I was recently reading a newspaper column, where the writer make reference to a consensus among arson investigators that in general when there are house fires, pet cats flee the building ASAP, but dogs will stay with their owners in spite of the fire. Not to bash cats, they obviously have great survival instincts, but I was curious if anyone else had heard this written about, or whether they knew if this is the result of some recent survey or study.
The writer was making reference in his article to dogs' overwhelming loyalty to their masters under all conditions. I was just surprised to read this was the focus of a study by arson investigators. If anyone knows of the study or survey, I would be curious to know why it was done and whether there is a website where someone can read it?
Cats are more easily turned feral and have pretty good survival instincts. There have been stories of cats awakening their owners in a fire, but I think they are just more independent animals.
We had a house fire and our house terrified cats hid (guess if they had been outside cats they would have fled the house), fortunately the firemen were able to find the cats. Our dogs wouldn't leave my husbands side, he had to force them out - yes loyal to a fault.
We are grateful our fire department was equipped with the pet oxygen masks, without them at least one of our cats would not have survived. This could very easily have been one or more of our dogs. I urge everyone to check with their local fire department and see if they have this equipment. You never know when this might happen.
