Up to 95 percent of people are right-handed, while 20 percent of cats are right-handed.
- 38% of cats favour their left forepaw and
- 42% of cats are ambidextrous – they don’t favour either paw.
In short, most cats are left-pawed while most humans are right-handed. Why? We don’t know.
I think this is an interesting difference. I clearly remember my late Binnie being left-pawed. Charlie only has a right-paw so I can’t tell.
As no one knows why cats are generally left-pawed and humans are right-handed, It is fun trying to figure out why.
Before I have a go at that, apparently, male dogs tend to be left-pawed while female dogs favour their right paws. OK, dogs are evenly split between left and right while cats tend to favour their left.
Because both cats and humans have two forearms it probably makes sense for nature to decide that one arm is used more than the other so that it becomes more coordinated through practice than if both arms were used equally. It could be argued that If one arm is more adept then in general the creature is more likely to survive.
That might explain favouring one side over the other, but why should cats be left-pawed and humans right-handed?
It is generally agreed that humans evolved in Africa. African is described as “the cradle of humankind”.
If the most dangerous animals to early African humans were the lion and leopard, both of which were generally left-pawed, might it be the case that humans were better able to fend off an attack by a left-pawed large wild cats using their right right. In doing so, it would be the strongest side meeting the strongest side. Over time humans evolved to be right-handed because it aided raw survival at a physical level.
If that huge guess is correct it still leaves the question, why are cats generally left-pawed? The probable answer is that for the top predator in Africa, the lion, either paw would have been equally effective. Nature simply chose one side at random. The difference in favouring one side was not huge as a high percentage of cats are ambidextrous.
So, nature chose at random that cats should be left-pawed or ambidextrous and humans evolved to deal with that by favoring the right side.
The source for the percentages comes from the book “Play it Again, Tom” by Augustus Brown and the theories come from me while writing this. They are wild theories. Do you have a better one?
Incidentally, the Japanese Beckoning Cat is left-pawed.
Right. Shrimp, though, is blind in his left. Every time. His right. [guess that doesn’t a count for much, does it.] kidding. Ruth, Kattaddorra , [below] you have a good sense of humor!
Marc, I blv that there exist more lefthanders than righthanded cat-adorers in our world, and certainly, those who are ambidextrous are included. We–sniff–tend to be more sensitive AND creative. 😉
Our late mother who was left handed was born in 1918 and when she went to school in the 1920s the teacher tied her left hand behind her back forcing her to use her right one.
She was able to write beautifully with both hands all her life but still favoured her left one of course so I don’t think lefties can really be turned completely into righties.
But like you Valley Girl she was very intuitive and creative 😉
Here in the North East left handed people are called ‘cuddywhifters’
Lefthanded and ambidextrous humans. How many of us ailurophiles are both?
Michael, you are just too much fun for your own good!
“Because both cats and humans have two forearms it probably makes sense for nature to decide that one arm is used more than the other so that it becomes more coordinated through practice than if both arms were used equally.”
Leaving the poor dogs behind, this is what I want you to answer me: Are those of us human southpaws more sensitive, thus more ailurophilic?
okay, this is the news article I read. Copied text below.
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It may not be obvious from the scratch marks cats dish out, but domestic felines favour one paw over the other. More often than not, females tend to be righties, while toms are lefties, say Deborah Wells and Sarah Millsopp, psychologists at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland.
However, these preferences only manifest when cats perform particularly dexterous feats. That’s for the same reason we can open a door with either arm, yet struggle to write legibly with our non-dominant hand. “The more complex and challenging [the task], the more likely we’re going to see true handedness,” Wells says.
She and Millsopp tasked 42 domestic cats to ferret out a bit of tuna in a jar too small for their heads. Among 21 females, all but one favoured the right paw across dozens of trials, while 20 out of 21 males preferentially used the left. One male proved ambidextrous.
Not so for two simpler activities: pawing at a toy mouse suspended in the air or dragged on ground from a string. No matter their sex, all of the cats wielded their right and left paws about equally on these less demanding tasks.
Hormone levels could explain sex differences in paw choice, Wells says. Previous research has linked prenatal testosterone exposure to left-handedness. While studies of two other domestic animals, dogs and horses, revealed similar sex biases.
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http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17510-is-your-cat-left-or-right-pawed.html
Link to article.