Over the centuries of living together, animals have learned to quite tolerably understand human language, and not only the words themselves, but to a much greater extent body language. The people themselves are not so successful in interspecific communication, but they nevertheless learned some of the nuances. For example, the fact that a dog wags its tail when it is happy. But another four-legged companion of man - a cat - for some reason does not have such a habit.
Subtleties of a dog's tongue
It is widely believed that a dog wags its tail when happy. Indeed, a meeting with a beloved owner and other household members, waiting for a treat or the promise of a walk, seeing a familiar person or a neighbor's dog, expecting that the dog will be thrown by a favorite toy or patted on the back of the neck, make the animal twist its tail. However, if you take a closer look at the dog, you will notice that at the sight of another large and aggressive individual, the animal at first also wags its tail, and then emits a dull growl and rushes into the attack. Scientists decided to carefully study such an obvious contradiction and found that, meeting the owner, the dog wags its tail with a bias to the right side, and, having got into a fighting stance, tilts its tail more to its left side. A tool as simple as the tail allows the animal to express a fairly wide range of emotions.
"Tilts" the tail to the right side not only joy, but also curiosity at the sight of an unfamiliar object or creature that does not seem threatening to the dog.
What the cat wants to say
The tail plays an important role in the life of a cat, but the animal, with the help of this part of the body, tries to convey different information than a dog. A good sign is a fluffy tail raised by a pipe. This means that the animal feels great, is in high spirits and fighting spirit, and is ready to play. If the cat jerks its tail sharply, like a whip, this shows that it is angry. If the animal is not left alone at this moment, it can scratch the person.
In the case when the cat moves not only the tail, but also the whole rear part, the animal is carried away by the hunt and is preparing for the decisive throw.
Live like a cat and a dog
Dogs are herd animals, while cats prefer to live for the most part by themselves. It was the peculiarities of the way of life that determined such different habits of animals. Dogs had to communicate with relatives in a pack, to show not only aggression, but also their disposition. In turn, people were more willing to breed dogs that distinguished themselves not only by their hunting, herding or guarding properties, but also by their love for the owner, which they expressed, including by wagging their tail. Cats, on the other hand, were domesticated much later, they did not need to show their good attitude to their fellows, and therefore they did not acquire a similar habit in a human dwelling.
