[AIPedant]

FWIW I don't think this is quite true for domestic cats - cross-species collaboration is very common in carnivores. A famous example is the coyote and badger, which will team up to hunt prairie dogs: the badger chases them out of the burrows, the coyote catches them outside, and they split the meat 70-30 in acknowledgement that the coyote is larger and needs more food. Recently the same has been observed with ocelots and possums. It seems like most mammals are able to at least somewhat understand the mood and intentions of other mammals - note that we share facial expressions and body language.

OTOH feral cats are known for being highly social compared to other cats, forming large semi-collaborative colonies. And adult cats have much more difficulty socializing to humans than adult dogs, even if they don't have trauma/etc. I suspect the real story of cat domestication goes both ways: an unusually gregarious subspecies of African wildcat started forming colonies near human settlements and forming cross-carnivore collaborations with the humans who lived there. This was also true for dogs - it likely started with unusually peaceful Siberian wolves - but I believe cats were more "accidental." Humans have been deliberately creating dog breeds since antiquity, but with a tiny number of exceptions cat breeds are modern. I doubt ancient humans ever "bred" cats like they did dogs, it seems closer to natural selection.

[godelski]

Fwiw, a lot of cat breeds are very old. Especially the ones coming out of northeast Africa (like Egypt).

But yes, both accidental domestication happens as well as non human cross species collaboration. Another famous example is with the cleaner fish and sharks. Animals also frequently collaborate with plants. Ants even have farms, both fungi and other insects