Conventional wisdom would suggest that all dogs love to play fetch, while most cats would simply refuse to do so. But a new paper published in the journal PLoS ONE suggests that cats not only play fetch with their owners, they do so far more frequently than previously believed. And while most dogs play fetch at least sometimes, about 12 percent do not. More-trainable dog breeds are more likely to exhibit fetching behavior, while in both species, animals that are more active and playful—and usually male—are more likely to enjoy playing fetch, suggesting that it is a form of play.

"We were surprised to find that there were very few studies of fetching behavior in dogs," said co-author Mikel Delgado, a veterinary medicine researcher at Purdue University. "And personally, as a life-long cat person, I have to admit that I thought all dogs fetched. So it was interesting to get a better sense of how common this behavior is in cats and dogs. We hope that the study draws more attention to fetching behavior in cats, who are often portrayed as independent and aloof. In fact, they can be very social, and this is a nice example of one way they are interactive with humans."

As previously reported, many different animal species exhibit play behavior, and it's most common in mammals and birds. Contrary to what one might expect from cats, fetching behavior has been observed across multiple cat breeds all over the world, usually emerging in kittenhood. One owner who participated in a 2022 study noted that their cat was so obsessed with fetch that it would sometimes drop its favorite toy on their face in the middle of the night.

When cats play, their behavior tends to resemble hunting behavior commonly seen in European wildcats and lynxes: rapid approach and retreat, leaping, chasing, pouncing, and stalking. Initially, as kittens, they engage in more social forms of play with their littermates, like wrestling, and they tend to engage in more solitary play as adults—the opposite of dogs, who usually start playing with objects alone before transitioning to social play.

A 2023 study by British scientists on fetching behavior in cats analyzed responses to an online questionnaire. The 23 questions focused specifically on when cat owners first noticed fetching behavior in their pets (either a current or past kitty), what objects the cats preferred in such games, whether cats or humans initiated and ended the games, and how many times a cat would retrieve the object in a single session of fetch.

The authors of that study concluded that most cats who like to play fetch learned how to do so without any explicit training and that cats are generally in control when playing fetch with their humans. Specifically, cats will play fetch longer and retrieve the thrown object more times when they initiate the game rather than their owners. In other words, cats are still gonna be cats.

Comparing cats and dogs

Delgado read that study with interest since she happens to have three cats herself who proved fond of fetching at various points in their lives. However, that study only surveyed cat owners. So "it was not possible to try to understand the differences between cats who do and do not fetch, or understand the prevalence of fetching in the pet population," she said.

Delgado knew that frequent collaborator James Serpell of the University of Pennsylvania (and a co-author of the new study) had been collecting loads of behavioral data on both cats and dogs for years via the online Canine Behavioral Assessment & Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ) and the Feline Behavioral Assessment & Research Questionnaire (Fe-BARQ). There were questions about fetching behavior on both, making the data ideal for a comparative exploration of fetching. All the data was collected from participating dog and cat owners between 2015 and 2023 (over 8,000 cat owners and nearly 74,000 dog owners).

Their comparative analysis of those data sets revealed that 40.9 percent of cats engaged in fetching behavior, more than previously thought, compared to 77.8 percent of dogs. As with the 2023 study, Delgado et al. noted some breed differences in cats, in this case finding that fetching was more common in Siamese, Burmese, and Tonkinese cats, as well as Bengals. The first three all originate in the Far East, while Bengals are a hydroid cross between cats and Asian leopard cats. All those breeds are known for being highly active and playful, which Delgado et al. found is strongly correlated with the emergence of fetching behavior in cats.

As for dogs, Labradors, Golden Retrievers, Border Collies, and English Cocker Spaniels were the most likely breeds to exhibit frequent fetching behavior—all breeds that are highly trainable, which seems to be a strong indicator of that behavior in dogs. In both cats and dogs, males of the species were more likely to play fetch than females, as were older animals. If the animals (cats or dogs) were living with other dogs, however, this decreased the likelihood of fetching behavior.

As for why fetching is twice as common in dogs than in cats, Delgado thinks it's because the two species were domesticated for very different reasons. "Even though they are the two most popular pets, they still play different roles in our lives," she said. "Dogs have really co-evolved with humans to help us, whether with hunting, herding, or for protection. During the domestication of dogs, we have selected them for some specific behaviors (such as retrieving) that probably explain to a large extent why this behavior is much more common in dogs. We have not asked cats to change their behavior very much during the process of domestication. To me, the bigger question is why so many cats fetch, since we have not (to our knowledge), specifically selected them to help humans with tasks like hunting or herding."

PLoS ONE, 2024. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0309068 (About DOIs).

Listing image by eeza Kolesnikov/CC-BY 4.0