Dogs vs. cats vs. children.

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Discuss.

I definitely like dogs better than cats or children. Cats are just plain evil. Their only advantage over dogs and children is that they come pre-housebroken, and you hardly ever get sued for something your cat did.

Children have so many drawbacks that I can't even begin to list them. Dogs and teenagers have a lot of similarities, though. Just this morning, I told Doc to hush when he was barking in the back yard. He looked at me defiantly and let out one last 'whoof,' so quietly that I only knew he'd done it because I saw his sides move. It was exactly like a teenager muttering, "Bitch," under her breath. And we had a very typical parental stand-off:

What did you say to me?

I didn't say anything. I was just breathing. God, aren't I even allowed to breathe?

The main disadvantage that dogs have, as compared to teenagers, is that you can't play mean tricks on them because they don't speak English.

So if you had to choose, which would you rather share your house with? Dogs, cats, or children?

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001

Answers

Dogs. Absolutely.

I'm with you, Beth - I love kittens, not so crazy about cats. Kittens are cute and fluffy and playful and just so much fun . . . and then they grow up. It's not that I dislike cats, I'm just kind of indifferent to them. Even my own - I love them, but they aren't my babies the way the dogs are.

Dogs, though - I love puppies, but God can they be obnoxious. As they grow up, though, they just keep getting better. (except one of mine, who is smack in the middle of his terrible twos right now, and he gets into just as much trouble as a toddler - I miss him being a puppy just because he was small enough to control).

Kids, I have kind of a love/hate relationship with. I think they are cute, but they get on my very last nerve.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001


Cats. Cats are quiet, small, and furry. They purr. You feed them, you scoop up their stuff, and they reward you with quietness and purring. You don't need to walk them. When you're playing with them, there is never, ever the need to pick up toys which are slimed completely with their horrible, thick and sloppy drool.

Also, cats do not turn on your and tear your throat out with their enormous and bloody fangs and then settle down to gnaw off the rest of your flesh in meaty chunks.

Cats do not bark incessantly over and over until you're crying because you just need peace and no noise for just one single second, please god. Cats do not cry and cry and cry until you suddenly are getting right inside the heads of the women who leave their colicky babies in baskets in front of hospitals or wrapped up in dumpsters because those women, they're going to kill themselves, or the baby, if they don't get the wailing away from them.

Cats don't beg to be taken out for a walk and jump up and down on you and plant their horrible clawed feet right on your stomach and knock the breath out of you or knock you right over. Cats don't gnaw on things.

Cats, of course, can knock things over. They can, if you're unfortunate, pee on things. They can scratch things, and shed all over the black chiffon slip dress you had planned to wear out to the theatre that night but now can't unless you want to look like the lurching, bristling mangy bastard cousin of the Yeti. They can be mean, and not love you at all. But if you're lucky enough to get a good cat, a happy, affectionate cat - well, they beat dogs and greasy little kneebiters, hands down.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001


My cat wakes me each and every morning, by jumping onto my stomach, and meowing at me loudly until I get up and feed her. She will not stop, even if I were to (hypothetically, of course) grab her sorry little butt and throw her off the bed. She would just (hypothetically) jump straight back up and commence to yowling once more.

At the same early hour, my dog rests her head on the side of the bed nearest me, and whimpers, groans, and does a little tap dance with her toenails on the hardwood floor, in her quest to be let outside. If she can reach me, she licks me too. She particularly likes to lick between my toes.

I've been trained, oh yes. I get up by 7 at the latest, every day, no matter what time I went to bed the previous evening or morning, to let the damned dog out (thank heavens for a fenced yard) and feed the damned cat. Then I can go back to bed, if I'm able.

I love my cat, even better now that she's seven years old and not so inclined to bite my feet. I did love her as a kitten, and she was so very, very cute, but she's still a beautiful cat. (She doesn't destroy my house like Beth's cats do, though, so that helps.)

I adore my dog. I feel a little bad that I love the dog so much, but she's very interactive, in ways that the cat is not. She loves to go anywhere and lives for walks and hikes. She's well-behaved and sweet-natured. She's only two, so she's still goofy and funny and playful. (And Jen, she would never bite you, not even if you smeared chopped liver on your limbs. She might lick you until you begged for mercy, but bite? Never.)

Kids? No, I don't want any tricycle motors in my life, it's hard enough to get any God damned sleep as it is. I've spent a lot of time, money, and energy not getting pregnant all these years, and I plan to keep up the good work.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001


Wouldn't this be a great "debate club" topic?

Odd months in favor of Cats, Even months in favor of Dogs.

I think I would abstain.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001


I just love animals, period. I don't have a preference for one or the other between cats and dogs. Right now we have one kitten and one cat. To be perfectly honest (and perhaps horrible), although I'm frequently amused by the kitten's antics, many times I look at our lovely and well-behaved 1.5 year old cat and wonder "why can't he be more like her?"

I do love him, but he's at that age - 3 months - where he just gets into EVERYTHING. All the plant pots in our living room currently have plastic bags wrapped around them so that he can't get into them and fling dirt around. If you tell him no, he will walk away long enough for you to turn your back and then less than 3 seconds later he's back doing exactly what you just said no to. Even when he's corrected with the spray bottle of water, he'll stand there, wet fur sticking out all over and stare defiantly at you with the whole "you're not the boss of me!" expression.

Thankfully for him, he is tremendously cute, about the cutest kitten I have ever seen. This is his sole saving grace these days.

My cat is beautiful and quiet and sits calmly in the open windows and purrs when i scratch her back.

I would love a dog someday but not until we buy a house.

No kids for awhile. Considering how grumpy and bitchy I get when woken by the two kitties playing at 3 a.m., I figure I am in no way ready for 3 a.m. baby feedings.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001



I was raised with a big, furry sweetheart of a dog, who I may have loved more than my parents, and certainly loved a lot more than my siblings, so I always have considered myself a dog person. However, about a year ago, I moved in with my girlfriend and her two cats. Now, she was also raised with a ridiculously beloved family dog and considers herself a dog person, but she was lonely and got cats for companionship. I was very leery of them at first, expecially since I'm allergic and neither of them are declawed. However, they have completely won me over. Both of them are completely fascinated by people, and will move from room to room with us in order to keep us in sight. The older, fatter one is extremely snuggly, and will curl up on my chest to take a nap with me. The younger, stupider one is very playful and entertaining. Sure, they can be evil, as is evidenced by the damage caused by attempts to climb the doorframes as if they were trees, but life would be much less interesting without them.

That said, when we're finally both done with our education and we buy a house with a yard, we're probably going to go to the animal shelter and get a dog as soon as we can unpack the moving truck.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001


Cats only please. Dogs and kids are both fine in very small doses and when I can remove them from my presence on whim.

I mean, really... how can you look at something like this:

http://toddshot.waferbaby.com/bin/dearlordtoocute.mpg

and not love cats? It's impossible.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001


Oh, dogs. Doggydogdogdogs. No question. The beag is so terribly (fabulously?) lazy, and we're used to each other, we're great housemates. Yeah, sure, he barks (screams, actually), he steals food, he is manipulative, he has no respect for personal space, all that. But you know what? I can still chuck him into his crate or the backyard and go sit in a bar for a couple hours. You do that with a kid, you're bound to get in trouble. Somebody's calling DFACS. It is frowned upon, generally. What's more, when I get home, he couldn't be happier.

Don't get me wrong - I dig cats. I'll probably acquire a new cat sometime this summer. It's just not the same, though, as having your very own dog. No, don't argue. I didn't believe it either, before I experienced it. It's true. Cats are great. It's just that part of the tradeoff for being able to stay out all night and not worry about the carpet is that it's just plain less rewarding.

I'm sure that's something like the same argument a Kid Person would make for kids rather than dogs. So be it. The rewards and sacrifices just weigh out right for me with dogs.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001


I got a cat in college because we couldn't have a dog in our apartment. She acted like a dog, too -- we could take her on walks and she also learned to fetch. She's no longer quite as dog-like in her old age.

However, we decided to get a dog soon after we bought our house (Or is we get the house because we wanted a dog? Yeah. I think that's it). Anyway, I love my dog. I'm convinced that he has a sense of humor. He's cute. He's loveable. He's persistent -- if he wakes up before we do, he brings us ALL his dog toys -- we wake up surrounded by plastic squeaky things.

I think that I am just more closely bonded to my dog because we can actually do things together. I can take him on a seven mile hike and he handles it just fine. I can take him canoeing. He's not that good at paddling, but he's one hell of a swimmer.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001


I don't know if I can add anything to this.

Dogs have nothing to recommend them, and so many awful traits I can't even list them all. They're noisy. They smell. You have to pick up their shit. You have to walk them. Worst case, they kill or maim people.

Cats are affectionate, cute, clean themselves, take care of their own shit, and don't stink.

Children are even more horrible than dogs. They aren't cute, they stink and are even less able to take care of themselves. They're noisy at every stage of their development. You can play mean tricks on them, though, and I do it with my nephews every chance I get.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001



I just thought of one more objection to cats: grooming. We have one with long hair plus an undercoat, one with short hair plus an undercoat, and one with short hair, no undercoat. Of course the latter is the only one who likes to be brushed.

The other two have to be combed, and they hate it, and they bite and scratch and maim. Rudy always has mats because he fights the comb so much. I've been doing this since he was a kitten, I've tried every grooming device available, and he hates them all. I've taken him to a professional groomer a few times, but they never want him back.

Jeremy usually grooms Rudy now, because he hates Rudy and doesn't mind hurting him. Sounds terrible, but it's better than letting him get mats.

Sally is easier because she doesn't get mats if you don't comb her; she just gets hairballs and sheds constantly. I just combed out her undercoat for the second time in two weeks, and when I was done I had a hairball as big as she is. She's still shedding, but at that point she scratched the fuck out of my hand, and I decided she could just be uncomfortable.

(Don't suggest vacuuming them. They all hate the vacuum.)

Benny loves to be brushed but hardly ever needs it.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001


Forgot to add: two of the dogs also require grooming, but Mochi loves it, and Crash hates it but puts up with it. Dogs will do anything for a cookie.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001

Dogs smell bad and make your whole house stink. They dig up the lawn and knock over your kids. And I never ever have to bury the dog poop in the yard somewhere.

Cats only have one location that smells bad, and I can fix that by emptying the box.

Kids are far more destructive, in my opinion, but are a lot more fun because you can play with their toys after they go to bed. I actually have adorable children, who I like to play with. The pee and poop stage only lasts for a while, as in dogs, but they don't make the house stink permanently and after a few years you can make them do stuff for you.

THe 7 year old is currently weeding the gardens while the 1 year old picks things off my carpet and hands them to me to throw away.

If given the choice, and I have the choice, I'd never ever have a big stinking dog (Have you recently smelled a dog fart? GAWWWWD!), but have some sweet little kitties and two kids.

-- Anonymous, July 01, 2001


They all suck. kids, dogs, and cats. I just realized today, after cleaning cat puke off of a dining room chair, that I will never get to have nice things. Cats will puke on things, dogs will eat things, kids are covered in industrial glue from head to toe, leaving sticky little fingerprints everywhere, when they aren't busy dismantling expensive electronics and costing a fortune in pediactric fees.

Today I have decided that I want to be one of those women that live in immaculate, 'movie set' apartments - with a white couch, and artfully arranged bowls of flowers on low tables, and candy in a dish, and silk bedcover - all the things you can't have with a dog, cat, or baby around. I want a glass topped table. I want to put a mug of coffee down and not come back to find the dog gleefully licking the last drops of coffee out of the mug. I want the cat to stop eating all of the houseplants. I want the other cat to magically tell me where the hell she hid the headphones from my rio player. I want the doorbell to ring, and not be followed by a cacophony of incessant barking.

-- Anonymous, July 01, 2001


Serves me right, I guess. I post about how great my dog is, and who comes into my life the very next day? Pewter, a tiny, fuzzy, 7-week- or-so-old kitten. Sheesh. I haven't had a cat in a very long time. Certainly not a kitten. She's terrorizing the dog, but I suspect he'll recover. She's pretty damned cute, that Pewter. I would like to state for the record, though, Lizzie, that a fenced in yard beats hell out of a litter box for waste management.

-- Anonymous, July 01, 2001


Definitely dogs. They have personalities. They can do things. And they're damn cute. Cats? They don't do much of anything. They're picky. And I hated cleaning the stinky litter box. (And no matter how often you clean it, it's always stinky.) Sure, they're mostly low- maintenence animals, but I'd rather have to take care of a dog than deal with a cat.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2001

This is a tough one....hmmmmmm...cats, dogs, or children? I love all three, but cats will always be numero uno in my heart(when you have one save your idiotic baby life early into this whole living thing it leaves an indelible mark on you.) I want to get one as soon as I can leave *insert lots of swear words here* dorms. They are sweet and cuddly (they are not stand-offish, they just have an attitude problem like me! :P) and I actually like waking up with a cat on my face. I really miss waking up to my own furry white noise machine purring in my ear. And while I love dogs, dog farts were sent by some malignant force to make us flee from the planet. The worst baby diaper in the world does not equal aging labrador farts. And children, well children require commitment and I'm just not into that at the moment. Cats are sweet and fickle, like moi, and therefore are the perfect(or is that purrrr-fect) companions.

P.s. I really apologize for that purrr-fect thing, I am so corny!

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2001


Dogs are superior to cats because you can take them places. Dogs are big enough to hug. Dogs realize that you're the boss and they love to please you. Cats, when they're catlike, don't notice or care whether you're alive. This can also be true of catlike dogs, those small, yippy, catsized, insistent ones. In addition to yippy, they are also nippy, which is equivalent to a cat's scratching. All the cats approvingly described above have dog characteristics--fetching, walking, cuddling, demanding attention--which are the only things that makes them tolerable. Doglike cats can be okay. Catlike cats are housemates who make a lot of demands without any return--because remember, as soon as it acts loving, it's acting like a dog; also remember, "acts" loving. They don't actually. But dogs do. Dogs love you.

And kids are only tolerable when they're someone else's, and when that someone else is a decent parent who realizes that s/he and the sprog do not rule the planet. Your siblings' kids and your friends' kids are the best possible kind of kids; all other kids generally are annoying. And invariably sticky. And whiny. Blech.

Whoever suggested that odd months argue cats, you're bad. Beth is July and I am May, so that could just never fly.

Please to notice my admirable forebearance from introducing birds to this conversation. Tact, thy name is lisa.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2001


One of my cats loves me, passionately. This morning my husband was harassing me to get me out of bed, and I was able to say, "I can't, Zooey has suction-cupped himself to my forehead". This was worth any number of catboxes.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2001

Kristin -- I'm with you on the 'no more nice things' issue. I've been watching a lot of movies lately and I was eyeing the houses in various of these dubiously. How do these working, single parent, pet- owning folks manage to keep their houses so pristine I wonder ... much less have time to gad about doing all the nifty things that they're shown doing?

I love my cats, I really do, but the horde has been getting me down lately, due to the marked absence of my husband for a month and a half.

I look around my own apartment at the end of an 8 ... 10 ... 12 hour day, eyes bleary, sighing because the furrmonsters have yet again knocked all the books off of the coffee table, tracked sawdust from the litter box onto the bed and generally turned the towels into a fuzzy mess on the floor. My general reaction is to curl up on my cat- hairy couch, with a plate of salad for dinner and forget about doing the dishes, because there's no point in trying to clean 'cos the the cats will just puke, knock over or otherwise displace things.

Let's not get into their various and assorted bowel movement preferences, or the little claws in the toes at 6am.

Would I prefer a dog though? I'd like to have a dog, but as long as there are 7 felines in my house, this is not happening.

As for kids ... I want a family, but there's definitely some nerve steeling going on in ye olde head -- sort of advance training in being patient.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2001


There's a children's poem by Ogden Nash that works really well here as an answer: The problem with a kitten is that, eventually it becomes a Cat. I have an evil, mean cat who is 8 years old now. She was a sweet, powderpuff of a kitty and now she is, well, sweet isn't a word I'd use to descibe her. I'll take my dog and my kid to the park any day over trying to entertain the hell bitch.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Cats. Hands down. Or rather just one cat (or possibly two that are littermates or arrive together and like each other - otherwise they just sulk in opposite corners of the space).

The thing about dogs is, they're too interactive for me and you have to keep negotiating food chain issues with them. You have to do all that obedience training, that behavioristic stick and carrot Barbara Wodehouse walkies yummy collar-jerk Skinner Crate top and bottom roleplay stuff. You have to worry all the time about whether you're being too authoritarian or too permissive. I don't want to have to do that with any other creature. It offends my egalitarian soul.

With a cat, it's very simple. The cat is the boss. But its needs will not intrude on the rest of your routine very much; for example it fits in your lap while you do other things. (Unless you get a drama queen like the last one I lived with, who would not tolerate multitasking ever, but that's a relatively small percentage of cats.) And kids: no. I just dislike random loud noises too much.

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001


I enjoy dogs and cats both, for different reasons. But I'm reluctant to own a dog for the amount of upkeep and cleaning they require. If I get a pet, it'll be a cat or two, simply because they're much lower maintenance.

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001

guppy, we let one of our cats outside on supervised visits to the fenced in yard. I've seen him pee out there, haven't seen him shit. But the other cat won't go outside a t all. So much for that idea.

Besides, my husband cleans their sandboxes.

-- Anonymous, July 06, 2001


I live in a house with three cats, and enjoy it. I also live with a small six month year old baby, and enjoy that much less. Sure, she's cute and all, but only for brief moments between the bansee wailing, hair grabbing, and mess making. Cats (mine at least) have the virtue of silence. I've never had a dog before, but so far my vote goes with cats.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

i've always been a cat person. i share my apartment with two cats now, littermates just over a year old. our lives are content. i've recently come to the same conclusion as kristin, though...no matter how much time, effort, and money i put into it, i'll never have a truly clean apartment. my dark green comforter and beautiful navy sofa will always be covered in fine layers of white cathair. (how was i supposed to know they would turn out to be longhairs back when they were little fluffy kittens?) morsels of dry food will always be scattered over the kitchen floor, litter over the bedroom carpet, linty bits of towel over the bathroom tile. sigh.

i used to hate dogs, but my S.O. has changed my mind a bit. don't think i'll ever come around on the subject of kids.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001


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