Dogs versus Cats

[Ameena]

First, lions ARE cats - they are feline, they are "big cats", same as tigers, leopards, jaguars, etc. And second, I didn't say wovles are ancestors of dogs, I said dogs had "wolfish ancestors" meaning that the wolves are the ancestors of the dogs. It's believed that dogs became domesticated through some of them living close to humans and there being a genetic mutation which affected some of their personalities so they were less afraid of humans and would live closer or come near their settlements etc. Living near the humans was easier since they could pinch food etc. The humans saw they would have uses and continued the domestication, eventually selectively breeding them to the extent that we see today, from Chinese Crested to Labrador to Rhodesian Ridgeback, all dogs started out pretty much the same.
And I would say yes, dogs have had their killer instinct bred out more than cats - will a dog go out in the garden, for example, and come back and plonk a dead pigeon in the middle of the floor? I think not. Hunting is a "fixed action pattern" (FAP), and in cats and dogs generally consists of the following steps - Spot prey, stalk, chase, catch, kill. The "kill" bit has certainly been bred out of dogs and to some extent, cats too. You may see a cat playing with a mouse, batting it around and chasing it without actually killing it straight off. This is because the cat no longer has a desire to kill the mouse. The cat gets the thrill from chasing it, but once the mouse is caught, the cat is like "Oh, was that it...I'm bored now...hey but if I let it go...wheeeee I can chase it again!". So yes, eventually, after having been smacked around and chewed on a bit, the mouse will eventually die I'm sure, but it wasn't the cat's real intent. Why bother killing mice and stuff for food when they have yummy Whiskas or Felix or Kitekat or whatever at home? You may notice that cats don't even eat stuff they kill anyway, rather they will either leave it lying around somewhere or bring it into the house to be presented to you as a gift (and you're meant to reward them no matter now disgusting said "gift" looks).
Aspects of the hunting FAP have been taken and bred into various breeds of dogs in different ways. Wolves hunt in a pack with each member knowing their particular task - some are drivers, herding the prey away from them. Others are blockers, running each side of the prey so it can't make a dash to the side. And a few will be the ones that are hiding further ahead to leap onto the prey and start chewing on it while the rest of the pack catches up to help bring it down. Some domestic dog breeds utilise these tasks to aid humans. An obvious example is border collies, used as sheepdogs - they herd the sheep around as the chasers would herd prey in a wolfpack, and because it's based on an instinct they must get some kind of thrill out of it, or at least, like, satisfaction (hey, if they didn't want to do it, they wouldn't...or they wouldn't do it willingly at least). Border collies are the most intelligent breed of dog and can easily learn a couple of hundred different commands. They need to learn stuff though, otherwise they'll be easily bored and develop behaviour problems and stuff.
This is the kind of stuff I find really interesting and if by some amazing chance I could get a job involving it in the future that would be fantastic but chances are, like, pfft here. Still, ya never know...
Anyway, bored of this waffle yet?

[cowsmanaut]

Dogs were domesticated yes.. but same as cats if they do not bond with a human in the development stages (early puppyhood) they can become feral. They have packs of wild dogs all over the place In the states, here in canada, and in australia that I know for sure. These packs are just as wild as any wolf pack. They will group, hunt and hold their own . Still have the structural heirachy of an alpha male and female.

That's within one generation that this can happen.. that is not bred out of them at all. Even we have the feral aspect to us.. it's in the bonding and raising years that we develop into who we are.. our personality is established in the first month of our lives... and continues to evolve from there. It's why parenting is so important..

I've seen dogs kill and attack when not fed regularly. Same as cats.. it's a matter of not being hungry that the cat or dog will hunt and chase but not always kill. They do this in the wild as well..

Dogs we have today are bread for physical and psychological aspects of the breed. However, never assume that they are not capable of being as deadly a killer as a wolf, jackal, coyote, etc.. Any more than assuming a human couldn't kill under the right circumstances..

Not trying to ruffle anyone's feathers.. I've just seen my share of feral animals.

moo

[Zyx]

I was surprised you were so affirmative about lions being cats. So I made some investigations and discovered that english language doesn't have a word for the felidae other than domestical cats. Just "big cats". French language uses "chats" and "fauves", spanish "gatos" and "fieras". German, same as English, uses also "Katzen" and "Großkatzen"...
What seems of different categories in a culture is fused in a single one in another. In the english language, because cats and big cats share the same word, you sum them up as "cats". However, logically, this seems flawed: the subsuming category, "cats", has the same name of one of its subcategory. At this point of my reasonning I wonder if anybody cares about what I'm saying, though.

"What are lions?", "what are cats?" become now intriguing questions, because the reply answers more about the idiomatic culture of the person than about the animals...

As for the dogs and wolves, you're utterly right. I was stuck with the Linnaeus classification, Canis familiaris, which is outdated, I just learned it today, since 1993: Canis lupus familiaris is now a subspecies of the wolf, Canis lupus.

But those are just major issues of language and minor taxonomic issues. Your theory about "instincts bred out of dogs" is more interesting. I'm not rejecting it and I'm not convinced either.


Should I keep choking this thread and talk about it?

[Gambit37]

Who would have thought my little post would make such interesting reading! Keep going....

[Zyx]

OK.
Besides, after deliberating with myself, we both concluded too that I should keep going.

Ameena, you seem to be assuming that:
1. Dogs had hunting habbits like cats have.
2. They lost them through human selection (breeding)
3. Their lack of them is now genetically, and only genetically dependent.

1. Hunting habbits: I see several reasons why we seldom watch hunting behaviours in dogs, compared to cats.

will a dog go out in the garden, for example, and come back and plonk a dead pigeon in the middle of the floor?

You seem to be expecting cat instincts or cat behaviours in dogs; from their absence you infere a removal of their instincts.
However, dogs and cats are too different to expect the same behaviours.

Cats are true carnivorous, always hunt alone in wild life - though they may form colonies around sources of food - and thus need to hone their hunting skill constantly, in particular during youth. They fight each other for mating, and individual territory defense, and may offer their prey to their sexual partner.

In wild life, dogs are and were more omnivorous, chase in packs, and depend heavily on each others to survive. Their have strong social skills and defend common territories. Their agressiveness needs to be more flexible to avoid hierarchical conflicts.

Thus, their hunting habbits should be expected to be less frequent than cats'ones, and different: more like pack hunting.


2. Some dogs were selected on the contrary for their hunting habbits, or for their agressiveness. They make good hunting companions or territory guards or dogs of war...



3. We share roughly the same social organization with dogs (familly and pack). With a human master, thanks to their social skills they will adapt easily to a quiet behaviour. Besides, dogs are usually not raised in packs by man.
Thus, dogs are in situation to express their social instincts, but not their hunting instincts.
But as pointed out by Bovidae (namely, Cows), dogs abandonned outdoors become wild in one generation, their instincts perfectly fit to their wild life.
So i see no evidence to tell that their instincts were taken out of their genes through human selection. Unless you meant something else by breeding out.

To finish, you're supposing dogs should show behaviours that are nowhere to be found in the current species; but; they show them not; so, they lost them.
Without further evidence, that's the same as saying that 100 undetectable users have stopped coming at the forum because of this post. How do you prove it?

[Ameena]

The taxonomic classification of domestic cats is as follows...
Kindgom - Animalia
Phylum - Chordata
Class - Mammalia
Order - Carnivora
Family - Felidae
Genus - Felis
Species - Domesticus

And of lions -
Kingdom - Animalia
Phylum - Chordata
Class - Mammalia
Order - Carnivora
Family - Felidae
Genus - Panthera
Species - Panthera Leo

So you see, lions ARE cats - they belong to the family "felidae", it's just that from there they divide a different way to domestic cats. Just as wolves and domestic dogs are both "canidae". The big cats even divide further, for example although lions and tigers belong to the genus "panthera", a cheetah is an "acinonyx", a lynx belongs to the genus "lynx", and a clouded leopard is "neofelis". We refer to things like lions and tigers as "big cats" because that's basically what they are and it's a pretty obvious way to describe them, hehe.
And in response to what Cows said about feral animals, yes I must admit I hadn't thought of that, but then we don't really have any such things living feral round here...if there were they'd probably be rounded up and shot for being a "danger to the public" or something . So yeah, if a puppy misses the critical period (8-16 weeks) and isn't associated with humans at all during that time, they'd certainly grow up to be nervous or afraid of humans and if they lived in a completely feral pack then they'd probably even attack one given the chance. But a domesticated, pet, friendly dog is not gonna go and chase someone and try to tear their throat out just 'cause it sees them running past. Like pet cats, they might get a thrill out of chasing, but they'd give up if they caught what they were after. Also, they'd be less likely to chase someone if (this is assuming they're out for a walk at the park and have seen another dog or someone on a bike or something) the rest of their pack (ie the human or humans they're with at the time) doesn't show any interest in following. Well, this is usually true of dogs aggressive to other dogs anyway...in dog language they're standing there shouting "Come on then, I can take ya!" and if their human is standing there shouting too (even if in human language the human is saying "No! No! Bad dog! Don't bark at other dogs!") the dog will take that as "Yeah yeah! Come and take us!". If human walks away, dog is like "Hey come on then if you think you're...hey, hey, oi where are you going? Umm...there's a...a dog over there...umm...shouldn't we be...like, chasing him if he's a threat? Oh you don't seem worried..hmm maybe it's not a threat...but still, oh hmm fine I'll just follow you then...".
Hmm I'm kind of diverting away from the domestication thing there but umm are there any other points I should reply to...*scrolls up to check*. Nope doesn't look like it...anything else?

[Zyx]

From the taxonomy you show, which I agree with, lions and cats are felidae. Same familly. Yep. The taxonomy doesn't define cats as felidae, though.
Now what I was trying to explain is that english and german people use "cats" as a synonym of "felidae", while other cultures don't.
Let's take as universal the taxonomic definition of science of felidae, and let's take as relative the idiomatic use of the word cats when meaning the same.

You seem to assume that being called "cats" is the same as being cats. That's a deep question indeed. There's no simple answer to this.

[PaulH]

What is the definition of a cat?

[beowuuf]

According to Baldrick "not a dog"

That is the limit of my input into this discussion...I'm just a facinated bystander here... (nuture vs nature, does a dog 'go back' to being feral and remember its genes, or is it actually learning these bahaviours for the first time through a mixture of appropriate behaviour for its physical attributes in this situation/surroundings, and the behaviours of other animals in regards to it)

Would a dog chase and eat soemthing that ran away from it because it is 'programmed' to hunt, or merely because if something runs (cause it looks scary) it runs after it, and biologically it's body knows it processes meats

[Ameena]

Well the dog still has instincts to chase...even if the dog had never ever chased or been encouraged to chase something before, seeing something running away fast might suddenly stimulate that instinct. Yes the nature-nurture debate is a complicated one...we did about it in Psychology though there it focused on humans. Cats are more responsive to their instincts because they were domesticated more recently than doggies. It's like, you can't stop a rodent from chewing your clothes/furniture no matter how normally responsive to your commands they are, because they're rodents - it's what they do. I suppose if you kept punishing a cat for killing mice or something they might get frustrated and take it out on something else like clawing the settee to pieces. But I don't know that, that's just errm what's the word...conjecture.
Some behaviours are in-built, deeply ingrained into certain species. Like, you wouldn't need to be taught to fear a big spiky thing coming towards you very fast - you'd have a pretty good idea what would happen if it hit you and wouldn't really want it to happen. Well that links in to the fight-or-flight response produced by adrenalin.
In Psychology, there are five key approaches...

Biological - We are controlled only by the chemicals and stuff in our bodies. Emotions like happiness, love etc are only the production of certain chemical reactions in our bodies. This is the "nature" part of the nature-nurture debate. We are controlled entirely by our genes.

Behavioural - All behaviour is learned. Learning is the essence behind behaviourism. All behaviours are learned and therefore can be unlearned. Classical and operant conditioning are two common terms in behaviourism. This is the main means by which you would teach a dog tricks (though you might not think in such terms). This is "nurture" in the nature-nurture debate - we are a product of our environment.

Psychoanalytical or Psychodynamic - Freud. The subconscious controls a lot of what we do. Also stuff like repression of memories...and the whole Oedipus/Electra Complex thing. Freud shouldn't have looked into gender...

Cognitive - The mind is like an information processor - information is entered, processed, and an output is produced.

Humanistic - Everyone has a Real Self and an Ideal Self. Your Real Self is what you are, the Ideal Self is what you'd like to be in an ideal world. The further from your Ideal Self you are, the unhappier and more prone to mental problems you'll be, or something.

Personally, I like Behaviourism as it does make sense and it does work. However, I don't think we're ENTIRELY a product of our environment. Our genes do play a part (things like Schizophrenia can be inherited, or rather the potential to get it...it's complicated...) and chemicals such as serotonin (the "happy hormone") do affect our behaviour. I also feel that I often act like an info-processor so I suppose I consider the cognitive approach to apply too. The Psychodynamic approach is really weird most of the time but I suppose subconscious stuff does occur (look at the kind of stuff people say when under hypnosis). As for Humanism...hmm, well it's okay...I mean there is stuff about it that sounds good but we never looked into it in huge detail. All the approaches have their points but I prefer a combo of behaviourism and the biological approach.
Gah look we've gone from cats and dogs to proper Psychology. Look you see, you give me room to waffle this stuff and I'll take full advantage and bore you all to death . My brain is just as lethal as Zyx's but in a different way, muahahahahahaaa...

[PaulH]

I have had three dogs (no comments please) and they have all been very behaviourly different. A Rhodesian Ridgeback who was as soft as a brush but very loyal and hated other dogs, a bull terrier cross who was the most obedient and loving dog I have known and Ellie the staffordshire bull terrier who is lazy and selfish. The 1st we owned from a pup, but the last two were rescued at about 5 years old.

[Ameena]

Yeah different dogs have different personalities just as individuals of any other species will...dog personalities can be partially-determined by their breed. For example, border collies are generally alert, active, intelligent and eager to learn new tricks. Labradors and retrievers are oral dogs who like to fetch and carry objects. They are also intelligent and easy to learn. Greyhounds/lurchers/whippets are sprinters and will run around for a bit when on a walk, then come home and laze about for the rest of the day expecting a belly rub. Of course, not all dogs of these breeds will behave in these ways but that is the kind of behaviour you would expect from them. Obviously a dog who is a cross between a usually-active breed and a usually-lazy breed could probably have any temperament. I dunno. Depends on their physical build too...a big heavy dog (Mastiff, Great Dane, for example) is less likely to want to charge about than a smal, wiry, thin dog (like a Greyhound).
I can't really say that I have a specific preference of dogs or cats. It depends on the personality of the individual. I like lap cats who sit there and purr at your attentions, and like I like dogs who are equally affectionate and lazy (if I had a dog I'd want something like a greyhound just for the temperament). Bah now i have to talk about rats...personality-wise they are like, a cross between a dog and a cat - able to look after themselves and can be left for a while without attention but will come to you for cuddles and can be taught to come when called etc. Depends on the personality of the rat of course - my rats will happily sit as big fat lumps on my lap or shoulders but don't tend to like being actually stroked and tickled much.
Okay now before I go into depth on any other species or continue to list more of the amazingness of rats I'll just stop there...
My friend did Psychology A-Level too (she was at a different school to me) and her Psychology teacher said that rats don't have feelings and that they don't learn stuff. I wish I'd been there. I'd have just loved to counter that...

[beowuuf]

no no no, do rats do rats do rats!

[Ameena]

Lol no no I'd go on and on about how great they are..ask me a specific question and I'll answer but otherwise you'd just be spammed out with even bigger posts than those above :O.

PS - I'm in chat atm if you want to come talk about ratties there .

[PaulH]

Cat:

A small carnivorous mammal (Felis catus or F. domesticus) domesticated since early times as a catcher of rats and mice and as a pet and existing in several distinctive breeds and varieties.
Any of various other carnivorous mammals of the family Felidae, which includes the lion, tiger, leopard, and lynx.
The fur of a domestic cat.
Informal. A woman who is regarded as spiteful.
Slang.
A person, especially a man.
A player or devotee of jazz music.
A cat-o'-nine-tails.
A catfish.
Nautical.
A cathead.
A device for raising an anchor to the cathead.
A catboat.
A catamaran.

[Ameena]

Thank you . Lions and domestic cats belong to "felidae" therefore both are cats .

[PaulH]

Felis Catus is obviously where the term 'cat' originated, and seems to have expanded to include the bigger ones.

[Ameena]

I'd always called it "felis domesticus" and only recently heard the term "felis cattus". And just to make Zyx happy - okay we call all felines "cats" in English so they ARE cats in English but not necessarily in other languages like French!

[PaulH]

I feel Zyx is brewing something...

have you seen the cats with 'wings'?!

[Zyx]

they ARE cats in English but not necessarily in other languages like French!

Well I don't know what's the real meaning of this sentence. What is it BEING something? wearing a mere label? is there no universal truth according to you? there are no cats, only labelled animals? false categories? arbitrary words linked to unreachable noumenous? do you deny essence of beings? are all the definitions and categories worth the same? or some are wrong, some truer?

as I said, I perceive this a true epistemologic problem. Very complex.

[Ameena]

Umm...yeah, so was that paragraph lol. Okay in English, lions and domestic cats are both feline therefore they are both defined as "cats". Yet for some reason though wolves and dogs are both canine you don't describe a wolf as a "dog" because they're not, they're wolves.
Language (or at least, English) is weird. Can we just leave it at that? lol.

[cowsmanaut]

ok let's talk Genetic memory. There is a belief that genetics can contain impressions and learned abilities to carry on as traits to their offspring. This is what we can reffer to as instinct but also these contain personality traits that are also common among a breed. It's not all based on learned behaviour. It's often that we stem those behaviours in favour of a learned behaviour. The instinct is telling us one thing and the logical mind is telling us. "we're not allowed to do that.. that's bad"

This can be shown in two ways. They've done twin seperation.. they were born together but not raised together. While some things were different, they had a tendancy to similar personality traits and interests. In annother possible example, addictive natures can be inherited. A child of someone who was addicted to drugs or alcohol can pass on that property to their children.. it's not just learned. They have proven that there is a genetic basis for it.

So, with that in mind.. let us look at cats and dogs. Dogs, because of their predisposition to please.. the societal footprint left on their genes. Makes them easier to train because they wish to learn and have a usefull position in the pack. Dogs want jobs.

The cat, is a loner by their genetic footprint. They will sometimes gather and hang out.. more so in lions and domestic cats. However, because they can just as easily leave and do fine on their own. There is not that need to provide for the family. the need to please. It's much weaker. The cat does have curiosity though, it has different motivations. Something to stimulate it's mind, or rewards for activities. Using treats, or praise on a cat helps train them. You can teach them to open doors, drawers, cupboards easily by showing them how it opens and placing a treat inside. This however, means you will come home to everything open ... every day of your life. Trust me.. I know. You can train them to return things to you.. or come.. based on reward of praise. My cat plays fetch and can also understand the word "fly" though to him this means flying bug of some kind that might be good to eat. "get down", "come here", "lay down", "inside" etc.. these are all phrases he understands. He knows the rules. Rooms he's allowed in and rooms he's not, garbage smells good but is not to be touched, drawing pads are not to be walked on when the human is using them, counters are not for cats feet, etc etc. These are all understood. However, in order to train him to learn them.. he had to be treated as annother of his kind might.. and by promoting good behaviour with praise or treats.

So, the suggestion that cat's are less trainable or less domesticated is just a simple matter of the human responsible not wanting to take the time to understand the cat. I can understand a number of my cat's needs.. he even has different meows for things. there is communication there.

there is one other thing.. called Psychic Resonasance (sp?) it basically suggests a link between their species that passes common electric patterns amongst them allowing for group learning. The experiments and reasearch I've read deals with birds. Where one bird will learn a task.. and others near it will learn the same task.. after a certain number of them learn it, the others learn at an exponential rate and you go to annother continent and suddenly birds who have no contact with them.. start to do it to. The other is psychic connections amongst family members. One is suffereing and the other will have the urge to call them even though they can be thousands of miles away. Happens a lot in my own family which is why I feel there is some kind of validity there.

In fact.. my recent workload problem is an example. No one told me it had been deleted. I would not have been paid and I would have not made rent or my bills. I'd be seriously screwed. that day it was deleted.. I had an urge to go ask what I was going to be paid at the end of the month. I had no real reason to.. some people say an angel tapped them on their shoulder. However, could that be the psychic resonance?

who knows..

moo

[cowsmanaut]

oh ZYX, understand that english is both a complex and simple language. We try to simplify things but end up complicating them. Words that share the same sounds but different meanings, things spelled the same as well yet have different meanings.. things grouped(as in this case) in one category and yet being obviously different.

The term cat in english can be used to reffer to a feline. any feline. Wild cat or house cat. Cat for us is synonymous with feline. It's a master category for the common traits but there are subcategories for them..

[Ameena]

I didn't say cats CAN'T be taught...if I implied it then whoops...what I meant was that although cats CAN be trained, it's generally harder to do than dogs since cats tend to need a more substantial reward than just "Good boy!" and a pat on the head or whatever. Anyway, obviously in what I'm saying I'm gonna miss out various example because I've never had a cat or tried to train one, nor have I heard every possible anecdote about the...er...trainability (new word ) of cats.
You mentioned twin separation...yes they tested inherited conditions like Schizophrenia like that. In Psychology we did about "FAT studies" that is, Family, Adoption, Twin - different ways in which people were brought up and how their behaviour developed in comparison to people brought up in different or similar ways.
And I've heard about psychic resonance...I can't say it's ever happened ot me but I've heard about the "birds on different islands" thing. Undoubtedly weird stuff like this happens. Me and my friend have known each other so long we often say the same thing at the same time or in the same way or whatever. I'm sure that happens to many other people too.

[Zyx]

English is not particularly more complex or simpler than any other language. The complexity I was referring is the relationship between reality and all languages.
I'm not talking about the more or less arbitrary sound linked to a concept: this is not about the shape of the symbol (like the homophones and homographs you mentionned). It's about the relationship between the concept and the real thing.

One would assume first that language describes existing objects, using "natural" categories.
But soon you discover, comparing languages, that what they really are are only grids to interprete the real world, obliging things to fall in the more or less arbitrary categories, or concepts if you prefer. Thus, languages force us to a biased vision of the world. They are not neutral tools.

Using language to describe reality is creating, to a certain extent, an arbitrary reality.

-----------------

When you say "Lion are cats", I perfectly understand that you're using "cats" as a master category, synonymous of "felines".

But!

Are you just talking about the inner categorizing system of the english language with the delusion of talking about the reality out there? ("in England we call lions and cats the same: cats")

Are you talking about the conceptual choices of your culture? ("In England we consider that cats and lions are so close and similar that we'd rather think of them as the same category")

Or are you talking about reality? ("Anywhere in the world lions and cats have an intrinsic link, a common ground, a same nature, with objective characteristics: their catness. ")

Here's another example: in English you use the word river. In French we have rivière and fleuve, which are two distincts things.
A river ends in a lake or another river, or a swamp, etc. A fleuve ends in a sea or ocean. That's why the Missoury is not the same as the Mississipi, for a French, while they're both the same for an English.


Did I set up the problem better?

[PaulH]

The word cat is an evolution in our language that has come to mean your 3rd explanation. There are other examples of this but no rule. They are whatever you want them to be, and if other people use the same term then that is that.

And we have more than one word for river! Stream, beck, burn, tributary, spring, waterway, canal etc. Some may be the same though... depends where you live!

[Zyx]

This was not a multiple choice test, in fact! : )
You should re-read the questions replacing the "are you talking about..." by "to which extent are you talking about..."

How can you maintain it's only and completely the 3rd meaning (there is a catness out there, independent of the language, this is a universal truth) when you know that other languages don't even have this concept? Are they wrong and uncomplete, according to you?

There's no words in english to differentiate a tributary river from a "fleuve" (the river ending into the sea). Stream, burn, brook are smaller than a river, tributary ends in a river or a lake, spring is th beginning, waterway means boats can go by, or is just a generic term, canal is artificial, etc.

However, rivers ending in the sea do exist in England, but it's like if it were not pertinent, and the concept is intuitevly ignored when considering waterways in general.

So what is the Thames, for example? A river? Yes for an English, no for a French. A "fleuve"? No for an English, yes for a French...
What's the truth?

EDIT: fixed Thames typo.

[beowuuf]

That you can never have enough sex.

Just to be slightly OT from the point, has anyone ever wondered that our entire language, and hence perception (either causing that or caused by that) is based on the fact of nouns and verbs. You cannot contruct a sentence nor communicate outwith these unwritten rules, either explicitly or implicitly. Things must have an existance, a labelled existance that defines them to us utterly, and with that they must be doing a readily definable action or have a visible understandable consequence. Are we missing an entire level of perception and reality simply because we can only think to ourselves and communicate to others in those broad strokes?

[PaulH]

Most of the people in our country say lions are cats. Therefore they are. There is no exact definition. It is subjective. Other languages say lions are not cats. They are right too. If we all decided that cows were going to be cats, then that is right.

I am certainly not dismissing other languages, and the 'multiple choice' answer I gave sums up why I believe mostly we say lions are cats. If your definition of a cat does not include lion then how can I say you are wrong?

Most Brits call the Thames a river. A river as well is defined many ways, the most common being 'a stream of water of substantial volume'. What is 'substantial'? In the UK we also have many dykes that end up in the sea. Rivers sometimes flow into estuaries. Estuary, Now that is an interesting word.
Definition:

The part of the wide lower course of a river where its current is met by the tides.
An arm of the sea that extends inland to meet the mouth of a river.
[Latin aestuārium, from aestus, tide, surge, heat.]

Is it part of the river or sea? Not everything is black and white is it?

[PaulH]