We are engaged in a terribly intense debate. Which animal is generally
more intellegent? A cat or a dog? Not knowing much about animal
intellagence we leave the parameters up to you... just please state
them in your answer...

Thanks!

A dog wins by a mile.

Have you ever seen a cat used by the blind as a 'Seeing Eye'?

Have you ever heard of a Gun Cat? (Instead of a Gun Dog)

Have you ever heard of a 'Cat in the Manger'?

Have you ever seen a Circus Cat walking on its two hind legs?

It's no contest!

But curiousity never killed the dog. 

And besides, it never rains dogs and dogs.

Politicalguru

You've said it all!

A dog is far too intelligent to allow itself to be killed just because
of curiosity.

QED

ac27z,

Check out this article by Cecil Adams, author of the long-running "The
Straight Dope" question-and-answer column:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_005.html

-smudgy.

Dog breeds vary more - from Chihuahua to Great Dane.  The stupidest
dogs I have ever seen were a result of very specific breeding for some
superficial quality such as size or color.

I have 2 cats.  One is very bright, and the other is exceptionally
stupid (but nice).  The stupid one has still not figured out hot to
drink from a faucet.  She wants the running water, puts her head down
to drink it, and is confused when the water disappears (because her
head is in the way and the water is running down her back).  She
ponders this enigma momentarily, until she realizes that she is
suddenly all wet, for no reason that is apparent to her.  Then she
runs away.  She  has probably done this 20 times without learning
anything.

Great question!!

Although I am owned by an incredibly smart kitty, I must agree with
the others here, dogs are by far the more intelligent.

PS: I am typing this in a closely hidden spot so my owner will not
pounce on me for my comment.

MEOW!!!!!!!

Steph53

I share my life with a number of dogs and cats. I love them all
dearly, but it is obvious to me that my cats are much sharper in most
ways than my dogs. Cats are usually not particularly interested in
pleasing human beings, so they don't tend to learn cute tricks, but
that doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't smart. Their cleverness
is not easily trained, but that is a matter of personality, not
intelligence.

I have also had several pet rats. It seemed to me that the rats were
in the same IQ range as the cats and dogs, even though the rats were
much smaller. Ounce for ounce, a rat's brain sure is a marvel.

Pink ... You have 5 Dogs; 25 Cats and Just How Many Rats?

My daughter Victoria has had many rats over the years.

Her first came from a guy I know called Joe who breeds rats.

I asked him 'How come?'

Joe said that he used to keep snakes and he bred rats to feed the snakes.

Then he found out that rats were more interesting than snakes.

I asked him, 'What happended to the snakes ... Did you feed them to the rats?'

He refused to answer.

So 'What do you feed your rats on?'

Or is that a $200 Question?

Regarding the feeding of rats, it was my observation that rats will
eat just about anything except a certain brand of delivery pizza that
was too yucky even for rats.

Our ratties mostly ate dry cat food (they say "you are what you eat.")
But we gave them a varied diet. One of their favorite treats was a
nice live cicada. Although we bore no ill will toward the cicadas in
the neighborhood, we occasionally tossed a few into the rats'
enclosure as a treat. Those rats sure enjoyed 'em. Crunchy.

This is a very interesting article about feline intelligence:

http://www.messybeast.com/intelligence.htm