Why are cats autistic and dogs nt?

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Why are dogs associated with nt and cats with asd?

Dogs can be obsessed with one person and want to spend all their time with them. Isn't that sometimes an asd trait? Loyalty, naiveness, being like a kid can also be traits shared with dogs.

What are the cat asd traits?

Dogs bond with humans. I wouldn’t call it obsession. Before being domesticated, dogs hunted in packs. Cats aren't generally thought able to bond in the same way. Their relationship with humans is more transactional. They have always been solitary hunters. However, saying that dogs are NT and cats are autistic is kind of a stretch.

I don't think I'd call dogs NT. I'm in the All Dogs Have ADHD camp.

Keeping in mind that Autism is SPECTRUM disorder I'd have to say the traits could vary between individual cats.

I prefer dogs and think of cats more as psychopaths than autistics.

I don’t think people saying that is literal but I see why it is said. Dogs have been domesticated for a lot longer and are able o give clear facial expressions and communicate in ways that are easier to understand. Meanwhile cats can make very few expressions, lots of their body language is not obvious in meaning (eg. Slow blinking being a sign of affection or tucking their paws in showing they feel safe with you) and have issues communicating with us as they’re a lot more wild than dogs. They also have a lot of sensory issues and like routine/get stressed at changes. They're also fairly anxious creatures, with a lot of their signs of affection signalling that they don’t think you are going to attack them. They’re also misunderstood due to their difficulties with communicating with us.

I feel quite sad for them because of the last thing. We realised recently part of why my cat can get so aggressive is because he can’t communicate certain things so we worked on that and he’s gotten better, tapping us and guiding us to what he wants or doing certain motions to signal his need.

I always thought people said that because dogs are more social and seek out interaction, need more of it, so on... while cats are more aloof, content on their own and such. I thought on it more like dogs are more like extraverts and cats are more like introverts, but I do kinda get where people are coming from. Really though, you can place those attributes on any animal...some dogs are more introverted and only want their people and some cats are very social. The most social animal I've ever had in my life was a cat. Anyway... It's just a generalization, not something to be taken literally or seriously. They probably mean it to be cute, relatable or something when they say it.

"Le Chat" - Emily Brontë



Translated from French


I can say with sincerity that I like cats; also I can give very good reasons why those who despise them are wrong.

A cat is an animal who has more human feelings than almost any other being. We cannot sustain a comparison with the dog: it is infinitely too good; but the cat, although it differs in some physical points, is extremely like us in disposition.

There may be people, in truth, who would say that this resemblance extends only to the most wicked men; that it is limited to their excessive hypocrisy, cruelty, and ingratitude - detestable vices in our race and equally odious in that of cats. Without disputing the limits that those individuals set on our affinity, I answer that if hypocrisy, cruelty, and ingratitude are exclusively the domain of the wicked, then that class comprises everyone. Our education develops one of those qualities in great perfection; the others flourish without nurture, and far from condemning them, we regard all three with great complacency.

A cat, in its own interest, sometimes hides its misanthropy under the guise of amiable gentleness: instead of tearing what it desires from its master's hand, it approaches with a caressing air, rubs its pretty little head against him, and advances a paw whose touch is soft as down. When it has gained its end, it resumes its character of Timon, and that artfulness in it is called hypocrisy. In ourselves, we give it another name, "politeness", and he who did not use it to hide his real feelings would soon be driven from society.

"But," says some delicate lady, who has murdered a half-dozen lapdogs through pure affection, "the cat is such a cruel beast, he is not content to kill his prey, he torments it before its death; you cannot make that accusation against us." More or less, Madame. Your husband, for example, likes hunting very much, but foxes being rare on his land, he would not have the means to pursue this amusement often, if he did not manage his supplies thus: once he has run an animal to its last breath, he snatches it from the jaws of the hounds and saves it to suffer the same infliction two or three more times, ending finally in death.

You yourself avoid the bloody spectacle because it wounds your weak nerves. But, I have seen you embrace your child in transports, when he came to show you a beautiful butterfly crushed between his cruel fingers and, at that moment, I really wanted to have a cat, with the tail of a half-devoured rat hanging from its mouth, to present as the image, the true copy, of your angel.

You could not refuse to kiss him, and if he scratches us both in revenge, so much the better. Little boys are rather liable to acknowledge their friends' caresses in that way, and thus the resemblance would be more perfect. They know how to value our favours at their true price, because they guess the motives that prompt us to grant them, and if those motives might sometimes be good, undoubtedly they remember always that they owe all their misery and all their evil qualities to the great ancestor of humankind. For assuredly, the cat was not wicked in Paradise.


15 May, 1842

I love cats. Cats are so much more relatable. It's natural for cats to be more independent and do their own thing and not care what others think. Dogs are pack animals, so they are very dependent on each other and have problems knowing how to hunt or anything on their own. And they have that slave-like desire to please their masters. Cats are affectionate, they're just more reserved.

Cats aren't really autistic, that's just the way nature made them. Cats and women will do what they please, and dogs and men just have to get used to it.

Cats can come across as aloof and distant, which I guess is the case for some autistic folk also.

If I had to say why they seemed autistic, I'd note their sharp reflexes and sensory skill.
Cats' senses are far sharper than dogs.

They are very distressed by change, too.
Move a litter pan two feet from its normal location and they'll stop using it.