Like any good liquid, Spud conforms to the shape of a box. (Credit: David Grimm)

If you’ve ever seen a cat ooze under a door or spill into a vase, you’ll understand why some people consider cats liquids. But what do cats consider themselves?

When an animal thinks about its own proportions–how tall it is, or how wide–it’s called “body size awareness”. We humans take this for granted, but even we’re not born with the ability. Children develop it around the same time they start referring to themselves in conversation, suggesting a link to self-awareness.

Scientists know that dogs possess body size awareness. A recent study found that our canine friends will hesitate when confronted with an opening that feels too small for them. Cats do too, according to a new study, but only in certain circumstances.

Researchers in Budapest visited felines in their homes (because cats are notoriously difficult to study in the lab), and placed a large piece of cardboard at the bottom of the stairs. Cats sat on one side and their owners (armed with toys or treats) sat on the other. The scientists then confronted the felines with a series of holes in the cardboard of narrowing height or width.

As the height of the aperture shrunk, the cats began to hesitate, a sign of body awareness. But they didn’t hesitate at all as the width shrunk, even when it became a slot barely half the width of their bodies. “They don’t use body awareness in this case—they’re basically like liquids,” says the study’s author, Péter Pongrácz.

So what does all of this mean for owners? Don’t assume that your cats can’t squeeze through that narrow door opening–or that slightly cracked window. I’m shutting mine now.

A curious goat I photographed at FBN

When I write about cognition and domestication, I’m almost always writing about cats and dogs. But this year I had a unique opportunity to write about farm animals. In the fall, I visited the  Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN) in Dummerstorf, Germany–one of the world’s leading centers for investigating the minds of cows, pigs, and other livestock.

On my second day there, I had a remarkable encounter with a goat. As I write in my new feature for Science:

You’d never mistake a goat for a dog, but on an unseasonably warm afternoon in early September, I almost do. I’m in a red-brick barn in northern Germany, trying to keep my sanity amid some of the most unholy noises I’ve ever heard. Sixty Nigerian dwarf goats are taking turns crashing their horns against wooden stalls while unleashing a cacophony of bleats, groans, and retching wails that make it nearly impossible to hold a conversation. Then, amid the chaos, something remarkable happens. One of the animals raises her head over her enclosure and gazes pensively at me, her widely spaced eyes and odd, rectangular pupils seeking to make contact—and perhaps even connection.

That goat (pictured above) really did remind me of a dog. And it’s not just me. Over the past few years, scientists at FBN and elsewhere have shown that goats rival dogs in many tests of social smarts. They can distinguish between pictures of happy and angry people, suggesting they are tuned into our emotional states; they can locate food behind an obstacle more quickly if they watched humans move the food there first, a rare example of cross-species learning; and, in a stunning finding, goats seem to understand what we mean when we point at something, a complex reading of our social cues that eludes even chimpanzees.

It’s not just goats. I saw piglets that seem to show empathy when their comrades were trapped in a box. Cows that make friends–and enemies. (They can also be potty trained, as I’ve written about before). And other goats that showed signs of altruism.

Together, the work is challenging long-held stereotypes that farm animals are dumb, not just among scientists but also the general public. And that in turn could change how we house and treat these creatures. As Jan Langbein, an applied ethologist at FBN told me, “If we don’t understand how these animals think, then we won’t understand what they need. And if we don’t understand what they need, we can’t design better environments for them.

P.S. This story also got me my first cover for Science, after nearly 20 years at the publication! You can see it here.

Jezebel has something to say. (Credit: David Grimm)

Cats, dogs, and babies have something in common–and it’s not just the mess they make. They all seem to elicit “baby talk” from us: short, repetitive phrases spoken with drawn-out syllables and a high pitch. If you’re a pet owner, you’re likely guilty of it–probably several times a day.

Scientists knew that dogs react to this “caregiver speech”, as it’s known. Or, as it’s known specifically for dogs, “dog-directed speech”. They’re far more likely to swivel their necks towards us or cock their heads. But no one had done a similar study on cats–until now.

As I write in Science, researchers have now tested whether our feline friends respond to “cat-directed speech”. They do, it turns out, though their reactions are more subtle than those of dogs. Their ears twitch towards us, or they momentarily stop bathing themselves. Cats, unlike dogs, also don’t respond to this type of talk from strangers; they only pay attention to their owners. That’s perhaps not a surprise as dogs are more likely to encounter unfamiliar humans, and are more likely to be cooed at by them.

But the work does reinforce the idea that cats, like dogs, are clued into the special bond we have with them: a bond that’s not unlike a mother has with her child. Perhaps that’s why cats also have evolved their own high-pitched sound, one embedded in their purrs that may evoke the attention-getting cries of human infants. We talk to our cats, but they also talk back.

(Credit: Hebrew Matio / Wikimedia Commons)

You have a remarkable skill you’re probably not aware of: You can read other people’s minds. No, you’re not a telepath, but you do have a general sense of what someone else is thinking. If someone approaches you with a baseball in their hand for example, you can quickly deduce whether they mean to throw it to you–or bean you with it. You know their intentions, and you know that their thoughts are separate from your own.

This is a skill known as “Theory of Mind”. On it’s most basic level, it’s our ability to tune into the thoughts and intentions of others. Scientists have seen signs of Theory of Mind in non-human primates, birds, and even dogs, though the abilities in these animals don’t seem nearly as complex as they are in humans.

A new study provides a bit more evidence that our canine pals may have a rudimentary theory of mind. When a researcher offered a series of dogs a piece of sausage, but then either “clumsily” dropped the treat or snatched it away purposefully at the last second, the dogs were more likely to walk away in the latter instance. This suggests that dogs understand our intentions, as I write in a new article.

Pups also understand what we mean when we point at something–a skill some have also attributed to Theory of Mind.

Put together, the evidence is growing that our canine pals have some conception of what’s going on in our heads. That’s not terribly surprising–how else could they make sense of all of the seemingly strange and random things we do? After all, when you’ve lived with another species for about 20,000 years, it pays to have some sort of mind meld. No telepathy required.