Would Cats Make for Better Dogs?

If you changed the body of a dog to be that of a cat, would they perform better or worse as a dog?

I promise you, the answer to this question is probably a lot more interesting than you imagine. You most likely think this is a very strange question or topic for anyone to write about, so allow me to explain why I got started pondering this question and the conclusions I've reached from researching this question.

A quick disclaimer, I am a cat lover. I'm not a dog lover. Whenever I look at the grace and the movements of a cat, I cannot help but think that a dog is just a clumsy, inferior version of a cat. Thus, I asked myself: Why do people prefer dogs to cats? My initial answer has been it's the behavior people prefer. They prefer the behavior of dogs over the behavior of cats. But then I pause and ponder, is that all there is to it? I started thinking about whether you can make a dog into a much better dog if you just gave it a cat body. For instance, one of the reasons we do not have large domesticated cats the size of dogs is because a cat is significantly more dangerous than a dog. A cat can use claws effectively in addition to biting, which makes cats more dangerous than dogs at the same size. The cat has stronger and more flexible limbs that can be used offensively, for climbing, grabbing and many other things which suggest a cat is superior to a dog. Or rather, that is what I believed until I began researching this topic.

It turns out it is a very fascinating topic to anyone who gets fascinated by discussions about optimizations, strategies, and tradeoffs. I am not really that interested in animals but find things like strategy, tactics, engineering designs and optimizations fascinating.

What is interesting to me is how one single choice leads to a cascade of other choices that must be made. It is why we see cats and dogs as archetypes of people being different from each other. Cats and dogs are not merely different in their behavior and way of life but also in everything about how they live, their moves, strengths, and weaknesses.

Playing The Long Game or the Short Game

Recently, I was watching and reading about boxer and mixed martial art (MMA) legend Nate Diaz. He doesn't look really strong, so I was surprised by why he was considered quite a tough opponent. The reason is that he focuses on cardio and plays the long game. He can take numerous punches and has a lot of stamina. It means he wears out his opponents and takes them down in later rounds. You can see this is many fighting sports that there are some fighters who are really explosive and knock down their opponents fast but has little staying power.

It plays out when body builders try fighting much smaller fighters. Many think the guys who are enormous hulking mass of muscle will destroy much smaller guys easily. Muscle and size certainly matters but what often happens to big body builders is that they lose their breath. They lack the cardio to keep a prolonged fight going. It is the difference between a long-distance runner and a short-distance runner. Those who run short distance have more muscle.

Cats are a lot like short-distance runners. That is why they are strong and ferocious. They can dish out damage in a short time period, but they don't have staying power.

Dogs have thinner legs and larger rib cages than cats. Their larger rib cages allow for greater lung capacity, helping dogs take in more oxygen over long periods of activity. That is why dogs can hunt prey over a long time, pull sleds and similar. Cat sleds would not work very well. Cats are not as useful work animals because they need a lot more rest given that they don't have the same lung capacity. Notice how lions and cats love to around and relax a lot of the day. Dogs have a more active lifestyle.

Dog skeletons are built more rigid and sturdy, which is suitable for long-distance running and prolonged activity. The legs are thin for similar reasons that horses and cows have thin legs. The muscle moving the legs are primarily inside the body attaching to different joints through tendons.

Cat animals require more muscles on the legs because they have greater flexibility and variations in their movements. For instance, they can grab things with their claws.

Hunting in Packs

Stealth-based hunting tactics require explosive strength. A stealthy animal needs to spring into action fast. Because it is not pursuing its prey over a long distance, it can optimize for strength, ferocity, and speed. Stealth-based hunting is hard to coordinate with a pack. For this reason, animals which use stealth-based hunting tactics, such as cat animals, crocodiles and bears, hunt alone. Because they hunt along, they need to compensate by being bigger.

Wolves or other wolf-like animals are rarely as large as cat animals such as lions, tigers, panthers, and leopards.

Pack animals don't need to be as big, and when hunting prey over distance it is better to have good stamina rather than explosive power. We can see this on humans. Humans hunt in packs and have some of the best stamina in the animal kingdom. Few know that a human hunter has better stamina than a horse.

Since cat animals have less sturdy and robust skeletons as well as less stamina, they are not well suited as work animals for humans. Animals humans use, such as donkeys, oxen, horses, and dogs have generally speaking large rib cages, thin legs and robust rigid skeletons. Animals constructed this way can haul heavy loads over greater distances, pull plows and sleds.

Cat animals are more like killing machines. That is precisely how we use cats. We use cats to kill rats and mice. We don't use them to pull or transport things.

It also affects our relationship to cats and dogs. Because dogs are endurance animals, they need to be taken on walks and get regular activity. Cats, in contrast, are not endurance animals and are happy to lie around being lazy. Thus, cats are nice animals to keep on your lap and snuggle with. Because they are not pack animals, they will appear independent minded and less likely to follow any orders or directions from you.

Conclusion

Give a dog a cat body would be a bad idea. It means they would not have the stamina to do the jobs dogs usually handle. Nor would they have the robustness to handle all the work a dog is usually made to do. The opposite is of course equally true. A cat with a dog body would perform very badly. It would be much worse at catching mice and rats as it would lack the reflexes, claws and speed to do so.