Dog v. Cat People: A Novel Observation

Great Debates
1

It’s funny, but from where I sit, I see the following trend: Cat people will claim they like cats because they’re so independent; yet, paradoxically, so many cat people grow highly dependent on their cats! OTOH, dog people enjoy how dogs tend to be more dependent; yet, paradoxically, dog people tend to have an ability to act more independently from their pets…loving them just as much without all the pomp and circumstance.

It’s hard to define, but in short, I find most cat people are often blinded by their love of their pet to the point of obsession or infatuation…as opposed to most dog owners who can simply relax and just let the family dog be his/her doggy self!

Have you made similar observations, too?

  • Jinx
2

I used to think dog owners were weird because they spent half their time picking up their pet’s faeces.

Then I saw the thread here (surprisingly hard to search for) about people who had to sexually stimulate their cats to keep them happy.

If I ever get a pet it’ll be a fish.

3

What do you mean I’m highly dependent on my cats? I can’t depend on my cats to do anything—expect maybe barf a hairball on the bed now and then. :smiley:

Maybe you haven’t observed enough weird Dog People doting on their doggies. They’re every bit as odd as weird Cat People. My mother-in-law sings to her dog—wretchedly off key to boot.

4

What, me, pander to the Feline Overloard? :smiley:

On a slightly less tongue-in-cheek note, the Orlando Sentinel’s “Life and Times” section had an article about vetrinarians that practice alternative medicine such as chiropractice and acupuncture on pets. Alll the pictures involved showed only dogs being treated for whatever reason. (And they were surprisingly docile about getting groped by someone other than Mommy or getting needles poked into them. Or maybe the vet got bit afterwards. shrugs)

5

My kitties are far from independent. I mean, they don’t need me with them when they take a dump, but they are very people oriented. I think they love us as much as we love them.

6

Are you going to name it Eric? :smiley:

7

I’ve done felines and canines both.

a) Dog owners are a lot more likely to go around referring to themselves as PetsName’s Daddy or PetsName’s Mommy. Dogs do not merely take a more active role in seeking out human attention, they need human management. It is possible to train a cat; it is necessary to train a dog.

b) Cat owners do indeed seem to become more dependent on their pets, and more of the relationship with the cat has to do with the emotional needs of the humans. Oddly, the more self-sufficient cat has a relationship with the human which is more human-centric than the relationship of dog and human, which is more dog-centric. Hmm, these observations are not quite true if you put more emphasis on utilitarian functions (cats get a sngnificant amount of utilitarian value from their rels with people and people often get a lot of utilitarian value from their dogs), but if you think in terms of emotional and psychological needs I think it holds true.

c) Is there a cat I’m supposed to wave hi to at a time like this?

8

You obviously missed this thread .

9

I thought dog people liked dogs because they are more fun to play with O_o

10

No. There must be a million theories on this question.

What I had noticed is that Cats usually live with people who have love to give.
While Dogs usually live with people who need love.

Love

11

Cat owners suffer from the stereotype of the Crazy Old Cat Lady, who lives in a rundown house with an unmowed lawn and who has one housecoat, no kids, and 215 cats whom she dotes on obsessively. Not a very fair picture.

OTOH, I’ve been hearing more and more stories about how dog owners, particularly in large cities, are turning their dogs into surrogate children, supposedly buying all these elaborately wasteful accessories (cashmere sweaters and the like) and generally channeling all their untapped parental instincts into their dogs. I have no firsthand experience of it, but it seems that dog ownership is taking a peculiar swing culturally, and that soon we might see urban dog-owning DINKs with their air-conditioned dog houses and expensive puppy spas start to supplant the Crazy Old Cat Lady in the public mind.

12

My grandmother (and my cousin) did this with her dog. To be fair, it was after my grandfather passed away, but she/they would buy him leather jackets and eat ice cream out of the same dish with him. Drove us all NUTS.

No doubt, people can get al ittle too attatched to both their dogs and cats, but the debate between them is even nastier than a Rep/Dem debate.

13

This thread reminds me of the old adage:

A dog says “These people feed me, pet me, and give me a warm, dry place to sleep. They must be gods.”

A cat says “These people feed me, pet me, and give me a warm, dry place to sleep. I must be God.”

14

I work for a humane society, which has the benefit of getting to spend a lot of time around cats and dogs, and the drawback of having to spend a lot of time around cat nuts and dog nuts. (Well, we neuter our animals, but you know what I mean).

There’s not as much of a difference as you think, Jinx. I’ve probably seen more crazy dog ladies than crazy cat ladies in my four years at the animal shelter, but there’ve been more than enough of both.

It is true, though, that I’ve not met many people whose cats were substitutes for children. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But there’s plenty of folks (especially, in my experience, gay/lesbian couples) who have dogs as their kids.

Daniel

15

I think that cat people (as opposed to dog people or plain ol’ animal people) tend to be very aware of their pets’ mental/emotional state, whereas dog people tend to be very aware of what they wish their pet’s emotional state to be.

Cat people cater shamelessly to a cat’s preferences, yes, and they often have an exhaustive, almost creepy knowlege of all the little things kitty does or doesn’t like. But this knowlege is about things like food, petting, napping spots, that sort of thing. When an owner tells me the cat likes this, that, or the other thing, and I offer that, the cat almost invariably responds positively. Same thing if the owner tells me the cat hates something.

Dog people, on the other hand, tend to attribute their own opinions and emotions to their pets. The dog hates country music, or likes to watch MTV, or doesn’t like the color we painted the living room. Snoogie-boogums wuvs his sweater, doesn’t ums? These are the owners who frantically insist their dog is far too nervous to endure an exam without them, while the dog is napping in a kennel. (If you’ve ever seen Best in Show, these are the “Busy Bee” folks with the Weimereiner who is “freaking out.” That couple, they’re the epitome of dog people.)

I’ve never had a cat person tell me their pet is their baby (I think they take it as a given that you already know that), but about two in every five dog owners give us some variation of that comment. Cat people fairly frequently refuse to go somewhere because they have to take care of the cat, yes, however, they rarely insist on taking the cats on vacation or to work with them. Dog people, though, often insist on taking their dogs everywhere with them.

So, no, I can’t say that I’ve noticed cat people being more emotionally dependent on their cats than dog people on their dogs.

16

Well, I’m no bigot. I have two of each. I wonder what that does to your observations… Having read this thread, I’m so confused about what owning two cats and two dogs is supposed to say about my personality, I’m afraid I’m actually just schizophrenic.

17

Same with me. I love cats AND dogs. A home is incomplete without at least one of each.

18

Now, THAT’S funny!

(You can wave to Quicksilver the kitty…she’s most likely to wave back!)

19

We don’t call them “our babies”, but we do refer to them as “the kids.” Even though I have a human one of those.

But we do refer to Quicksilver (1 year old) as “the infant.” As in, “Who knocked all that stuff off the table?” “It must’ve been The Infant.”

20

No, it means you’re just a plain old animal lover. People who have mammalian pets generally fall into one of three categories*. There are dog people, cat people, and animal people. Most pet owners fall into the last category, really. They might only have one species at any given time, but they’re equally fond of either one. Cat people…they just don’t seem to have the same capacity for connecting with dogs. Most of them don’t particularly dislike canids (except the ones who chase cats), but they’re not particularly fond of them, either. Most dog people are the same way about cats, except for the very vocal cat-hating minority.

*There are, of course, some who only like horses, or rodents, or rabbits or whatever, but they’re a very small minority, so we mostly ignore them. :smiley: