When your cat sees a stranger, does he come and snuggle close or hiss and run away?
Whether a feline friend is a lap cat or a claws-out kitty is largely affected by their socialization as young kittens. But at least part of cats’ friendliness may be in their genes. And the widespread practice of spaying or neutering cats before they are adopted may be inadvertently selecting for aloof cats, by ensuring the friendliest animals don’t reproduce, one researcher says.
But not everyone is convinced.
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Domestic and feral cats are genetically indistinguishable, so spay/neuter programs are unlikely to nudge the gene pool one way or the other, said Carlos Driscoll, a University of Oxford biologist.
Read the full, original story here:ย Are Humans Reversing Cat Domestication?
