Ricky Gervais on cats versus dogs (YouTube interview)

This is a video of Ricky Gervais talking to Ellen DeGeneres on The Ellen Show. He's talking about the difference between cats and dogs. I'd like to comment on it. 

I don't want to get too serious but in the opening 30 seconds he makes a desperate mistake. He says that he likes both cats and dogs. Fair enough. But because Gervais's work takes him away from home all the time, he can't have a dog because a dog would ask him why he can't come along 😎. 

Whereas with cats they don't mind if they are left alone. That's what he believes. Completely wrong. Perhaps he means that he leaves his cat with somebody else but I don't think he does because from what I can see he genuinely believes that cats can take it or leave it when it comes to human companions.

Please note that sometimes YouTube videos disappear or stop working because they are deleted on the YouTube website. If that has happened, I'm sorry but I have no control over it.

P.S. Ricky is great for animal welfare as he has spoken up against cat declawing. Good for him.

---------------

Separation anxiety!

Like I said, how wrong can he be. Why hasn't Ricky Gervais heard about feline separation anxiety? The bond between human and cat can be as strong as between human and dog. They definitely feel upset, depressed and anxious if their human caregiver is away for a long time. Of course, it depends on the individual cat.

Picture of a young cat with a large elderly dog whose separation anxiety was cured by this confident cat

Some cats are indoor/outdoor cats and they spend a lot of their time outdoors. And they may know more than one person including their owner and therefore the other people can help take care of him or her when the owner is away.

But the point is obvious that cats cannot simply accept their owner disappearing for a long time. Even for a full day from the early hours of a morning when their owner goes to work until late evening after they've been out for a drink. Under those circumstances a domestic cat will be anxious for the return of their human caregiver.

The same applies to dogs but even worse.

Maximum amount of time a dog should be left alone is four hours

Cats don't rate their owner

Another point that he makes is probably nearer the truth. He says that cats don't 'rate' their owner. Whereas dogs think that their owner is the best thing ever.  He's referring to the fact that the owner is the alpha male in the domestic dog's pack. The dog looks up to the human as the leader.

There is a hierarchy in a group of wolves, the ancestor of the domestic dog. The domestic cat has no such hierarchy. And therefore, they don't look up to their owner as an alpha and leader. They simply look to their owner as, in effect, a surrogate mother. 

So perhaps in that way Ricky Gervais's is incorrect because kittens (and adult cats are kept in a permanent state of behaving like a kitten) look to their mother as a provider and carer and in that sense, they do look up to them.

Independent

He also says that domestic cats are independent. Well, I think that he is wrong in this instance as well. How can he be right? 

Domestic cats depend upon their human caregiver for security, food, warmth, a home, a roof over their head and everything else. They are emotionally highly connected and dependent on their human caregiver. It's a myth that cats are independent. 

This comes from the fact that the wildcat ancestor of the domestic cat is a solitary animal and not a pack animal as described.

But the domestic cat is not a wildcat. They live in a human home and have adapted to it.