How we see dog vs cat breeds

Lol!

While I'm sure most of us can pick out some specific cat breeds like Siamese, it's kinda true that we're more likely to refer to dogs by breed name than we do cats.

 

hahaha! I agree. I usually have no clue what type of cat crosses my path. I usually have to head on over to google to find out.

 

I wonder if part of it simply because there are so many "mutts" out there. With dogs, you can sort of pick out distinct features of different breeds and pinpoint, "hey, that looks like a lab-husky mix," but with cats, the features are so diluted and muted that you can't really tell.

 

It's also interesting how dogs vary in shape and size by a huge degree - you just don't get that with cats. Whilst some may have long faces and others have squashed ones, they still share very similar characteristics.

 

I think one main reason why dog breeds show more differentiation than cat breeds is that dog breeds basically start off by being selectively bred for working purposes. So, for example, a different size and shape of dog is needed for hunting badgers as compared to the size and shape needed to hunt lions. For cats, they are basically bred for show. I haven't heard of cats bred for catching big mice and cats bred for catching small mice.

 

That is a very good point Victor! I'd never thought of it like that before. I suppose if you turn back the clock far enough all dogs originate from something quite wolf-like.

 

According to my good friend, Google, dogs were descended from gray wolves which were domesticated about 15,000 years ago. Now tell me, which of the following is a dog and which is a wolf:

A.


B.

 

Is A a wolf?

 

Yep, the first one is a wolf. The latter looks like it might be a Siberian husky. They definitely have some similarities.

 

You are all real smart cookies. Yes, the first one is an honest-to-goodness wild wolf. The second one is a Siberian Husky. If I am not mistaken, his name is Max and he was one of the canine stars in Eight Below.