owners view of their pets emotions intellect and mutual relationship cats and dogs compared companion animals have established special relationships with humans as demonstrated by many studies describing their abilities and bonds to communicate with humans in this questionnairebased study we explored owners views of pets in terms of their emotional and intellectual functions and their relationship with owners and compared the results between cat owners and dog owners we found that although both types of owners most often regarded their pets as family members this tendency was weaker in cat owners cat owners also scored significantly lower than dog owners for some emotions and intellect they thought their pets might have additionally cat owners who regard their cats as family members tend to attribute compassion to their cats more strongly than cat owners who regard their pets as nonfamily this study revealed that some aspects of cat owners views of their pets differ from those of dog owners these finding may help us to better understand our heterospecific companions and establish good relationships with them