Are Male Cats Better Than Females?

I am going to have to rely on three sources in my attempt to answer the question: are male cats better than females? I welcome comments.

My Personal Experiences

Personally, I have not seen a great difference in behaviour between male and female cats over many years. Perhaps I don’t have a big enough sample size to make an authoritative statement about the differences. In my experience, it might be fair to say that female cats are bit more retiring and less boisterous. My current boy cat tends to play rough but that may be because he has been raised from a feral cat environment. Anecdotally, I have bumped into people on the Internet who say that male cats tend to be more affectionate than females but as mentioned I have not experienced this myself. If there are differences they are relatively slight and I don’t think potential cat adopters should place too much emphasis on whether they adopt a male or female cat. I have never, so far, decided on gender when adopting a cat.

Our Best Friends: Mixed Breed Cats

This is a book written by Janice Biniok. She appears to be a prolific author about cats and dogs and I trust her assessment. The first point that she makes is that neither gender is better than the other. Although there are differences. She says that male cats generally like to play rough and can be rowdy during adolescence (between six months and two years of age). They are more outgoing than females especially with people, she says. If you prefer the attention of an exceptionally friendly feline, you might wish to adopt a male cat. Is she implying that male cats are more attention seeking than female cats? I’m not sure.

Females, she states are more sensitive and independent. They are gentler and less demanding. Once again these qualities may appeal to certain adopters over those of male cats. And of course she makes the point that these are generalizations. There will be a wide variety of personalities between individual cats which cross the barrier between gender. Incidentally she also says that if you have two cats it is better to have a male and a female. And I say that coat colour may be associated with character.

The Welfare of Cats

This is a very good book which covers various aspects of domestic and feral cats. They discuss the most commonly reported behavioral problems. This is a negative aspect of cat ownership. My intention was to see whether there is a difference between male and female cats in a negative context; are males more often involved with so-called behavior problems? It seems not. A study conducted by The Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors in the UK in 2003 found that the average number of problems per cat was 1.7. Critically, they found that there was no difference between males and females. Incidentally, the most commonly reported reason for referral to a cat behaviorist was indoor marking behavior. This includes depositing urine either through urine spraying or squat marking or the depositing of faeces (middening). The next most common category was aggression towards people and the third most common category was aggression towards other cats. The sample size for the study was quite small and 66 cats.

The simple and obvious conclusion is that male cats are not better than females and female cats are not better than males: they are different. The differences will suit different people.