Why do cats & dogs ...?

You know, cats and dogs can be utterly strange sometimes. Actually, more often than sometimes. Ever since getting a cat 14 years ago, I've come to realize how truly enigmatic animals can be. Why does my cat go crazy for my sweaty gym clothes? Why does she suddenly stop, in the middle of a playful frenzy, to lick her leg for a second? WHY the obsession with cardboard boxes?!

Since asking her directly won't work, I do the next best thing—I see what the internet has to say about it. Turns out I'm not alone; many people google to try and understand their cats and dogs better. But what “weirdness” is really common to them?

Let's try and answer this question by looking at what pet behavioral questions are searched for most often. In this project, I worked together with Google Trends to investigate the ~4400 most asked questions about cats and dogs that start with the word “why” in Google Search.

If you want to learn and explore what questions are most popular, what funny or unexpectedly intriguing questions people are asking, and in which countries dogs are more popular than cats and vice versa, then read on!

Btw, reading this story in Chrome shows more visually fun aspects ^.~

First of all, would you say you're a cat person or dog person?