Are Your Pets Right or Left Pawed

Yes, you read that right pets are like humans right or left pawed in the case of humans right or left-handed. There were two studies done one in Turkey and one in England. In the study done in Turkey it was discovered that the majority of domestic cats are right pawed that’s 50%, 10% are ambidextrous and 40% prefer to use their left paw. Now when it comes to dogs the study in England discovered that 50% of them tend to be left pawed with a smaller number being ambidextrous.

Interestingly enough it appears that it also depends on the gender of the animal as to which paw they will tend to favor. Female cats and dogs will prefer to use their right paw while their male counterparts will prefer the left paw. Now if your pet happens to be spayed or neutered at an early age, this particular distinction goes away. You can’t just play with your pets to determine their preference because unlike with humans they will weekly express which paw they prefer so it takes some time to see a pattern.  Now here I can say that our cat Sid prefers his right paw because this is the one with which he constantly bats my hand while I’m putting his dry food into his bowl. While he is lying in the window you can see that he has stretched out his dominant right paw and it sure is a big paw.

The best way to determine about your pets is to see which paw they most often shake with, which they reach out with when playing or trying to catch something and which they reach for a treat with like my Sid with his right paw reaching for his dry food. I never though about any of this because I had no idea about it until I discovered it on the Internet and decided to share these amazing facts with you.

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18 thoughts on “Are Your Pets Right or Left Pawed

  1. Pingback: Are Your Pets Right or Left Pawed – Katzenworld | RoseyToesSews

  2. foguth says:

    Great article! Last Christmas, we visited friends who had noticed that their male dog was strongly right pawed. They were teaching him to use his left paw in the hopes he’d be a bit less clumsy…. I was particularly surprised to read, “when it comes to dogs the study in England discovered that 50% of them tend to be left pawed with a smaller number being ambidextrous” since Gabe was so strongly right pawed.

  3. angela1313 says:

    I laughed when I read this. I know my Mi Sun is left pawed because to keep her from overeating I bought a puzzle feeder. Just this morning she was fishing out her dry food with her left paw.

  4. tippysmom2 says:

    This is interesting. I will have to pay more attention, but I’m pretty sure Tippy is left pawed. That is the one that she “high fives” with first and the one that she puts over my arm when I am petting her.

  5. Dennis the Vizsla says:

    hello katzenworld its dennis the vizsla dog hay wow i did not no i mite be left pawd or rite pawd i wil hav to ask dada to find owt!!! and sid luks an awful lot like my old kitty sibling pooh bear at leest frum wot i reemember of her she has ben gawn a long time!!! ok bye

  6. Mona says:

    Very interesting! I had no idea about it but it makes sense that cats can also be right or left handed. I can’t believe they also made a research about it, cool! 🙂

  7. zodiacimmortal says:

    Oh my Gosh!! Funny someone wrote this! As this year or the last I had notices that my cat is Left pawed (literal south paw!)

    While I am a righty, I have a problem with my hand so I practice a bit with my left hand so that I can write hopefully legibly when my right hand is not capable

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