What are your feelings about cats and dogs?
Cats are totally cool if you don’t get a crazy one. They have dignity. A dog will eat cat poop and then try to lick your face. A dog will rub its asshole along the carpet or roll around in any dead animal it finds. Dogs freak the fuck out whenever the phone or doorbell rings. Cats don’t do any of these things.
How about like or dislike? Love and dislike is so asymmetrical. I don’t like dogs. They don’t respect your personal space, they’re filthy, they’re loud and they’re not even cute. Dog lovers say they’re cute, I don’t see it at all. Some cats are meh, but a good cat if you can befriend him can be a fascinating creature.
I’ve loved my dogs. I’ve one cat I loved, one cat I would have cheerfully sold it to a Chinese restaurant.
Yeah, but you are obviously biased. 
We had had a cat for two years when we got a dog. She was a tiny puppy. She loved us all, including the cat, who detested her. He made it clear to her who was boss. But we treated them equally and the cat realized she belonged in the household, so he relented. And all the dog needed to stay clean was a bath now and then.
I like dogs, but I really love cats. The way a cat thinks is closer to how a human thinks than a dog. Dogs are pack animals, they think in terms of ‘we’, while both humans and cats are more independent, thinking in terms of ‘I’. A dog is more like a child, while a cat is like a roommate.
I’ve only kept dogs. I like their enthusiasm and of course their unconditional love. But their poop fetish is regrettable. I’ve never kept cats, but their grace seems interesting. How common are crazy cats, though? I hear about them biting and scratching without warning, which is worrying, especially since cat bites are serious. I feel I can “read” dogs better, but I’m not sure if it’s because of experience.
We have dogs and cats. I like the cats but I love my dog. He’s been my best friend and constant companion for 10 years.
I love dogs, and like cats. I appreciate the unconditional love and enthusiasm of a dog. I like that I can put a leash on my dog and take her for a walk. Or play fetch in the backyard. I can rely on her to make some noise when a stranger comes around. Anyone up to no good would think twice before coming inside my house.
Cats love me, though. Whenever I visit a friend or relative who has a cat that typically doesn’t like strangers, I usually wind up with the cat in my lap in short order–without any effort on my part.
I understand cats and prefer their company. I’ve tried very hard to love and understand dogs but the best I can muster is a strained tolerance.
Poll shows the love cats/dislike dogs people are more numerous than the love dogs/dislike cats people. This makes sense, and is part of what irritates me about dogs. They love everyone. They’re not selective. Their love is given freely to anyone who’ll scratch their ears. How sincere can that really be?
I voted that I loved them both, but I really need to qualify that. There are plenty of cats and dogs that I hate. I feel like most dog owners are terrible. They let their dogs bark at everyone and everything. Door bell ringing should NOT be an invitation for a dog to begin barking, and I make sure dogs I live with are trained to be quiet and respectful when guests knock or ring. Dogs jumping up on you are also terrible, and yet MANY dog owners let this happen because they like the attention from their dog and reward it with attention. Then they fail at trying to get their dogs not to jump on guests, because the dog is used to doing it with the owner who genuinely likes it. Ugh.
In general though, I love dogs. They are awesome. When well trained and well loved, they are the tops. The best dogs are better than the vast majority of all cats.
That being said, there are plenty of cats who I hate as well. Cats who can’t be arsed to give a human any attention, won’t come when they are called, won’t sit on your lap or cuddle with you when you want them to (at least most of the time, I don’t expect 100% cooperation from any cat), all of those things add up to a pretty useless cat who I’m not likely to be fond of. But at least they aren’t actively annoying me. A cat who meows all the time, paws on doors to get attention, etc? Awful. I’d never put up with it.
But a friendly cat who actually likes people (and despite the stereotypes there are plenty of them), gives you attention, likes to play a bit, etc, are fantastic and I love them at least as much if not more than my favorite dogs. I often half-joke about the fact that I will probably never want to own another cat after my Rika dies because I honestly don’t know if it’s worth the trouble of trying to find a 1/1000 cat that is as loving and well behaved as her, comes when I call her, etc.
So, to sum up: most dogs are innately better and more lovable than most cats, but most dog owners do not foster a very well behaved dog, so many dogs that my friends own, I do not like them very much. On the other hand, most cats by their nature are aloof and unfriendly, though the cats that are friendly and love being around humans are possibly even better than the best dogs.
Love dogs. We have two wonderful ones. Cats… Meh. Sort of indifferent. We have one. If it wasn’t for my Wife, we wouldn’t. I certainly would not have one if I was alone.
I completely disagree: dogs may show enthusiasm for any- and everyone, but it’s not the same as “their people”.
To my dog, I am her person and I go before everyone else. She loves everyone, she’ll wag and show her belly and fetch you her favourite ball. But I am her person. If you tell her to do something, she’ll quickly look at me. If she’s scared she’ll come to me, because I am the strongest and the bravest, to her. Safety to her is falling asleep with my hand in her mouth, like when she was a puppy. She has a special sound for me, a sort of manic snorting/huffing sound. She goes bananas when she picks up me up at the airport, she won’t come and say goodbye when she sees my packed bags. She likes to hide her head between my legs. She has petty little jealousy issues when I give another animal attention, which she expresses with mournful looks. And she will do anything for me, because she trusts me blindly. She’ll sit and stay because she knows, and never doubts for one second, that I will come back for her. She would jump blindfolded, if I told her to.
She’s an old, old lady now and a little arthritic. The vet was bending and stretching her joints to test them, and she had her head buried in my chest. The vet said every time I said “good girl” she could feel her bend that bit further even though it hurt her. Because she would do anything for me. Being nice to other people is just her good character, it doesn’t negate that we belong together.
Cats are sometimes like that, but usually IME just more wary of new people than they are attached to their person. In this experiment they also concluded that cats are less attached to their owners than dogs are. (I don’t really agree with their conclusions or the way it was conducted, it seems a bit rubbishy. But I think they’re right that dogs are more expressive of happiness at seeing their person.)
I’ll own my perspective could simply be based on my relative inexperience with dogs. The reality could easily be they simply tolerate me as well, and that my experience is limited to polite, mutual indifference.
Wombats.
If I’m laying on the couch and I tell my dog “No!” he’ll immediately stop whatever it is he’s doing.
If I’m laying on the couch and I tell my cat “No!”, he’ll look me straight in the eye and continue to scratch up my furniture, he wont actually stop until I get my fat ass up off the couch. Then of course he’s outta’ there.
He’s such an ass, but I still love my critters equally. Go figure.
Love cats, like dogs. Except, of course, MY dog. I love her.
Heh So true! I love them equally on an individual level, but in general terms I’ll take dogs.
I love cats and dislike dogs.