In early 2016, scientists announced (in a BBC Documentary, so it must be true) they have proof  that dogs love their owners more than cats love theirs. It’s a tale of spit samples and hormone levels  and our commentator Robert Chipkin says the results come special delivery from the Department of Everybody Knows That.

Ho-hum. Which is about the reaction cats give to most everything.

In this wholly unstartling study, researchers analyzed saliva from dogs and cats, after their owners played with the animals for 10 minutes.

It’s the oxytocin, stupid.That’S the same hormone that floods through moms at the first sight of their babies and which somehow is in scarce supply at the sound of the words “here, kitty, kitty.”   Levels of oxytocin in dogs jumped, nearly five times more than cats to be exact.

Dog owners could have saved the scientific community years of study by inviting them over for supper to witness their slobbery greeting at the door, as if the researchers had just returned from the 100 Years war. Try the same test at any cat’s home and the response would have been indifference mixed with annoyance that the 100 Years war had taken so long, delaying the feline’s dinner.

To borrow a scene from that famous movie, Catsablanca, dogs are the Humphrey Bogart character waiting loyally and wide-eyed at the train station in the pouring rain for Ingmar Bergman. While cats are so busy licking themselves, they have forgotten about Ingmar Bergman altogether.

It’s comforting to know that the lack of feline affection isn’t personal. Like everything else we think is love, it’s just hormones.

One might as well expect a cat to grow wings and fly away as to hope it will do more than show up for dinner with the bemused attitude of a teenager, biding her time until she can go back to texting her friends. And no amount of human petting or springing for the gourmet cat food is likely to arouse much more than a nod from a species who, if the roles were reversed, would probably be eyeing us for dinner.

In the end, saliva tells all, and what it’s telling is the same thing that dogs have known since the first wolf decided that loving one master was a lot better than hunting in packs.  Cats know that too. They just don’t give a spit.

Writer Robert Chipkin lives in Springfield with his family and their dog, Theo. Theo has his own column in the Springfield Republican.