This video is sponsored by Skillshare.
Do our animals have a preferred paw?
Since you've probably never seen your cat struggle with right-handed scissors,
in any case no more than with left-handed scissors, you probably don't know if
your cat or dog is right-handed or left-handed. But we could find out.
According to this article, there are at least 5 ways to determine your pet's favored
paw. Now's the time to call them if you want to try it.
Kitty kitty!
So I'll give you a list of tests, but the authors themselves specify that they
are not all equal in terms of reliability but also in terms of animal well-being.
It depends on the temperament of each individual; so listen to your pet.
TEST 1: Catch The idea is to see which paw
your pet uses to catch something. You can put a kibble in a cup or at
the bottom of a box or under a sofa. You can use something other than a kibble
too. In particular because as soon as we work with food, the motivation to catch
the kibble may be different depending on the hunger level of the animal. For cats, you can
also use small toys that wiggle under their nose, that kind of thing... And there, watch
which paw your cat or dog uses. Try it several times, because even a
left-handed cat will use the right paw from time to time. So you have to repeat the experiment a good number of times.
All the tests I'm presenting are designed for cats and dogs,
but if you ever use them on other animals, do not hesitate to share it in the comments.
TEST 2: Remove Here, the idea is to put
something on your pet and see what paw they use to get rid of it. It can be
tape on the top of their muzzle or above the eyes, or a cloth upon their head. And frankly
this test is probably the most stressful one of all, so pay attention to
your pet. It is also more suitable for dogs than for cats… Be careful with this one.
TEST 3: Stabilize Here, the idea is to give them this
kind of toy filled with kibble. See which paw they use to stabilize
the object. This test is sometimes used especially with dogs but with some level of
uncertainty: does the dog use its dominant paw to stabilize the toy or, on the contrary, does
he lean on his strong paw? It can be hard to tell with this test whether your animal is
right-handed or left-handed. But it can at least allow you to assess whether your animal has a
favored paw if he uses the same one every time.
TEST 4: Initiate
This test is probably the most reliable, but it also takes the longest to acquire enough
data in order to answer with certainty if the animal is right-handed, left-handed or neither. You have to
watch with which paw your animal initiates their walk. As much as possible, we want to see them walk
straight ahead. Because if the animal wants to walk right or left, the choice of leg
will be pre-made. You can also observe this by looking at which paw enters
the litterbox first, or which paw goes first to walk down the stairs. Often,
these are good indicators too.
TEST 5: Lifting the paw
This last test consists in asking the animal to give the paw and see which one they lift
first. Of course, as you can imagine, this is not necessarily
very reliable simply because if the dog always learned to raise the right paw,
there is a little bias that is added to all this. Either way, don't run
this test only once. Because having a favored paw
does not mean that we use that paw exclusively. Am I right-handed or left-handed?
You need multiple observations to be sure… and besides, your animal
may not have a preference. According to these two studies, between ⅔ and ¾ of doggies
have a favored paw (it's called being lateralized when there is a preference). Which leaves us with
⅓ to ¼ of dogs without a preference, or ambidextrous. For cats, we are talking about ¾ of them who
do have a favored paw, and ¼ who have no preference. So obviously,
if after say 20 observations, your pet's favored leg is still not obvious,
it may not be your fault. That can happen. Some animals just don't have a
preference. Right, but overall, we want to know. Are dogs and cats typically
right-handed or left-handed? According to the results of this meta-analysis, if
your animal is lateralized, it is technically slightly more likely that they would be right-handed.
I'm showing you these graphs because they give the answer to the question, but I would like to
add a big asterisk. These come from a meta analysis, where the authors bring together
the results of many different analyses… The analyses in question hardly take ever
take the animals' breed into account, and since we do not know the importance of breed on
lateralization, this is a blurry zone. Second, all the studies that
were gathered do not necessarily have the same experimental protocols and some studies
have results that are contradictory… which you may have noticed if you have
tried several of the tests that I have listed. Sometimes, a pet can be right-handed in one exercise
and left-handed in another. So we have muddled data, which can be problematic.
Third point, not all studies have used the same categories. Some
considered 2 categories (right-handed / left-handed), others considered 3 categories (right-handed /
left-handed / no preference). Obviously, we will have different results depending on how we
categorize the animals. And finally, depending on how we work with statistics, we won't get to
the same results. Because if we take the results of a study on say 10 cats,
which concludes that there are more right-handers than left-handers in this study. (For example.) And we
takes another study conducted on 1000 cats, which concludes that there are more left-handers. How do we
combine these two studies? Do we consider 1010 cats, where the largest
study will have much more weight compared to the small one (because there are more cats)? Or, do we
take the conclusion of each study and place their conclusions on an equal footing? You
see that we are not necessarily going to reach the same conclusion with that method. All this to say that
these pie charts, I show them to you because it is the answer we were looking for, but it seems to me that
the asterisk on the interpretation of the results has its importance. In my opinion, what we can
take away from all this is that most cats and dogs are lateralized; they have a
favored paw. But there is much more ambidexterity than for us. We are
close to 1%. Besides, the fact that we humans are so strongly lateralized to the right, and
we're talking about 9 people out of 10, we don't really know why that is. We know there is some
small genetic influence, we believe that there is a small hormonal influence too (women are
less likely to be left-handed than men, same thing with female cats), there may also be
environmental factors, the result of evolution… All these possibilities are being explored
but we don't really have an answer. In any case, it seems to be defined quite early on:
according to this article, we could predict who will be right-handed or left-handed from the 18th week
of pregnancy. It's early, but for other species it's even earlier. For example, did you
know that snails can be right-shelled or left-shelled? Either it coils in
one direction, or it coils in the other. And we can see this coiling from the very
first cell divisions. The video that you're seeing here is a future freshwater snail
called the great lymnea. These are only 'shell righties' to be. Look how the
cell division happens to the right. Whereas here, you only have 'shell lefties'
to be. And the division is towards the left. This division direction, what's really crazy
is that it does not only affect the coiling of the shell but also the organ placement
inside the snail. Which means that right-shelled snails have an internal organization
which mirrors that of left-shelled snails… which, for some species, complicates
reproduction for… logistical reasons. So for some species of snails,
right shelled individuals can only breed with other right-shellers, and left-shellers with other
left-shellers. And that's why the overwhelming majority of common snails,
those we have in our gardens, are right-shelled: it is because there is a 'small'
reproduction problem with left-shellers. Therefore, there has been a selection for right-shellers due to
reproduction issues in terms of logistics. Conversely for some snails like the
Satsuma, there are mostly left-shellers, and this time, we suspect it's because
of one particular predator. There is a snake whose jaw has more teeth on the
right side than on the left side, which helps it to eat snails that have right-coiled shell.
Once again, we've had a selection because of a predator; but this time in favor of lefties.
This matter of natural selection is clear for snails, but when it comes to us… we
have no explanation yet. There you go, those were some fun animal facts for the end of the video.
To sum it up, most dogs and cats are lateralized and you can test this
at home. You may even notice that this applies to other behaviors than those we've
tested. Does your pet come on your lap only from the left or only from the right?
Do they always sleep on the same side? I hope you will tell us in the comments,
because… kitties are so cute.
This video is sponsored by Skillshare.
And I'm really happy because I've been using it for years. I can't keep track of
the number of courses I have taken on this platform. The one that impressed me the most,
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difference having a structured course rather than trying to learn via 1000 tutorials, only to realize
that, 3 years into doing fairly advanced stuff, you're totally lacking the basics. And now,
I think the next class I'm going to take will be Descriptive Writing. I'm working
a lot on my writing right now and it's a subject that I have not yet explored on
Skillshare. I'm ready to learn more. You'll have noticed that the site is in English but everything is
subtitled in French and the website will soon be available in French too. If you want to try it, the
link is in the description and it allows you to get a one-month free trial to Skillshare... but that's
only for the first 1000 of you.
That was the first episode of season 3
of “I got lost on the Internet (again)". Many thanks to everyone who
follows me on Instagram and who helped me out by recording their cats and dogs,
my Story was up for barely 2 hours and I posted it very late, but you and your pets were absolutely
adorable. I couldn't use all the videos of course, but I did watch them all.
It was awfully cute. You can find the previous seasons in the playlists in
the description. We're in for a ride my friends! Alright, see you next time. Bye.