I don't know if you've heard of this website 'wikipedia', if not, you should visit it sometime. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthrozoology

It has been a lot of hours, so I doubt very many people will see this, but I'll try.

Wikipedia also has an entry on cryptozoology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptozoology

That doesn't make it any less of a made up word used by pseudo-scientists to self describe nor does it mean I should give much credence to anything a cryptozoologist says. The key difference is that I know cryptozoology is largely pseudoscience whereas I merely suspect it in the case of anthrozoology. At least the word, "cryptozoology," is a reasonable description of what they are trying to do: the study of hidden animals. Anthrozoologoy translates roughly as man animal study, a term pregnant with meaninglessness. So, let's see what Wikipedia has to say about anthrozoology:

"Anthrozoology . . . is the study of interaction between living things."

Hey, I have friends who work in that field. They call themselves . . . "ecologists." Or, if you want to limit it to the types of interactions in the article, "animal behaviourists." They might even say that they work on "inter-species communication." So, I apologise for being dismissive of a term I have never heard before used in a context where there are other widely used terms that would seemingly be appropriate.

And to any genuine scientists out there studying human animal interactions, I genuinely apologise for my snark. It is unfortunate that my first encounter with the field of "anthrozoology" has been tainted by the inane nonsense in this article. That said, I don't think human-animal interactions have been nearly as neglected as the wikipedia article implies.

Wikipedia would be the very last place I'd go to verify that a made-up-sounding scientific discipline is real. Any crank worth his salt has authored twenty separate Wikipedia entries before he gets press like this.

To be fair 'Anthrozoology' was coined in late 2010 and it's quite likely the number of people who might call it their specialty is very small.

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Anthrozoology

It is not at all clear what point you are trying to make. Put in a little effort.

Anthrozoology has a much lower search interest than dentistry and is localised in the United States.

You bring spite.

Do cats realise that we are not cats? Do they actually have enough brain power to digest that?

How much brain power does it take to realize that a creature that doesn't look, smell or act in any way like a cat is not a cat? How would it be different from realizing that mice and dogs are not cats?

Enough brain power to come up with the concept of "being a cat", then leading to discriminating the environment between "is a cat" and "isn't a cat". Whether cats do is anyone's guess.

That said, cats probably have enough brainpower to come up with the concept of "I'm me". Just watch a cat, or a dog for that matter, looking at itself in a mirror if you need convincing.

"Take care of me" and "feed me" are pretty established too.

You are making assumption that cat's brain works the same as human's brain. Maybe that's good assumption but question is how good?

Have you seen this TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke... ? "being a cat" is related to self-awareness. Does cat has the same self-awareness as human beings?

You are making brave assumptions here, aren't you? Dogs = unfriendly cats that smell bad and look ugly, mice - edible cats that smell tasty and are small.

It might look like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPeattKV74A

Again that's just speculation. I would love to see scientific data here.

You would see far more feline on feline predation if this were the case though, wouldn't you?

It depends on the difference between a cat-cat and cat-mouse.

You've renamed everything as cat. But the problem remains the same.

I guess that changes problem slightly. Different criterions are chosen when taking actions. E.g.: Can I eat it? No - too big. No - smells bad. Two inputs - one output. Can I mate with it? No - smells bad. No - too weak.

While being human you might have much more sophisticated criterions and first criterion might be "is it human?". Most probably how it smells and how big it is will not be enough.

They realize that a dog or a mouse is not a cat, don't they.

I don't know. I guess they do but most probably not in the way we do it.