Cat lovers are officially smarter than dog owners. If you believe one study anyway.
They are also more likely to be athiests, introverted, self-contained and at the same time more open, low in dominance, live alone – most likely in a flat – are more independent and frankly, probably lazier. Because dogs are harder work than cats.
What makes feline fanatics nuttier than dog lovers when it comes to posting cute pictures of cats on Facebook doesn’t seem to have been the subject of study as yet. But nutty or not, these crazies are laughing. Because they are happier and healthier than the rest of us.
Just for starters, cat owners are 30 percent less likely to die from heart attacks than anyone else. A 2008 10-year study at the University of Minnesota’s Stroke Institute says so. The study was large – nearly 4,500 people, of whom three out of every five owned cats. That’s a lot of cat owners. Did the participants self-refer you ask yourself? Are cat owners more likely to volunteer for 10-year studies because they are introverts bullied by their pets into seldom leaving home?
A follow-up study in 2009 showed these apparently friendly, outgoing and yet strangely introverted people are also less likely to die from any cardiovascular disease, including strokes.
So what does owning a barely-civilised arrogant piece of fluff do to these people? Teach them how to nap? Or teach them how to keep getting up every time they fall out of a second-storey window?
The answer may lie in ‘the purr’. With vibrations from 20 to 140 hertz , these purrs are sending out frequencies known to be medically helpful for a variety of illness, including mental health. That’s according to a report in Scientific American. There’s a window of business opportunity. Maybe someone could just invent a machine that purrs.
But there’s more to cats as tonic. They are also Zen masters. They live in the moment. Mindfulness is their default setting, and they’re not afraid to go berserk in a really healthy way when they feel it’s necessary. Admit it cat lovers. Who hasn’t been stalked across the bedclothes with claws extended if ‘feline’s fancy’ isn’t in the food bowl when they get in from a night on the tiles?
It’s not too hard to fathom why these cat lovers, otherwise sensible and high-functioning intelligent beings, score low on dominance. The free-thinking and openness bit doesn’t get a chance to kick in till the door slams and moggy is home alone.
At this point we have to confront the unsavoury fact that not everyone loves cats. In fact, a lot of people loathe them. Not as many as you would think. About 15 percent of people apparently. The ones who’ve had a cat pee down their leg probably. Or suck the life out of a favourite sweater. I could go on.
So why do cats deliberately choose to sit on the lap of the one person in a room who hates them? Go figure.
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