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.
Michael, our lifespan is statistically shortened by seven percent over a right-hander’s. We sometimes fumble in life. [Do You?] Now, apply that to Cats? Tell me, I’m all ears. 😉 And worse yet, apply that to southpaws with right-pawed felines!
Those of you who live over here in the Midwestern States, have you noticed that the Junebugs only survived three days? [sorry, this has been bugging me.]
Actually, what may–I don’t know–be predisposed with those left-janded humans is that they are very often (even today, because it is a righthanded world, human-wsie) forced still to exist in a right-handed world. bumping elbows and such. I think perhaps that is why we adapt, given our creative right-mindedness. We learn to become ambidextrous, thus possibly insuring that we live almost akin to our brothers in the righthanded world. of humans. Cats? Anything Goes! I love it. 😉
For example, I was in elementary school when they first [in the us] taught teachers to honor those students who were left-handed. My techers then proceeded to force me to use my left hand with scissors. They forced me to turn my paper to the right. It was too late, and they did not show any sensitivity. It’s really funny. To this day, I write “upside-down” and cannot use lefthanded scissors! lol
Are You making fun? How did they fair, in Ponca City. I haven’t had the nerve to ask. Were they o.k.?
Well. I guess that some are. Most, though, are creative. It is neither here nor there. my bad.
I don’t know if this helps me understand what is going on 😉
I think you are saying that there are more left-handed people than we think because a lot of them were trained into be right-handed. If you can train someone to be right-handed when they are left-handed does that say that the genetic predisposition is not very strong?