Dogs Group, Cats Network
This morning I was hurrying to catch up with a group I walk with every morning. One of the members has a puppy who’s training to be a therapy dog. When this puppy saw me on a perpendicular street, walking toward the group, he began encouraging me. His body turned toward me, he looked at me as if to say “come on, we’re all moving this way!” and he didn’t stop fidgeting around until I physically joined the group, even though his owner kept tugging at the leash and telling him to heel. I noticed that, possibly as a result of this canine acceptance, I was more social in the group this morning; usually I say very little other than “good morning”.
I was reminded of my theory regarding students having cat or dog learning styles.
Then I made the connection to this week’s topic: groups versus networks.
Groups are full of dogs, eager to do what the others do and all be accepted. The alpha dog sets the agenda, and everything is distributive. As Stephen Downes puts it, they “risk anything for that team feeling” (2006). They do work together, are rule-bound, and for the most part subsume individual identity. They even “form linear hierarchies“.
Networks are how cats operate. 
Cats form connections for their own autonomous purposes, and only when needed. They will cuddle up to a human being, or another cat, to keep warm one day and not notice you the next. They are sociable only when it pleases them to be so, and often don’t seem to recognize their own similarity to other cats. You can’t get much more open and diverse. I couldn’t even consider them to form a community.
They say that dogs have owners, but cats have staff. The autonomy of cat thinking makes them supremely independent and able to ignore many external social checks on their viewpoint. They do not organize well, and their selection of nodes for their network can be extremely limited. Occasionally they choose to live in colonies (according to the article, when food is abundant), where they tend to live and let live. But is their network effective? If the cat is getting what she wants from it, then by definition it is. I do think, however, it would very, very difficult to rate the benefit of her network from the outside.
jajajja… Great! I love your metaphor “cats networks and dogs groups”. I am going later to read your theory about “cat and dog learning”. Sure it is also interesting.
I have to tell you a little history that is pretty near of your idea. In the past one time I had to do “interviews” to look for a new person for the appartament where I lived at these moment. It was a big appartament and we were four people. For me was allways very difficult to choice a new person to live together. My “roomys” asked things like what you study, what are your hobbies, etc, but one of my question was allways: “What do you like more: cats or dogs?” A little cracy, I know, but it was funny and in my opinion it worked also… At the end we took somebody who said: “I like both”… Very open mind. jajajajj… Cat people and Dog people is a very good Theory.
Love regards
Carlos
Hi Lisa
This is a great insight and we were discussing it this afternoon in the Second Life Cohort meeting. I think we unanimously agreed this was a great point though some have different opinions on details. Thanks.
Lisa
What a delightful post. I like the analogy very much.
It is interesting that the walking group is a synchronous group. I searched for cat walking groups and found this item http://www.ioffer.com/i/42415981?store=1. It seems to confirm the loneliness of the long distance cat walker!
Keith
Hi Lisa and Carlos,
Lisa, Great post.
I would say i am a cat and dog person too and i actually think that in terms of learning you need both.
in most teaching and learning situations even for adults i believe the dog approach should be dominant and in parallel the skills of the cat should be taught to enable the more autonomous learners to push their boundaries further.
metaphors are great!
Steve
I’m trying desperately to catch up to the rest of the group and I feel very luck/fortunate to have read your post as I race by many others.
As I have a couple cats and a couple dogs, I instantly connected with your analogy. It also proves that both manners of organization can be effective depending on what you want to achieve. For the record, I seem to network better with the dogs.
Excuse me, I have to go walk the dogs while the cats watch in disgust.
Jim
Now, admittedly I am more of a dog person than a cat person (in that I have a preference for the company of dogs), but this analogy immediately made me think networks can’t be good! But I have an alternative interpretation…
Dogs are technology enabled networkers. The technology in question is peemails left on lampposts and trees. They form local groups (in the non-derogative (or is that non-dogative?) sense) which work together and are even accepting of outsiders (in the domesticated context, at least).
Cats, on the other hand, form groups-of-one, seldom accepting others, even if they live in close proximity. Pretty much everything is too much trouble for them unless they get a direct benefit from it, and they do little to maintain connections, even with the people who supply them with food. To my mind, they also seldom seem to learn – whereas dogs will teach each other things. Perhaps I just don’t know enough cats sufficiently well?
In many ways cats remind me of some academics I have known.
Hi Pat!
I almost didn’t see your comment since I moved this blog over to http://lisahistory.wordpress.com — glad I caught it!
Cats learn very well, but like many of our students they don’t necessarily learn what we want to teach them. Dogs learn beautifully from humans, and most will try to learn what you teach, because they so want to please (built-in networking).
Cat people will tell you cats learn to open screens, dial phones, catch flies, let their displeasure be known, and trash an inbox full of paper. And I have indeed seen them teach such things to other cats in the household. Coming into the kitchen at night and clicking on the light will often reveal cats teaching each other all sorts of things you don’t want them to know.