their parents aren't passing down cultural memes to them, and yet they still know exactly what to do.

It makes me wonder how much instinctual human behavior we're conflating with learned behavior. Since we have language it's easy to assume that we do things because we learned them. But what about a Tarzan situation? How would a human behave if raised in total isolation, or even under the purview of other animals like the legendary Remus and Romulus (at least they had each other)? If the role of cat and human were reversed, what would humans do that the cats found endearing and "just human instinct?"

endominus• 3 years ago

I would encourage you to look up the history of feral children, but the results are quite saddening (confounded, of course, by the fact that any child raised this way would by definition have grown up in an abusive environment).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child

lofaszvanitt• 3 years ago

Plus it keeps them sane. Being locked in a flat 24/7 is not good for a cat..

Scoundreller2• 3 years ago

Have had 2 cats in life: 1 would always want to go outside (my record of going toward the front door, then U-turning toward the back door and them following me throughout was 17 return trips until I got tired out and let them out). -10C outside? Still wanted to sit on the patio for 10 minutes.

Cat2: completely afraid of anything and everything outdoors. Will follow you around the house, but absolutely not follow you outside.

TalEs• 3 years ago

Much better for the surrounding native animals though. You of course need to provide them with enough stimulation, play with them and keep them active. Their concept of sanity is not like human sanity, cats like to be in enclosed spaces that have their scent and they feel safe in the environment. It's partially how they were raised and genetics, if they would prefer staying indoors or trying to stay outdoors. Keeping them indoors since young makes them accustomed to it, and is the best age to train them with good habits.

bmitc• 3 years ago

I don't think that explains it at all. There are plenty of rewarding behaviors that cats don't give two shits about. And it also doesn't explain why some do it and others don't. Plus, cats have individual personalities. Not everything is driven by instinct.

compiler-guy• 3 years ago

This is a borderline “just so” story. And many just-so stories end up wrong. It might be right, but the article is dealing in science and evidence.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story

leeoniya• 3 years ago

this is a thing: https://www.google.com/search?q=bike+ride+shoulder+cat&tbm=i...

there's a guy in my neighborhood who cruises around on his MTB with a shoulder cat. i am very jealous.

ComputerGuru6• 3 years ago

That is adorable! All my cats were always consistent shoulder riders in their kittenhood, but the physics of balancing a 7kg feline stretching almost a meter in length on a lanky guy’s shoulder(s) are a lot more challenging than placing a tiny ball of fluff in that same spot and walking around.

Gabriel54• 3 years ago

I had a cat that would fetch only one particular kind of Christmas tree decoration (like a little stuffed animal). Anything else wouldn't interest her, even if it had a similar shape and size.

catchnear43212• 3 years ago

did you have a favorite stuffed animal as a kid?

would a substitute suffice? (or offend?)

kwertyoowiyop• 3 years ago

Is nobody going to say “stop trying to make fetch happen”?

nealabq2• 3 years ago

I wonder if Gretchen saying that in the movie was a nod to Merry Prankster Fetchin' Gretchen the slime queen.

ggambetta• 3 years ago

Why? It's slang... from England.

jeffwask• 3 years ago

One of mine plays fetch and it's cute as hell.

blamestross3• 3 years ago

It sounds more like 15% of cats realized their humans could be made to entertain them with proper prompting.

My experience with fetching cats is that it is a comforting/boredom relief behavior. They bring me a toy, I throw and they chase it, then bring it back to my general location (they get distracted and drop it easily, most often right before jumping onto the couch). The fact the loop can be repeated a few times before they get bored again and move on is just bonus points.

ComputerGuru6• 3 years ago

To emphasize your second point: I have learned that cats are much more “obedient” - but really, much less inclined to suddenly just not give a damn - as kittens than when they get older.

I had an extremely bright kitten that learned his name in a week, would come running no matter where he was in the (fairly large) house when I called his name, even if he was asleep, etc and would perfectly play fetch, up to and including bringing the toy all the way back to my hand/lap.

He didn’t forget his name or how to play a year later. He just realized he doesn’t have to get up from his comfortable spot just because I felt like calling his name. Likewise he figured if he just makes a half-ditch effort to bring a fetch toy back, perhaps picking it up a few paces only, I’ll still pick it back up and play fetch with him again.

They’re creatures that (who) have mastered the art of doing the bare minimum to get by.

JumpCrisscross3• 3 years ago

He just realized he doesn’t have to get up from his comfortable spot just because I felt like calling his name

Something that becomes incredibly obvious if they react, e.g. twitch their tail, when you call their name but not another.

rsaxvc• 3 years ago

My cat did this, but only started after I was gone for three weeks.

The night I got home he was so happy he started bringing me his toys on bed. All of his toys. Eventually various household objects. Finally a wooden spoon to my face! I was so confused I tossed it away, and he played fetch with it ever since(and later other objects sometimes).

lholden• 3 years ago

Awww. "Please don't leave me! I bring you gifts!"

I had a cat that would gift give if I was away for a while too. I always figured it was a bribe to not do it again. He also liked to play fetch, but it predated the gift thing.

Handprint4469• 3 years ago

That is adorable

klipt• 3 years ago

Similar environments often lead to Convergent Evolution...

Maybe domestic cats are slowly evolving into dogs!

Scoundreller2• 3 years ago

Casual observation suggests that a lot of dogs are evolving into cat-shaped objects.

nealabq2• 3 years ago

I'm 63. Cats seem a lot more friendly and open to human interaction now than when I was a kid. I wonder what they were like 200 years ago. Especially barn cats, with half wild lifestyles.

Some cats now have floppy ears -- I first saw that in the late 90s. Floppy ears is a sign of domestication in dogs and foxes.

dheera2• 3 years ago

Paywall free link

https://archive.ph/qwkvc

dylan604• 3 years ago

hmmm..."Enjoy unlimited access to The Atlantic." I'm going with I'm special today

JumpCrisscross3• 3 years ago

Mine puts his toys into my suitcase when I pack. Once, when we had a houseguest, I refused to feed him dinner twice. We found him packing his toys into our houseguest’s case.

ibasaw• 3 years ago

Is that his way of saying "I found a new owner"

js2• 3 years ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20231124144003/https://www.theat...

u3202• 3 years ago

This is not a big mystery. Cats play for the same reason that dogs and kids do. For some reason cats vary a lot in how they play. But its no mystery why it often involves chasing something that moves. They are genetically evolved to practice hunting, because they are natural hunters.

dguest• 3 years ago

I'm somehow reminded of this talk:

https://idlewords.com/talks/robot_armies.htm

He picked it up and threw it, and she ran and brought it back several times until she had had enough... My roommate hadn't trained the cat to do anything. She had trained him to be her cat toy.

irrational• 3 years ago

My daughter first learned to train dogs as part of Guide Dogs for the Blind. When she got a cat, she tried training it in the same way, and it worked. Her cat will sit, stay, “do her business”, lie down, etc. on command. It is kind of bizarre and makes me wonder how many other cats can be trained likewise.

bell-cot• 3 years ago

"...first learned to train dogs as part of Guide Dogs for the Blind..."
"...and makes me wonder how many other cats can be trained..."

Reaction: Trained by a typical cat owner, or trained by your top-0.1% in animal training skill daughter?

dehrmann• 3 years ago

I trained my cat to use the literal toilet, no treats involved.

noman-land• 3 years ago

Surprisingly, jazz legend Charles Mingus wrote a book about how to toilet train a cat. He successfully trained his own cat, Nightlife.

https://www.charlesmingus.com/mingus/cat-traning-program

wrboyce• 3 years ago

One of our cats will sit, high five, and run in a circle on command. Neither of us have ever trained any animals before, it just took some patience and some treats.

Daunk• 3 years ago

I've hade many many cats, and I have yet to have a cat that DOES NOT fetch.

dheera2• 3 years ago

Paywall free version

https://archive.ph/qwkvc

heikkilevanto• 3 years ago

I lived with a Siamese cat once. I didn't teach her to fetch. She taught me to throw again. She used to love those little foam balls, but only the yellow ones. Other colors were just not as fun too play with.

exabrial• 3 years ago

I had a shelter rescue Siamese that INSISTED fervently I play fetch with him: https://youtu.be/Lhgqwh5QbT0

He passed away in 2020, still miss him.

deafpolygon• 3 years ago

That's an evolutionary mystery? How about cats being trained to use the toilet?! They're on their way to taking over the planet.

Cats that fetch are an evolutionary mystery

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