I guess it's all in the signaling. A guy who's nice to animals may be perceived as being nice in general. Owning a dog makes for a good neutral conversation starter.

There is a link between cruelty to animals and violence against women, murder, etc.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/domestic-viole...

Owning a cat however isn't the same, and could have a negative effect.

> Owning a cat however isn't the same, and could have a negative effect.

Is this about the American attitude that dogs are always boys and cats are always girls, i.e. having a cat is "less manly"?

The only two things I can think of are that dogs naturally lend themselves to meeting people because they need to be walked, act as a conversation starter and may even approach strangers themselves; and that dogs are (apparently especially in the US) more socially accepted than cats, so the chances of someone being a dog person (or familiar with dogs) being higher than for cats.

I think it's a perception of cats from people who have never owned one and only grew up with a dog, and were brought up to not like cats.

These kinds of dog people tend to associate with the traits in their dogs they like or wish about themselves. I think they then associate cat owners with cat traits (particularly negative ones).

> the American attitude that dogs are always boys and cats are always girls

Really?

How odd.

Yep- all the dogs my wife and I have owned have been female- yet, nearly universally, everyone has presupposed them to be male.

Our one cat, on the other hand, though male, was presupposed to be female.

It's definitely a thing.

Weird.

Personally, I would choose a female dog and male cat every time. Less dominant and more bidable dog and a less skitish cat who's more likely to not take crap from the dog at meal time.

> Owning a cat however isn't the same, and could have a negative effect.

Huh?

All of my ~longtime girlfriends and wives have been cat people. Two out of three wives, at one point in their lives, had more than five cats. The first, when I met her, had over 20 cats. Counting kittens and loosely attached males.

So why not cats?

As a guy...

Different rules for girls, though single and more than a handful of cats and people start whispering Crazy Cat Lady.

Most people I know would identify as dog people and the stats for Australian households with one but not the other are 2:1 in favour of dogs.

Disclaimer: I currently have two dogs, one cat

I rather like "crazy cat ladies". Obviously, I guess.

But why would women not like guys who like cats?

I have a theory. I like cats more than dogs because cats are independent and self-possessed. Whereas dogs are pack animals, seem to always be testing dominance order, and demand lots of maintenance.

So I can see how women who are looking for fathers would prefer dog people. Whereas women looking for friends would prefer cat people.

>So I can see how women who are looking for fathers would prefer dog people.

Unless you mean they have daddy issues and are looking for a partner that's just like their dad, no. In my experience of dating in a big city, every 30+ white American woman who has no kids, and doesn't even want kids, still goes on and on in her dating profile about how "obsessed" with dogs she is. These women only want men with dogs. It's not because they're looking for someone to be a father to her kids, it's just because that's the fad she's jumped on and decided to center her whole life around, and any man who isn't into that same fad isn't going to interest her.

It's just like women who are all into veganism, or social justice, or Trumpism, or some particular religon, or keto/paleo diets, or whatever. Americans these days all have to have some cause to rally around, and they don't want to date someone who isn't into that same cause, or can't be easily converted to adopt their cause.

Dogs make you go outside on a regular basis. So there’s that.

I think the link is between men owning cats, not women owning cats.

OK, but why would it be different for women?

No idea. Perhaps men are indifferent to the pets women have, while women do care?

As the initial poster was stating, men who have dogs seem to fare better at attracting women, while men who have cats seem to fare worse. There was nothing about women's success at attracting men, and the effect different animals have on it.

> As the initial poster was stating, men who have dogs seem to fare better at attracting women, while men who have cats seem to fare worse.

What's your evidence for that? There's nothing in the Independent article about it.

I'm not claiming any evidence, just restating what the earlier commentator had said.

Toxoplasmosis (which is due to a parasitic protozoan that is passed on by cats) effects men and women's personalities differently. It may be due to this effect that there would be a sociological difference.

Interesting. But that would require that women, collectively, be aware of the difference. And that seems unlikely.

If this is a thing, I guess that "likes Lassie" is as good an explanation as any.

This makes no sense because as someone that has always had cats you have to put up with a lot of bullshit from cats and they don't even care if you continue to exist.

Caring for cute, furry little sociopaths with razor sharp claws should be the gold standard of signalling patience and niceness.

It's all about American culture, because this just isn't the case for women from other parts of the world at all.

In America, being an extremely LOUD, boorish, extroverted person is esteemed, and that's who white American women want to date and marry (regardless of whether they want kids or not, as many of them these days don't). Men with dogs fit into this stereotype well, whereas men with cats don't, they're stereotyped as "nerds" and introverts, and white American women have no interest in dating them.

Again, note that this is entirely cultural (subcultural?), and not universal, even within America. Immigrant women are usually not like this at all (which is part of why I only date non-American women these days), and also black American women aren't real keen on pets either.

Its funny to see how liberal Americans (I'm might be wrong but I assume you would call yourself that?) seem to have adopted a kind of reverse-patriotism where everything non-american is always better and foreign countries are looked upon with rose-tinted views.

I am from central Europe, but have travelled in America and have family over there too, I can tell you that women being attracted to loud, boorish, extroverts its not at all specific to white Americans. This is pretty much a universal human trait.

Its also interesting that you say that immigrants in America are not like that at all? Because in my experience, at least in the black and hispanic communities - they have far more of a macho culture than most white Americans do.

>Its also interesting that you say that immigrants in America are not like that at all? Because in my experience, at least in the black and hispanic communities

I guess you've never met anyone from Asia.

Happiness in slavery. :) Not every potential partner might be into that or the faking of good leadership qualities that owning a dog enables.

as in

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person

This is such a weird and obtuse way to look at human relations, and as a dog person it's so weird to see this alien take on a pretty common part of culture.

I'm guessing 'certain forums' is code for the PUA community?

You might want to think of 'women' as being a category with a lot of different and divergent people in it. Some of them like animals. Some of them don't. If they're into pets and you're into pets, then that might help open a conversation. But that's more like 'women who have a thing for dogs'.

I read it on Quora and the answer was written from the perspective of establishing good(and lasting) relationships(unlike what you guessed) and that's what I meant with "success with girls".

I understand that women are a diverse lot but there are articles which do talk about bond between women and dogs[1]. But since we cannot just accept articles as facts, I thought of enquiring if this has been academically studied.

1. https://www.caninejournal.com/women-and-dogs/

> I'm guessing 'certain forums' is code for the PUA community?

Nah, not really, this thing has been 'round since a 2008 study in pet owner forums/FB groups and gets recycled in the summer news hole every other year.

In America, absolutely yes. Basically every single white American woman over the age of 30 has a dog, or really wants to date a guy who has a dog. Every one of their dating profiles says how "obsessed" with dogs they are.

If you're a guy with a cat, you will have a very hard time getting a date with a white American woman. Luckily, there's other (better) women out there who don't insist on having animals that are totally impractical in the city.

If I believed everything I read on a dating profile, I'd be convinced that every woman is "fluent in sarcasm", "obssessed with travel" and is "looking for the Jim Halpert to her Pam Beasly".

In reality, most people don't truly know what they're looking for and definitely cannot afford to travel more than 1x a year, if that. Hell, I "travel" that much and it'll never be a bullet point on my profile because it's not something I really value.

People put in the most formulaic BS on their profiles in the hope of appearing "normal" to a potential match. The UX of most dating sites encourages this kind of self-pigeonholing as well.

In rare cases, people will actually write "I really don't know what to write here, it's hard to summarize myself this way". But I find that to be a truer reflection of a person rather than the boilerplate text people tend to post.

When a woman puts in her profile that she has a dog, and her favorite activities all revolve around the dog, and she has pictures of herself in bed with the dog, that isn't "formulaic BS", that's her life.

Sure, you can say things like "love to travel", "fluent in sarcasm", etc., without those being huge parts of your daily life. But you can't own a dog and not have it be a big part of your life.

I do see some women who don't own dogs, and will say stuff in there about how much she loves them, wants to get one, will totally swipe right for your dog, etc. But usually they actually do own one.

> I do see some women who don't own dogs, and will say stuff in there about how much she loves them

That's the scenario I was referring to. For potential matches that already have pets of some kind, I usually see that they ask that the other person be OK with dogs/cats, which is very reasonable compared to "you must also have pets".

That's not at all what you wrote above. You said they were adding things like that just to sound good, not because they truly value it. You gave travel as an example, because you (correctly) assume many women put in their profiles that they like to travel, when in reality many probably only do it every year or two at best. This isn't the case with a dog: she must value it quite a bit to put up with living with it.

>animals that are totally impractical in the city.

Having a dog signals that you will take on caring for another being even if it is not in your financial best interest and that you can at least keep the thing alive. Think with your lizard brain and it makes perfect sense why women are attracted to that.

Having a cat also signals that you will take on caring for another being even though it is not in your financial best interest. But when you live in a condo with no backyard, or some other city dwelling like that, a cat makes far more sense, and doesn't require the ridiculous amount of maintenance that a dog does.

Why childless American women who explicitly don't want children aren't attracted to men who like cats, I have no idea. It's not like this in other countries; this is mostly an American phenomenon.

>But when you live in a condo with no backyard, or some other city dwelling like that, a cat makes far more sense, and doesn't require the ridiculous amount of maintenance that a dog does.

That's exactly what I'm saying. The dog is conspicuous consumption. It's signaling that you are willing to burn resources (time in particular) in a similar manner you would on a child. The lizard brain eats that shit up and the human brain is none the wiser. As a byproduct of being far more practical in terms of time/money resources the cat does not broadcast that signal. Nobody is saying the cat is not more practical. That's a given.

You seem to be implying that it's biological. It's not, it's entirely cultural. Non-American women (unless they're highly Americanized) aren't like this at all. Chinese women aren't really big on pets, because people there don't have indoor pets very much. Also, black American women don't have dogs (or cats) very much at all. This is a cultural thing, and so I don't see how you can claim it's some kind of innate biological thing, unless you're going to claim that white American women are biologically different from everyone else in the world.

The lizard brain likes seeing conspicuous consumption (indication of wealth/status) and signs that you are possibly ok pissing away resources on a kid. Having a pet dog is the way we Americans prefer to signal that. The interface is biological. The implementation is cultural.

The founders of OkCupid researched this sort of thing quite a bit before their site was sold off. One of their studies showed that, for men, having any sort of animal in your profile pic is the best thing you can do to get women's attention-- better than having a sixpack, better than showing off an awesome hobby, etc.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110126111953/http://blog.okcup...

It's really a shame that site was sold off; it was a great site before that happened. It hasn't been completely ruined yet, but it's definitely not as nice as it was.

My wife used to joke that she should be worried about me walking the dog as dogs are “chick magnets”. As it turned out my dog was so magnetic that I might as well not have even been there.

It's an American thing and it's more than that. Having a dog is like a signal that you're 'normal'. If you don't have a dog, there may be something wrong with you. The lack of a dog or love for dogs is actually the red flag. The dog just raises you closer to the baseline. If you don't like dogs and have the audacity to voice your preference out loud, prepare to be a social outcast/weirdo/creep.

Exactly. My profile clearly states that I have cats, and at least on OKC, I do have the audacity in the "questions" (in a couple asking if you have/want a dog or like dogs) to say that I don't like dogs much, and like them about as much as I like goats and horses (which is to say, they're fun to see on a farm once in a while, but that's it). I rarely get any interest from white American women, but I get tons of interest from Asian women.

I agree that this is an American thing, but moreover, I think it's a relatively recent thing too. I don't remember this dog craze existing back in the 90s.

Here is one, claiming (in n=120 for each case) over triple the reaction rate of "approaching woman w/ dog" (9.2%) to "w/o dog" (28.3%): https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/meet-catch-and-keep/...

The article also mentions other studies which focus on the "why" part.

You switched the percent rates, it should be: approaching woman w/o dog" (9.2%) to "with dog" (28.3%)