Are Cats Really Smart?

1 How Smart Are Cats, Really?

‘Cats are certainly intelligent; they learn and make timely adjustments based on what they discover,’ says Nicholas Dodman, director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Tufts University, in Boston, Massachusetts.

According to Dodman, a cat’s brain is structurally similar to a human’s. The cat’s cerebral cortex has frontal, temporal, occipital, and parietal lobes, just like ours, and these regions are made of gray and white matter. The brain regions connect in the same way as in humans, and the same neurotransmitters carry data. They are also functionally similar. Cats seem to think like humans: they take in information from the same five basic senses and process it as we do.

‘However, cats have limited color vision and cannot appreciate contrast the way humans do,’ says Valerie Clayton, DVM, a feline veterinarian in Thousand Oaks, California. ‘But then again, cats do not really need full-color vision. Cats track moving objects better than humans; on a white wall a cat may not see a small black fly, but when the fly moves, the cat tracks it effortlessly.’

Like people, cats have both short-term and long-term memory. A cat has short-term memory so it remembers where the litter box was just moved, and long-term memory so it recalls things learned years ago, such as what a litter box is for.

In the animal world, play is more than simple enjoyment. It builds social order, helps sharpen hunting skills, and hones survival ability.

‘When kittens play, they are having fun,’ Dodman says, ‘but beyond that, they are exercising body and mind and rehearsing their adult roles.’

The first two to seven weeks are a critical learning period for cats. During this time they form strong bonds with their companions. For feral cats, this critical window passes without human contact, resulting in permanent distrust of people.

‘Cats can be trained, but training them is trickier than training dogs. They do not care as much about pleasing people,’ Clayton says. ‘To train a cat to do tricks like jumping through a hoop or fetching, you need a cat that truly loves food, and then use food as the reward.’

According to Clayton, cats in the wild are solitary. But other experts say their solitude may come more from a lack of opportunity than a lack of motivation. Unlike dogs, cats will fetch, but only when they are in the mood, because it pleases them—not just to please you.

Cats learn by observation. For example, they learn to open doors by watching us do it. According to Phyllis Cambria of Coconut Creek, Florida, her cat ‘Muffin’ loved opening cabinets. Besides the cabinet full of cleaning supplies, Muffin also opened the apartment doors. Cambria several times found her curled up on the mop in the closet. The latch needed the knob turned hard and pulled to open. One day Cambria found Muffin curled in the corner. She jumped at the doorknob, grabbed it with both paws, then dropped to the floor, rotating the knob as she fell. She did this six times before the latch finally clicked shut. Only then did they realize how smart Muffin really was.

Cats and dogs are not so different in how they learn, but each has its strengths. Every species learns better within its own niche. ‘Dogs easily learn to dig holes in the snow to escape the cold wind,’ Dodman says, ‘while a cat may never learn to dig, because digging is not something cats do naturally. But cats cover their urine and feces, and dogs do not.’

Training a cat to perform little tricks with you takes positive reinforcement and great patience. Cats can also be trained to obey commands such as sit, lie down, and jump through a hoop. Clicker training is a good way to achieve this.

According to Carole Moore of Jacksonville, North Carolina, her cat ‘Rosie’ won a ‘smartest cat’ award. Rosie can turn a doorknob to open doors. She pulls open drawers, rummages inside to find what she wants, then flips them out with her paws. She also loves the pantry, opens the louvered door, stands on her hind legs, and knocks down bags of marshmallows.

Over time, like humans, cats may start moving more slowly, sleep more during the day, and may even forget where the litter box is and what it is for.

There is a reported syndrome called Feline Cognitive Dysfunction (FCD), similar to Alzheimer’s in humans, including disorientation, reduced social interaction, sleep disturbances, and loss of house-training. In this condition, degenerative changes occur in the brain, leading to functional impairment.

So from youth to old age, cats appear to have a complex brain that helps them develop into intelligent beings. Like us, they may eventually experience a decline in learning and memory, with effects as detrimental as those in aging humans. Since all this evidence supports feline intelligence, who can say cats are not smart creatures?