Think cats don’t love us just as much as dogs do? Think again!

From Discovery News:

Cats may try to hide their true feelings, but a recent study found that cats do actually pay attention to their owners, distinguishing them from all other people.

The study, which will be published in the July issue of Animal Cognition, is one of the few to examine the cat/human social dynamic from the feline’s perspective. Cats may not do what we tell them to, but they usually adore their human caretakers.

Co-author Atsuko Saito of The University of Tokyo explained to Discovery News that dogs have evolved, and are bred, “to follow their owner’s orders, but cats have not been. So sometimes cats appear aloof, but they have special relationships with their owners.”

In the study, which was conducted in the cats’ homes to minimize any stress, cats exhibited subtle but unmistakable signs of attention and emotional response to their owners that they did not show for strangers.

So the next time someone hesitates to adopt a cat because they think they’re “too aloof,” just whip out this study and tell them, “Cats love us! We have data!”

Read more here.