Part 2: The Big Pet Duel:

Last month, after reviewing the first five areas of competition - brains, shared past, understanding people, solving problems and communication, dogs edged out a 3 to 2 lead over cats. Let's see what happens in part two:

Obeying

Dogs are easier to train because they were bred to help us in our needs. A dog learns like a child. He watches his owner, sees how he does things so he can do it too. The easiest way to teach a dog is by rewarding for the behavior we want. Cats might be able to learn with rewards, too, but not to the extent of dogs. Also, playing and romping roughly with a dog, he learns the borders of what is acceptable. Not so with cats. This one goes to the canines.

Senses

Smell, sight and hearing are the most important senses for both cats and dogs. Since we breed dogs to optimize their senses (such as watch dogs, guide dogs, and bomb dogs) we would expect that they would win easily. But, hold on! Although the sensitive dog nose is legendary, cats are great sniffers, too. In fact, it is known among scientists that cats actually have better noses than the average dog. When it comes to sight, their history as night hunters gives them special abilities and they are very sensitive to movement. The intensity of light where cats are not able to see anymore is six times lower than the human average, while dogs are only five times lower.

Add the ability to hear, and cats score a hat trick. They are sensitive for sounds with a frequency between 45 and 64,000 hertz, a lot better than dogs which can hear only sounds with a frequency between 37 and 45,000. Score this one for our feline friends.

Ecological impact

Each year, cats kill almost 200 million birds and other small animals in the UK alone. But, dogs are no sweethearts either. They are connected to the disappearance of the European night swallow, attack the birds breeding on the ground, and even if they are on a leash their appearance can influence the biodiversity in a negative way. The big difference in ecological impact is in the consumption of food and drink. The ecological footprint of an average dog (the amount of land necessary for feeding him) is 0.84 hectare a year. Even a tiny lap dog, such as the Chihuahua, has a footprint of 0.28 hectare a year. Therefore, a cat with a footprint of 0.15 hectare is much easier on the ecology and a winner of this round, which evens the score at 4 all.

Benefits

Dogs can hunt, guard and drive herds, among many other things. They track drugs and explosives, help the blind, race for sport, pull sleds, find victims under snow, help children to learn, and, according to some reports can "predict" avalanches and signs of disease, such as cancer.

Cats are handy if you have mice, but not much useful for anything other than a pest problem. Maybe it is not fair to take these criteria, because we love our pets for different reasons, and not from the benefits derived from having them. Cats are beautiful and soft and it is proven that they help humans in dealing with stress. But dogs are a remedy against stress, too, taking the dog on a daily walk provides good exercise. and allows better social contact through the meeting of other dog owners.

Sorry, cat owners, the dogs have a big win in this round, which gives the canines an overall victory five to four in THE BIG PET DUEL.