The biological irrelevance of ‘Cattachment’ – It’s time to view cats from a different perspective

Cats’ interactions with humans were traditionally conceptualized as a less-than-perfect attempt to reach the complexity of the dog-human bond. However, to understand the evolutionary success of cats, we need an ecologically valid approach: why would a socio-cognitive trait be adaptive for the cat? We tested ‘therapy cats’ (N = 15) that were trained for Animal Assisted Services, in the modified version of the Ainsworth’s Strange Situation Test, suitable for the assessment of animals’ attachment bond with their owners. We also tested ‘regular’ companion cats (N = 13) with the same experimental protocol as control animals. The use of ‘therapy cats’ allowed us to avoid strong stress reaction of ordinary companion cats when tested in an unknown, laboratory environment. As expected, we found significant differences between the ‘therapy’ and regular companion cats in each of the main components of the attachment complex: ‘Attachment’ (P < 0.001); ‘Anxiety’ (P = 0.005); ‘Acceptance of the Stranger’ (P < 0.001). ‘Therapy’ cats received significantly higher ‘Attachment’ and ‘Acceptance’ scores than regular pet cats. The ‘Anxiety’ scores of ‘therapy’ cats were significantly lower than in the regular pet cats. However, we found no sign of attachment to the owner in any of the cat groups. Even therapy cats, whose behaviour was not thwarted by the strong stress at the unknown place, did not show exclusive Safe Haven and Secure Base-type reactions towards their owner. They behaved equally calm and friendly towards their owner and a stranger. Cats display symmetrical inter-specific amicability with humans, and we encourage their behavioural investigation to be based on evolutionary significance. We showed that domestic cats retained their functional independence from humans, and they do not show attachment towards their owners, which is a hallmark of the dependence-based, dog-human relationship. We argue that attachment would be ecologically unlikely in this species, as they preserved their independence from humans. Therefore, we believe it is time to change our research perspective on cats and find out more about what they can teach us about different ways of evolving mutually advantageous, but independence-based relationships with humans.