I just said goodbye to my sweet doggy 48 hours ago: she was 17, and I’d had her since she was 3 months old. I’d been hoping she might simply die in her sleep one day, but I had to make the terrible decision to let her go. There are mobile vets here who will come to the house for euthanization, but I chose to take her to our regular vet one last time – even though she didn’t like car rides anymore because of her arthritis, and going there stressed her. Why? Well, decades ago I had my cat euthanized at home and the memory of her final moments wound up “haunting” my living room. I was (and still am) a renter, and luckily I was able to move pretty soon. But I have nine months left on my current lease, and there will be enough memories of the dog in this house – plus, I knew losing her would be 10x worse than the cat. I’m still haunted by the memory of my girl’s final moments (though she died peacefully, in my arms), but at least it didn’t happen here. Adjusting to an empty house – which doesn’t quite feel like home now – is hard enough. I’m glad it happened “off site.” Everyone is different, though, and I know many, many people who agree with Tripler that at-home euthanasia is best. I just…couldn’t.
I’m sorry, @Misnomer. May your pain become happy memories in the shortest time possible.
I’m very sorry for your loss. 
That would have happened to me had I had my dog Dina (this was in 2005) euthanized at home, in a house I owned at the time, and so I chose to do it at the vet. I had pets die on their own in the house, and it didn’t “haunt” me, but I knew that euthanasia would be different.
It also meant, and there’s no nice way to put it, that if I wanted her cremated, I would have to carry the corpse out to the vet’s car. Or to my car. I’d rather let her walk to the car and into the vet. She couldn’t walk without support, but there was some dignity, I felt, in it.
Very sorry for your loss.
I’m sure you made the right decision for you.
I’m very much a dog person, but I like cats too. I’d be very happy to have either; currently, though I’m not able to care for any pet.
Growing up, my family had dogs: first, a pair of Cairn Terriers, and when they died, a Yorkshire Terrier. My mother tolerated them because my grandmother had a thing for animals (I take after my grandmother in this respect); however, she harbors an intense dislike for cats.
I grew up with both dogs and cats. More cats than dogs, and my elderly widower dad still has somewhere north of 15 cats.
I prefer cats because they are less maintenance. They get fed a couple times per day and are quite content to be left alone. Dogs need attention and interaction and shouldn’t be left alone for longer than a half a day or so and… yeah. But, our current dog is a wonderful, loving German Shepherd that we rescued from the pound and, other than the fact she sheds an ungodly amount of hair all year long, she’s absolutely wonderful to have.
I do not want and will never have birds or reptiles. I’d love to have a big aquarium but our current home doesn’t really have a layout conducive to a fish tank.
I had both growing up, and I’ve had both as an adult. Always a cat and a dog(s) together. Currently, I have three dogs. I would probably have a cat too, but I think these dogs would chase it around like it was a squirrel in the house. Stressful for a cat and me!
I grew up with a variety of dogs and cats. I currently share two tabbies and a golden retriever with my sister’s family, sharing the expenses and cleanup duties but also affection as well. They’re really easy to smile and laugh at!
I grew up with both cats and dogs. I used to be both a dog and a cat person. I only somewhat recently discovered that I am no longer a dog person.
In my adult life, I’ve only had cats. We live in a condo with a small backyard, so we’ve never considered getting a dog. A couple of years ago we agreed to take my brother in law’s German shepherd for a night. The first thing the dog did was chase one of my cats into the laundry room. Poor Irving hid behind the washing machine, and wouldn’t come out for seven hours.
I realized right then that I’d made a mistake in agreeing to take the dog. We finally had to lock him in the backyard for a while, so we could move the litter boxes into our room and coax the cats in there. We all spent the night together locked in our room, with the dog on the other side of our door. That’s when I realized that I’m not that into dogs anymore. And, new rule in my home: no dogs allowed! BIL can find someone else to take care of his dog.
Husband and I both grew up with dogs and cats. We are both team cat.
Just to put in a word for the other side: I mentioned my stepson recently moved in with us, bringing his cats into our all-dog household. It took a week or so, but the dogs no longer harass the cats, and in fact, one of the cats has taken to chasing one of the dogs!
I’m also realizing that I don’t miss scooping litter boxes, or pushing animals off the kitchen counter all the time. The cats have torn up some of the carpet in the guest room, despite having multiple scratching posts, and I’ve had to take some things out of the curio cabinet and hide them in a closet, because I’ve seen a cat calculating the leap from the top of husband’s recliner to the top of the cabinet. Husband, for his part, is dreading the day he finds kitty claw-holes poked in that chair.
I admit the destruction of our sofas and coffee table was the handiwork (teefiwork?) of dogs.
I am a now-catless cat person, who grew up in a cat person family.
I did have a dog for eleven years, I inherited him from a relationship that broke up, and that made me a lot more comfortable with dogs. He was a half Dane, half German Shepherd, weight about the same as mine, I learned a lot about training because there was no way I was going to be controlling him on a leash if I didn’t also have voice control over him.
The really interesting thing was, my cats learned the meaning of “No” during his tenure; not that they observed it, necessarily, but they definitely stopped and thought about it, and if they were feeling inclined to curry favor with me, they desisted. And passed it on to the next generation of overlapping cats. Kind of like passing on litter training and catching mice.
On cats chasing dogs: my white cat with one green and one blue eye – Katherine Ann Porter was her name – she grew up with the half-Dane, and she was his nemesis. She used to sit on the back of his sofa – he had his own, I had my comfy chair – she’d sit on the back of it and whack him with her claws out, knowing he couldn’t get out of it fast enough to catch her. He himself had grown up with another of my cats, Athena, and although he definitely knew he was bigger than most dogs (except the one mastiff he ever met) he clearly felt smaller than cats.
Always only had dogs. My mom and dad got a puppy when they got married, but it got waaaay too big for their small apartment, so they rehomed Wilhelmina and got a dachshund. That hooked my dad, and he was a dachshund man for the rest of his life and passed it on to us kids. Carla was a standard, but she was the runt of the litter, so she was easy to deal with. Placid personality and very sweet. We said she was the OG photobomber because we have snapshots from throughout the 50s and 60s with Carla’s eyes in the lower corners of the shots glowing green from the camera flash.
Carla lived to 19. She was blind and deaf, and it didn’t bother her, but the IVDD that she recovered from when she was a young pup returned. She was a great dog.
In high school, my sister got a beagle puppy (make sure you read up on this breed before you get one), and a year or two later, a dachshund puppy. Rogie (short for Rogachien) and Thunderfoot were great dogs, too, but Thunderfoot was the sweetest of all our dachshunds. Miss her still.
I didn’t have another dog until later because we didn’t have a yard, and I was away from home a lot (long commute to work and long distance bf mostly). Then, we got Luc and Shanni a bonded pair of dachshunds. The rescue said they were crate-trained, but we think they were just kept in the crates all the time. Neither were they socialized to other dogs. It took a long time, but they both for the most part came around. Luc would still freak out when he met a bigger dog that was new to him.
A few months later I impulsively adopted a dachshund that had been found wandering the streets. She was in bad shape with missing/bad teeth, mammary tumors, and as it turned out a heart murmur. We think she was a breeder who was dumped….because she was pregnant! Even though she was a mini, she had three pups – two survived. Both puppies were adopted though it was hard giving them up. We had been grandfathered into having 3 dogs in our condo, but they weren’t going to stretch to 5! A month or so after the puppies were gone, Fleury’s heart gave out. I can still cry. She had an attitude (doxitude), but she adored me. She thought I set the moon. Never had a bf who cared that much.
Shanni had a seizure disorder that was handled well on medication, until it wasn’t. And about a year and half later Luc woke up screaming. He had a brain tumor, and we had to euthanize him. They figured he was at least 15, maybe 16, he had a good life.
We swore off any new dogs, but my sister found Max in the dachshund rescue pages (he was only a partial dachshund – mostly chiweenie), and we got him. He was older (11.5), so we figured he’d be easy, but sadly he started developing health issues about 6 or 7 mos. later. He was sweet, but such a bother and expense we were burned out and definitely said for sure no more dogs. Now, I’ve made a lot of dog friends on my morning walks, and I love them all.
Never had a cat in my entire life. I don’t mind them. And they usually like me. Oddly, I’ve gotten addicted to cat videos lately. Hmmm.
I am an allergic person, especially when younger, so I grew up with neither. After I got out of the house, my mother got a dog, and then another dog, while my father sort of fostered a farm cat who was allowed to come into the family room and sleep on my father’s stomach in the evenings.
I guess I take after my father because during a brief few years in my 20s I was able to tolerate animals, so I had two cats.
We had the same thoughts and discussion, @Misnomer. I completely sympathize, and empathize, with your decision, and am deeply sorry for your loss. Anyone that says, “Pets aren’t family,” in regards to a loss, is flat wrong.
Tripler
Hugs your way @Misnomer.
Growing up we had a dog. As an adult, I’ve had a couple of dogs and been in multiple households with cats while not being their primary care provider.
I know some people are either/or, but I like them both just fine. I’m quite baffled by the people that deny this is possible and insist I pick a side.
I have both a Windows desktop AND an Apple Ipad. In decades past that sort of corporate line-crossing would have been considered heretical by the cognoscenti 
.
Very much a cat person now. Currently have 5 cats, most of them VERY affectionate, and we have not had a dog in over 30 years. I’m a little scared of dogs, having been bitten three times, though I enjoy them once I’ve concluded they’re safe.
I grew up with a series of dogs, all of them friendly, and one cat who was very aloof.