Good news - your cat doesn’t actually hate you, after all

Many people (especially those who aren’t fond of cats) believe that the animals are aloof and stand-offish – and basically ‘use’ their human owners as a two-legged food supply.

But that’s not actually true, however much dog lovers might want it to be, according to a new study.

In fact, cats not only enjoy human company, they would actually pick spending time with ‘their’ human over the opportunity to eat food.

MORE: The Daily Mail’s ‘Legs-it’ front page has made just about everyone angry

MORE: Woman labelled ‘weird freak’ on receipt for ordering child-sized omelette for her child

Researchers from Oregon State University took 50 cats (some shelter cats and some cats from homes) and deprived them of food, scents, human contact and toys for a few hours.

They reintroduced the stimuli (food, scent, people and toys) and watched which one the cats chose.

Many of the cats chose to socialise with humans, rather than eat.

The authors of the study wrote: ‘While it has been suggested that cat sociality exists on a continuum, perhaps skewed toward independency, we have found that 50% of cats tested preferred interaction with the social stimulus even though they had a direct choice between social interaction with a human and their other most preferred stimuli from the three other stimulus categories.’