Cats v Dogs

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BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Hello, I'm Brian Cox.

I'm Robin Ince, and this is the Infinite Monkey Kennel.

Or basket.

Or possibly Infinite Monkey Cardboard Box.

Because today

we are pitting two of the nation's favourite pets together in the biggest battle between species ever broadcast on Radio 4 on Saturday nights.

Or the repeat on Wednesday.

Or the repeat on Wednesday afternoon.

Which might also be on Mondays, actually, as well.

Yeah, you might be listening on BBC Sound as well, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Oh, wherever you this is the problem with doing big Saturday night, World of Sport, Dickie Davis, giant haystack-style intros.

People

don't receive the media like they used to, do they?

Who remembers Dickie Davis?

That dates are not that serious.

We got to Dickie Davis much faster than normal, didn't we, Brian?

Brian, of course, has a slight Dickie Davis thing because he actually has some of his hair dyed grey, so you think he's a real boy.

Very clever.

So, you you marveled at bats versus flies.

You gasped at wasps versus bees.

Now it is the ultimate challenge.

It is cats versus dogs.

In the red corner, we have a Daxund.

In the blue corner,

we were meant to have a Russian blue-haired cat, but it's just wandered off because that's what they do.

It's wandered off probably for a few days, maybe even a few weeks.

It's gone off for long enough that eventually the owner in tears goes around all the neighbouring telegraph poles and pops up little lost cat images all over it, weeping.

And then, after about four weeks, it just comes back nonchalantly through the cat flap and goes, Yeah, I've just been out.

What of it?

Give me a gourmet meal, and I might purr before I dig my claws in really unnecessarily tightly.

So I'm a dog person, by the way.

So, in today's show, we ask what makes the best pet cat or dog?

In order to conduct, perhaps, the greatest scientific debate since Shoutby and Curtis discussed the nature of spiral nebula on the 25th of April 1920 at the Smithsonian.

We will explore the science of breeding domestic pets.

I definitely knew about that, Brian.

I definitely knew about that.

You're more than you about Dickie Davis, anyway.

We'll explore the science of breeding domestic pets, the relative intelligence and skills of the aforementioned species.

And which one of them really loves you?

Some of them are lying.

So, to help us sort out the Abyssinian from the Alsatian, we are joined by an evolutionary scientist, a vet, a dragon, and someone who spent much of their life living in a fantasy world.

And they are.

Hello, I'm Deborah Meaden.

I am businesswoman, investor, and TV dragon.

And I think a great ambassador for dogs is Old Yellow.

I don't know if anybody remembers Old Yellow, but it was the most loyal.

It was a film that I watched when I was much younger.

And when I can't even say the name Old Yellow now without feeling slightly emotional.

I'm Ben Garridge.

I'm an evolutionary biologist, broadcaster.

I've written a whole series about dogs, and I think my doggy ambassador is the littlest hobo.

It's like a kick-ass version of Lassie.

Hi, I'm Jess French.

I'm a vet, an author, and a children's TV presenter.

And my favourite cat ambassador has got to be Garfield, because who doesn't love a ginger cat and lasagna?

I am David David Badiel.

I'm a writer and comedian, and I'm going to nominate myself as the best ambassador ever for cats purely on the basis that I once owned a cat called Chairman Meow.

It's the best name ever for a cat.

And actually, I know it's the best name ever for a cat because when I took it to the vet for the first time, I took her actually to the vet for the first time,

it got a big laugh in the waiting room.

You know, what's name, the cat, Chairman Meow, massive laugh.

But the receptionist just wrote down on her computer, Meow, right?

just like her surname

so when I went into the actual vet and the vet got up the cat's details on his computer I could tell he was thinking meow what an unoriginal

so that was disappointing but yeah that's why and this is our panel

So we need now to talk about, well, really, all of you to explain your interest, why you are supporting the animals that you are.

Well, let's start with you, Jess, right?

So, you are fighting on Team Cat.

Let's just find out how many people in the audience are on Team Cat.

And how many on Team Dog?

Immediately, a lower voice there.

Dog voice!

But that's the thing, which is, I think, as someone who spends a lot of time going on about being a cat man, is that it's seen by some people, the dog people, as a little bit not right for a man to be obsessed with cats, which I think is a very questionable idea idea in 2024.

Oh, I feel no, no, no, you're clickbaiting the issue there.

That's making everyone seem like a bigot now just because they've got the dog.

You are a bigot, Ron.

And also, tell you what, my long-haired Daxon Maximilian is going to take you down to this.

This is because we've set this sign show up in an adversarial manner, as is often the want at broadcasters.

And it's nonsense.

So I'm going to stop it now.

There we go.

George.

I'm going to ask a sensible question.

I'm not interested.

No, hang on.

No,

We want to know.

We want to know.

Because also, I just like the way David, you said, I'm a cat man, which actually sounded more like you were kind of a jazz musician in the 1950s, which I'm really interested in.

I'm always a superhero.

Yeah, superhero.

In Batman, but not woman.

Not cat woman, cat man.

Which wouldn't work because Batman would think, well, no, I'm Batman, so you have to be cat-woman.

This is ridiculous, David.

I'm confused.

Yeah, so am I.

Jeff.

Why are you a cat woman?

Well, listen, I spend my day job working with both cats and dogs, and I love them both, but I feel like with a cat, you really have to earn that love.

You know, with a dog, they're so they love everyone, don't they?

You've got a treat for them, they come to you.

But with cats, you really have to

do something special to earn that love.

They're not just going to come to anyone, you know.

They decide you're for me or you're not.

So I'm Team Cat simply because I think they make you feel a bit special.

Right, let's move over to Ben, Team Dog.

I agree with everything Jess said.

That's why I'm Team Dog.

I've got enough complex relationships in my life without having to try and impress a bloody cat.

If I feed you, give you a home, I'm not in some sort of abusive thing with my cats and dogs at home, but if it takes more than that for them to love me, it's one fewer cats, one more dog.

That's it, because a friend of mine said, I never thought of this before, how the relationships are so opposite.

Exactly what you were saying there, that a dog says, yeah, I love you.

And And you go, isn't it nice to be loved?

And a cat says, Well, you'll have to earn my respect, Deborah.

I've got cats, and I hope they're not going to be listening to this, because I think they know more than they let on.

But dogs are a lot less worrying than cats, aren't they?

You know where your dogs are, and you walk in the house, and they're enthusiastic, and they love you, and they jump up, and they see you.

But as you say, cats you might not see for months on end.

So, yeah, I think dogs are a lot less worrying.

But the problem is, right, that essentially dogs, and I, you're right, it's a full spinery.

I quite like dogs.

Dogs are fine.

They're just not cats.

Cats are absolutely brilliant, right?

I think the dog people want the cat people to hate dogs.

And we don't.

Also, you said that thing about how cats disappear.

Dogs are always there.

Dogs are in your face, dogs are like, I love you, I love you, I love you.

There should be a restraining order.

They are stalkers.

Can I ask a science question?

I would like to ask, Jess, as a vet, what are the, if we go back to basics, what are the physiological differences between cats and dogs?

Yeah, so they're both part of the same order, the carnivora, and they both essentially have very similar body plan.

But cats are perfectly adapted for hunting.

They are obligate carnivores, which means they have to eat meat, whereas dogs will eat a combination of meats and vegetables and basically whatever they can find lying around.

I'm sure if you've got dogs, you know that they will eat just about anything.

So cats have this really perfectly adapted body for hunting.

They have these incredibly sharp claws, which are protractile, but they can pull them in when they want, but actually, most of the time, they are in and they only bring them out when they need them, which means they remain perfectly sharp.

They have these incredibly flexible bodies, which mean they can jump and climb and get up trees, jump out of trees.

They're brilliant, perfect hunters.

If cats are brilliant hunters, which I'm sure they are, why have they they thought instead of hunting, we will colonize humans and they will feed us?

What is it in humans that so responds to cats and dogs, that finds them cute?

Like, is it to do with the fact that I see a cat and it seems with its big eyes and tiny nose to be a sort of very, very pretty version of a human?

That sounds a bit weird.

Keeping cave sounds weird.

But I do find cat faces to be incredibly attractive.

That sounds weird as well.

At this point, David started to pull out the various different dresses and skirts he's made for his cat.

I'd also like to say that the other end of the cat is really not very attractive.

That is, I would say, the greatest argument against cats when you're staying at someone's house and you are woken up by their cat's bottom there on display.

And they do it.

They're a morbid pencil sharpener.

They do it.

They do it.

Why do they do that, by the way?

My cat does something else, which is another reason why why I like dogs so much.

If I don't wake up when the cat would like me to wake up, obviously the cat's in charge of the house, he licks my eyelid open.

Wow, that's brilliant.

You think that's brilliant?

Yeah, it's brilliant.

You wait till your cat does it to you.

It's not, it's.

I like almost anything, again, weird.

Cats do.

Like once I lost a cat.

We take our cats on holiday in England if we're renting somewhere and they will let us have a cat, right?

And we have four of them.

I'm nuts, right?

And we have four cats and one of them, Ron, who is polydactyl, which means that he's got seven toes, is unbelievably strong cat.

He's essentially a lion cub.

He went missing when we had to leave that property and be out of there by sort of 12 o'clock.

He went missing.

He was found three hours later in the attic.

I'd spent two hours crawling in the...

insulation.

My lungs were about to give out.

I was sweating.

I was so angry.

I found him.

I held on to him, and as soon as I saw him, I thought, oh, Ron.

Because of the faces.

In evolutionary terms, so how far do we have to go back to find the common ancestor between the dog and the cat?

So what's the...

The most likely common ancestor is a group of mammals that lived just around about the time of the extinction of the dinosaurs.

So it left an opportunity for loads of other things to suddenly diversify.

And we saw the mammals explode onto the scene.

So we had a group called the myasids, which looked like civets or genets or sort of weasly type things that lived right across North America, right into North Africa.

It was quite a wide distribution, and they did really well, lots of different environments.

They started to split into some of the groups we see today.

And as far as modern cats, they started to branch off about 10.5 million years ago, and then dogs about seven, seven and a half million years ago.

So they're quite recent splits from a tree that we can trace back to about between 45 and 60 million years ago.

Do we see a pattern in the animals that can be domesticated?

Or is it just down to the ones that we have chosen to domesticate?

So, Jess, I mean, when there are certain animals brought in, I imagine every now and again there might be a more eccentric pet that comes across, you know, into your veterinary practice.

There's certainly ones that are not a good idea to have.

I mean, it sounds like you think one of those is a cat.

But I suppose, you know, originally we thought about domesticating things that we could eat, and then cats probably came about because we had these grain stores, and that attracted rodents, and that's sort of what brought the cats near to us.

And they realized maybe living around humans wasn't so bad.

Generally, these days, though, people seem to think you can domesticate anything, and that really isn't the case.

You know, most of the animals that we have these really incredible relationships with, so cats and dogs, that's been going on for thousands of years.

It's not like you can just suddenly take an animal from the wild and put it in a cage, and that suddenly becomes what we see as a domestic animal or a pet.

It really is only specific animals that I think make good pets.

And we see this with some cats and dogs, don't we?

So there's a rise in servoles, these beautiful African long-legged cats that are gorgeous that people describe as very dog-like and they're a modern pet.

And we see occasionally wolves or very recent wolf domesticated things coming into the UK and they're terrible pets.

Well even within the dog cat groups

there are things that still don't make good pets at all.

But in terms of what you can domesticate, you can domesticate a lot given enough time.

I'm going to bring it back to the binary because because I think there is fun to be had in the binary, even if it's not real.

Cats have actually won, right?

And the way we can tell they've won is the internet, because the most viewed thing on the internet by miles and miles and miles is cats, more than porn.

And I say that as an avid fan of both.

Right?

Like, many, many.

When you say both again, we need to return it.

Is there a shaded area in that then diagram?

Do you feel like, Deborah, as somebody who's got both dogs and cats, how do do you perceive their relative intelligence, capacity for empathy, and so on?

So I think they're both pretty smart, and I think they just show their intelligence in completely different ways.

So my cats have five words.

I know their noises.

I know I want to go out.

I want my food.

But they're a lot more independent.

And I think that they're, I think they have empathy, but they have it on their own terms.

And quite frankly, when they can't be bothered, they can't be bothered.

Dogs, I think, are very different because they are there all of the time.

I've got five dogs, and there's always one at my side, there's always one touching my hand, which just gives me the impression that they want this close relationship.

And the cat's like, I want it when I want it, but not so when I don't.

There was actually a study that investigated exactly that, where they monitored cats in their home environments, and they monitored how many times the humans, actually it was all women, how many times the women initiated the contact with the cats, and how many times the cats initiated the contact with the women.

And they found that if the human initiated the contact with the cat, then the resulting interaction, if there was one, sometimes the cats just walked off.

But when there was a resulting interaction, it was much shorter than if the cat initiated the interaction.

But they found that if the owner was receptive to when the cat came over and initiated the interaction, then they were much more likely to subsequently tolerate it when the woman initiated it.

I love that, though, tolerate it.

That is the word.

That is exactly the word.

It shows it, it says a lot, I suppose, ultimately, about the egos of the owners, which is, would you rather be loved or merely tolerated?

And it kind of

loved.

I think most people would rather be lost.

I'm not having this tolerated.

Some cats, some, because it implies just a generic idea.

And I would say the generic idea, sorry about this, does apply to to dogs dogs all love you cats some love you and some don't and also some cats attach to particular people in a household to be honest quite a lot of my cats don't really like me what's going on right how needy am I I love them

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In an academic sense, measuring the intelligence of animals is notoriously difficult.

Is there research into the intelligence level in some sense of cats and dogs?

And if we're in the adversarial mood, what do we know about which is the smartest animal?

So you're right, you've hit the nail on the head there.

It's so difficult to do this.

So, what we're seeing right across the animal behavior board is almost a reset.

So, standardizing testing of intelligence across animals.

But you're looking at a really

socially adept animal, the dogs, and a very intelligent, stealthy hunter, cats.

You've got to assess those in different ways.

If you assess their social behaviour, then yeah, dogs will always be better at them.

Because they're pack animals.

But they're pack animals, and we've bred them to work alongside us.

And we've got 360 at least breeds of dog around the world, and they do everything from transport, such as sledding, to bomb detecting, to therapy.

Imagine cats doing any of these things.

Trusting a cat with a bomb?

No.

Absolutely no.

Well, it would diffuse it one way or another.

It would, yeah, absolutely.

The dogs don't diffuse it, do they?

They sniff it out, but they don't move with it.

A cat would do that thing at the edge of the table where it's just pushing.

No whom.

To continue, though, in terms.

So the dog's a pack animal.

It's got some abilities to live in groups.

And in terms of understanding you from a social perspective, they're much better at reading your face.

I'm very dangerously close to agreeing with David a little bit here.

It's not that they're aloof, they just can't read you in the same way that a dog can.

Which is related to their evolutionary history, the way that they have to hunt as a pack, they live as a pack,

they understand their social dynamic.

A cat doesn't do that.

They're semi-solitary, they don't need to look at faces, and they don't have the same range of facial expressions that dogs do.

But if you're looking at

pure intelligence from a hunting stealthy sensory base, then cats almost always outperform dogs.

So it's again, you're comparing two very different things as a vet when you're treating these animals.

So, dogs and cats, which is the most difficult to deal with?

I mean,

one of the most difficult things in a veterinary consultation is getting the cats out of the baskets.

So, in that respect, cats are really difficult just to even look at in the first place.

And cats are really, really good at hiding if there's anything wrong with them.

Whereas a dog will come in and you know it's really labouring, it's limping on its leg, if it you know, really ham it up.

Whereas the cats they're so brave and they just take it all, you know, been hit by a car, broken every bone in its body, but it just sort of lays there with a sort of dejected look on its face.

Oh, not again, it's another life gone.

And to be fair, the other reason it's probably just lying there is it's broken every bone in its body.

I'm sure I trust you a little bit, man.

I have picked up on something.

I'm going to have to say this now.

From a scientific perspective, I do think you two are far more vocal than what we are, Deborah and I.

I'm just saying, I think we're more reasonable.

Because,

and it's scientifically based,

I have a fear that you both have a brain parasite.

Oh.

And Jess is looking suspicious because...

Do you come across something called toxoplasmosis, Jess?

I will not disclose if I have or have not come across it.

So, there is a tiny single-celled protozoa parasite that lives inside rodents, rats, and mice predominantly in the UK.

Now, that parasite can only reproduce weirdly, and we don't know why, in the gut of a cat.

And it controls the rodents' brains to the point where they become sexually attracted to the cats and will go and actively seek them out.

David,

I knew I shouldn't have eaten that leftover whiskers.

So we see that the rodents actively seek out the cats so that this parasite can reproduce inside the cat.

However, research has shown, loads of research in repeated situations, has shown that up to 50% of cat owners have this brain parasite.

So who's got a cat here?

Oh, no hands, literally, no hands went up then.

So what's the test for it?

Just fancying cats?

Or is it more than that?

No, it can really, your inhibitions completely diminish.

Yeah, this is me.

Ability to assess risk completely goes.

There's quite a whole

plethora from certain mental health problems right through to risk detection are associated with the presence or absence of toxoplasmosis in us.

So, approximately in the UK, they reckon it's about 51%, which is very close to 52%.

Are infected with this brain parasite because of cats.

So, no wonder you two are so rabidly obsessed with your cats.

It's not your fault, you've just brain controlled, that's fine.

So, they're basically zombies, yeah, yours too.

These two

theory of culture, whereas we're clearly not.

Jess, Debra, you have cats too, right?

I have, I have got cats.

Yeah, I think you might have this parasite.

Now, hold on, can I say I've never had a rat has never shown any sense of attraction to me whatsoever.

No, but actually recently they've found that this risk-taking behavior can make you much more successful.

And entrepreneurs are really, really likely to have

this parasite.

It sounds like a good thing.

This parasite.

So half the population.

Although, of course, it doesn't manifest itself in any particular way.

No, there's a whole range, but most of us will never know you've got it.

You're not going to start, leave here and go buy a pack of dreamies this evening.

But it's scientifically, there's at least a significant proportion of us in this room tonight will have a parasite because of a cat.

And it does control our brains in some way, shape, or form.

I don't really think those two over there are being controlled by a tiny parasite to love cats more.

Well, one of them is.

Can I ask?

Can we participate in this?

It's a pretty good argument, by the way, way, isn't it?

This debate, the cats versus dogs.

I have two cats.

I'm now swaying to odd dogs after

you.

You did say you were pretty angry with your cats at the moment.

You've had trouble with them, haven't you?

Well, not really.

They bother me too much.

I was interested in what you said, actually, that the way to stop them bothering me is to ignore them completely.

They prefer to be ignored.

They're more likely to come up for some attention if they're ignored.

So that's what you want to be doing.

I had a terrible moment.

This is going to be in terms of you thinking I've got this parasite.

What's it called?

Toxicos.

Tyxoplasmosis.

Okay, this will demonstrate that I have got it, I'm afraid.

So one thing that one of my cats does is that Zelda is that she will come to my wife if my wife sings only you by Yazoo.

Right?

So my wife is away at the moment filming.

Zelda doesn't really like me.

And I was in bed and I thought, oh, she's over there.

I could see her ignoring me.

And I have a recording on my phone of Morwenna singing this song because I want the cats to come to me.

So I played it, Zelda came on the bed, she looked at the phone, she looked at me and she went off again.

Can I just say at this point, thank you very much for your honesty this evening.

It was very refreshing.

I want to know a little bit about the intelligence though, going back to that of how we test intelligence.

Like you were saying, there are the problems of

because when we had a crow on the show, you didn't get on with that crow.

Lovely, lovely crow.

It didn't get on with me.

No, it didn't.

It didn't take to you at all.

And but

we saw the intelligence of the crow dealing with different kind of puzzles.

What are the equivalent versions for a dog to see at what level it can deal with a puzzle or whatever it might be?

So we can give them a whole bunch of enrichment tests where they have to, everything from pulling levers and pressing buttons and

you can give them multi-staged, effectively games with a reward.

And we've tried the same, well colleagues have tried the same with cats.

And this is not to be disparaging to cats actually there is a genuine response that we very often can't tell whether they can't do it or just don't want to and that's almost an official response like i think they probably could if they wanted to and that probably goes to your side they're just very independent and quite sassy whereas a dog will do it potentially to please the the researcher and to get the reward the cat can't really be bothered really um so we don't know when we look at yeah dogs a huge range of dogs and sizes and shapes and they've been bred to be working dogs and pets and so on With cats, not so much, but but are you seeing now, as a vet, are you seeing more specific breeds?

Is that becoming more fashionable that people are trying to craft the cats into different shapes and colours and

more diversity?

So, historically, the difficulty with breeds of cats is that because they're going out and doing whatever they want to do, they can mate with whoever they want to.

So,

the lines became very mixed.

But now, people are starting to keep their cats indoors more.

It's easier to sort of control that breeding lines.

And yeah, I think it is becoming more fashionable to have breeds of cat, I suppose, but still there are prob I think there are seventy-three types of breeds of cat, and there's I don't know, three hundred and something breeds of dogs.

So we've still got a long way to go until we see that diversity.

And they're still much more similar.

You don't get, you know, a Chihuahua and a Great Dame.

We don't have that huge diversity in cats like we do in dogs.

It's funny, 73 breeds, because I couldn't, could you, Deborah?

Could you name many?

I can't really name many breeds.

You could say Bengal and yeah a dozen maybe.

You can name a dozen breeds of cats.

Probably.

Siamese.

You're going to make me do it now, aren't you?

Siamese.

Siamese.

Siamese, Burmese, Abyssinian, Savannah's, short hair, Russian blues, Norwegian blues, Maine Coons,

Swedish blues.

It's a better moment than I thought it would be.

Norwegian women.

Cornish wrecks.

Cornish wrecks.

And those, what are the ones without any hair?

Sphinx.

Sphinx cats, eh?

Yeah, we have Devon Rex.

We had Devon Rexes, actually.

Oh, I like a Devon Rex.

That problem of breeding, do we see similar things in cats?

Because we've heard a lot of things about the fact that the number of different breeds of dogs means that there are many dogs that have been bred to a point of really, you know, life-shortening kind of shapes and sizes.

Yeah, historically, we bred animals for purposes.

So lots of the dogs came from hunting or, you know, they had specific jobs.

But over recent years, we've sort of tended more towards breeding for aesthetics, and so we're starting to breed in these brachycephalic faces, which are the squashed flat faces, which are really problematic for breathing.

And we are definitely starting to do that with cats as well.

So, there's a trend at the moment for specifically breeding polydactyl cats, which have extra digits because people think they look like they've got huge paws, like more like lions or big cats, and certain cats with sort of coat conditions or curved ears or shortened tails.

You know, these are all things for aesthetics, they don't have a function, and of course, they then have an impact on the animal's life.

And sometimes that's really high, isn't it?

There are certain dog breeds, I'm thinking of one in particular, where about 40% have a condition called Chiaris malformation, where the back of the brain actually tonsillates or herniates through the skull into the vertebrae.

And it's a really common breed that a lot of older people often have because they're quite sweet little lap dogs.

And it's because we're, as Jess said, so selectively breeding these things.

We are messing them up a little bit, aren't we?

I think both sides is something we can all agree on here: that it's

keep it nice and general.

Well, in general, what has the longest lifespan?

The cats live longer or the dogs live longer?

Cats live longer.

Cats live longer, don't they?

But there was a dog recently, it was 31 or something, wasn't it?

Really?

Yeah.

But that's an anomaly, but yeah, typically cats are much longer lived.

It's the anger, keeps them going.

Deborah, how different do you think your life would be if you didn't have those pets?

You know, it's, you know, what do they give you?

And we can talk about this with cats and dogs.

We don't have to say cats versus dogs, obviously.

It's that sense of what it gives you psychologically.

My face went all soft then.

And it went soft because I cannot imagine life without them.

I'm, as we all are, very busy all day, every day.

I'm away from home.

I'm, you know, there's a lot of stuff bombarding at me.

And when I go home and they, they just, they don't, they don't care who I am, what I do, how busy I am.

They just want their life with me.

And it's a very, very therapeutic thing.

You know, it's very relaxing.

And to have them look at you in that way.

Dogs, they want to please you.

Perhaps just as I wanted to, in the adversarial spirit of the show, so in terms of the senses of these animals, so dogs versus cats, so what are the differences?

In a lot of the senses, cats are going to come on top because they are superior hunters and they use all of their senses in doing that.

So, with eyesight, cats can see in three colours, dogs can only see in two.

Both of them can see movement really well because they're both trying to catch prey.

Cats can see really, really well in low light as well.

So, they can see about six times better than us in low light, whereas dogs can only see five times better.

But just one more evolutionary question.

I don't know if this is correct, but I read somewhere that a cat meow, and cats only meow to humours.

How clever are cats?

They only meow to humours.

They don't meow to other cats.

And someone read it's because they know that it's a bit like a baby's cry, and we will respond to it.

How do they know that?

They actually do meow to other cats, but only when they're kittens.

So kittens will meow to their parents.

And I think...

That means my cats think I am their dad.

This is what I want.

The adults also meow to their kittens, so it could be that they think

their child.

With the cat personality, it's probably more likely.

They also do this special thing called a solicitation purr, which is where when they're purring, they add in this really high-pitched bit, which, like you said, sounds like a baby cry.

And they know that that's much, much, much more likely to get a response from us.

We see it as much more urgent when they put this extra high-pitched bit into their purr.

What does that sound like?

It sounds like a purr with a high-pitched baby cry in there.

It does fit in, doesn't it, with the slightly cliched idea of cats that they are the only animal who purrs.

They're the only animal who in a performative way says I'm having a good time.

Cat purrs are incredible as well.

They are we don't know exactly why they do it.

We think it might be self-soothing, but they also have this incredible quality of

they can heal bones and they can heal skin.

they can make granulation tissue grow.

So, the cat's purr is at 25 hertz and 50 hertz, and we actually use those frequencies in medical healing to promote bone growth and to promote healing after surgery and things like that.

So, and cats do heal really, really well after surgery.

We see that.

So, we could strap purring cats to sick people

because a dog would do it.

If a dog could save someone, be like, I'll be there, strap me to you now.

A whole bunch of cats, never.

So we've covered so it sight-wise, then, not a great deal of difference.

You said I mean, they can see better in the dark, but

but in terms of uh smell, for example.

Smell's a tricky one because dogs have such a wide range.

So we have something like a bloodhound, which has 300 million olfactory receptors.

Let's take that one.

But sort of the average dog would have maybe, say, 100 million, whereas the average cat would have 200 million.

And we come back to this debate that, you know, dogs are really varied.

We have chihuahuas, we have bloodhounds, we have collies.

They're really diverse.

We can't say there isn't really an average dog because dogs are so variable, whereas cats are all relatively similar.

Can I ask about the chihuahua, right?

Because there's a friend of mine who's got one, and it's an incredibly angry dog that's always kind of trying to have a fight and yet never seems to realise it could easily be picked up and thrown out the window.

And it does feel like the short man at the bar, you know, that kind of thing.

What is it in the breeding that has led to them behaving in a way which seems to entirely reject the notion that they really won't be able to handle anything?

I mean, we don't actually know if they feel pain because of it, but they do have a malformation with their brain, which means that it's always under quite a lot of pressure.

Their skull is enlarged, and so they might have a constant headache, which you know would make you quite angry, wouldn't it?

Because actually, we've said all this thing about dogs being friendly.

Not all dogs are friendly, some dogs are horrible, and some cats do appear to be friendly.

And you know, that's one of the, I mean, basically, what we're really saying is the whole supposition of this show is based on lies

just because it looks good in the Radio Times listings.

But fortunately, we've waited till the end to give that away.

Well, it's true.

I mean, I gathered that we're asking simple questions, such as what has the best eyesight, cats or dogs?

And you might say, Well, it depends.

What's the best sense of smell?

It depends.

There's as much variation

within dogs

as there are between species, in some sense.

It is a ludicrous conceit.

And it's because, as Jess said earlier.

Sorry, by the way, everyone, I'm sorry we brought you here.

I'm sorry we've wasted your evening.

We've kind of, but Jess said earlier, we've kind of hit on what a cat does really well.

It hunts and it will provide companionship in its own terms, in your own terms, in your relationship.

Whereas...

Rightly or wrongly, we've managed to diversify dogs into several hundred jobs and it's effectively made.

well we call them breeds obviously but they're they're each one has a different role so from chihuahuas they have a role a great dane has a role bullies have roles all these different dogs whether they're lap dogs or hunting dogs what role does a chihuahua have then

fits into a handbag

do you know what that is not far off there was someone uh that my sister used to know that her mum had two chihuahuas that she couldn't feel that she could leave them outside the supermarket so she wore a larger bra and she would place the two dogs inside it it

you remember her don't you sis she's in the audience tonight not not the woman with the choice you'd know if she was in the audience tonight

i'm gonna ask you a difficult a

difficult

difficult question

i'm gonna force you to choose deborah so because you have both

if i were to say as an evil scientist you can only have one you can either add the cats or the dogs what would you do

i know it's an impossible impossible question, but I.

I think the cats are listening.

The cats are listening, that's right.

I know.

And

they know how to take revenge, cats, don't they?

I mean, they've got sharp claws.

Oh, don't!

It's really hard.

They play really different roles in my life, and I know

you want me to choose.

That's an interesting point, though, that you said they play different roles.

They have different roles.

They're very different beings.

And in the same way, it's very difficult physiologically to

work out the differences between them.

The relationships are different.

So

I can't.

Brian, ask me to make up my mind.

You haven't got a dog, have you?

I don't have a dog, but

I just wanted you to say, David, make up your mind.

David, make up your mind.

Cat.

What's the cat wearing?

Is there any evidence for better well-being if you've got a dog rather than the cat?

There's a long-term study done in Tokyo looking at the relationship between aging and owning cats or dogs.

And over 11,000 people were studied, randomized testing and everything.

Those who had dogs were 40% less likely to develop Alzheimer's, for example, whereas there is no discernible difference owning cats.

And as Deborah said earlier, part of that is going out.

And physically, you don't typically walk your cat and you don't take your cat on the beach twice.

So part of it is a lifestyle, I guess, as well.

But maybe it's harder to tease apart that relationship.

But, yeah, there are, on the surface at least, quite significant differences between human health, longevity, better health, and owning dogs.

Do you think that there's part of that that's when you take your dogs out, you talk to people?

You know, there's a dogs, there's a lot of communication around dogs, whereas your cats are very much in your home and they're yours.

And I think communication must be a helpful thing in terms of Alzheimer's.

The summary, Ben, really, is that what you've basically said is cat owners are ultimately turned into zombies and will die young.

So, David,

how would we summarise then?

So,

we're where we started really aren't we?

Any progress?

Who says love all the animals but not as much as David?

Well, we also asked our audience a question, and we wanted to to know what is the one animal you would like to domesticate and why?

My teenage son Oliver.

He's a disgrace.

A chameleon because it matches the colour scheme of any room.

A sea otter because they are so cute and they have pockets.

Do they?

Sea otters are perverts.

Yeah, they really are.

Otters are like the dolphins, aren't they?

They were a real pin-up and everyone loved them.

And then there was a little bit more research, everyone went, ooh, there's a dark side.

Yeah.

Otters, scariest animals I've ever treated.

Really?

Otters.

Otters.

Well, they have guns in the pockets.

Why, just in terms of their aggression.

They are so aggressive.

Yeah, absolutely wild.

We'll just go for you.

What have you got, Brian?

This is a good one.

A sloth.

So my wife doesn't think I'm the laziest thing in the house.

What have you got, Deborah?

I've got elephant, so I can finally talk about the elephant in the room.

I have William Barrett writing, I think this is designed to please the scientists.

Amoebas, Bit Selly, I know.

Hasn't gone well for William Barrett.

To be fair, David, you didn't sell that one, did you?

Jess, have you got another one?

The sea sponge, so I could train it to give me a good scrub down in the bath.

That's a bit sorry.

Deborah, you got another one?

My children, because I have to live with them.

That's from Tim Fleet.

I thought, felt I should name them.

Julia says, a Phoenix.

If Dumbledore had one, then it's good enough for us.

Plus, it would create some interesting new Darwin awards.

I've got Protozoa, so when I go to work, I can say, Adios, amoebas.

I've got an elk because I broke the hat stand.

There's a lot of people with teenage children here.

There's another one.

Our son, then we wouldn't need hazmat kit for his bedroom.

Anyone anymore?

An ant because it would help with fiddly tasks that my fingers are too fat for.

Here we go.

Here is the trad one.

We always get one of these, and I'm always pleased to find the different ways you've worked it in.

From Michael, scorpions, because stings stings can only get better.

Thank you very much to our panel.

Jess French, Ben Garrett, David Bediel, and Deborah Meaden.

Next week is very exciting because our show is going to be Brian's school reunion.

Well, not so much a school reunion, it's going to be your kind of particle physics conference, which is even more exciting for you because the infinite monkey cage is going to go back to where it all began in search of the infinitely small at CERN in Geneva, home of the Large Hadron Collider.

Thank you very much for listening.

Thank you for joining us.

Bye-bye.

Till now, nice again.

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