Your article is hilarious, but I notice it only refers to housecats. Mine is a street cat, and he only comes inside when he's hungry or when he feels like being bothered with me and my doggie. But cats have played a valuable role in human evolution. The ancients revered them because they protected the valuable grain sores from rats and mice. Even a few rodents could render an entire crop unfit for human consumption with their feces and urine, and that could lead to famine. In the Middle Ages, the clergy in Europe convinced the ignorant peasantry that cats were evil and Satanic. So the peasants wiped out most of the cats. As a result the rats thrived and multiplied, brought on the Bubonic Plague, and wiped out 40% of Europe. So you see, cats are more useful than you think. That's why humans instinctively like them and enjoy their company.

Cats and dogs, living together, mass hysteria!

John I'm shocked you wrote that dogs are stupid. Did you not know that on PJTV recently there was an interview with the author of a book called The Genius of Dogs. Get with the program John.

I am proud to wear dog hair on my clothes when I go to work and to even smell like a dog when I walk him on a rainy day. Roo, roo, roo, go dogs!

There is much truth in what you say, but I am constrained from saying any more about it because my cat is watching and he can read.

I must make a stand on behalf of the felines.

1) Cats are apex predators. In most situations, cats stand at the top of the food chain. However domesticated they may be, they are perfectly capable of killing their own food and defending themselves against other animals and even people. Your dog would probably die within days if you abandoned it.

2) Cats have dignity. Dogs cannot groom themselves effectively, feed themselves, and often fail to disregard their own feces. Cats actually bury their waste after defecating (for which we are all very grateful), clean themselves, and generally conduct themselves without slobbering all over the place or sniffing each other's anuses.

3) Cats kill mice, rats, and sometimes cockroaches. Nuff said.

4) Cats are desert animals. All cats are descended from a few pairs of Middle Eastern wildcats. That means your local tabby is not far from a fearsome if diminutive desert predator capable of surviving extreme temperatures and long periods without water. The reason cats sleep so much is not that they're lazy. They're saving up their energy for dawn and dusk, the best times for desert predators to hunt. So, in a few hours, they're going to wake up and go kill things.

5) They are VERY intelligent. This must rest on a personal anecdote: I once saw a cat being menaced by a dog. To the side was another cat, who appeared uninterested. Just as the dog charged the first cat, the second cat suddenly leaped on to the dogs head from the side, slashed it with its claws, and sent it howling off into the night. It was a coordinated bait-and-switch attack. Tell me another domesticated animal that could pull that off.

That part about cats is kinda' scary; they are very effective pack hunters with very good communication skills. Almost sixteen years ago a pack of cats came into my life. The mother lived long enough to raise her litter to young adulthood before she lost an argument with a car. We kept two of the four littermates, a calico and a yellow tabby tom. They'd been raised by their mother an lived together since birth. They were both neutered, so there was none of that stuff; they were just pack mates.

One summer afternoon we and the cats were in the side yard. A hummingbird was working the delphiniums about six feet above the ground. The tom was sitting beside us and his sister was in the flowerbed about ten feet away. They were making those clicking sounds that cats make when they're hunting. The hummingbird took off from one side of the garden to the other, the tom launched like a Patriot missle and knocked it out of the air, the calico caught it before it hit the ground; a perfectly planned an executed shootdown of a hummingbird flying six feet above their heads.

Most people only know the flighty things from the shelter or pet store that are taken away from their mother as soon and often before they are weaned. Those are very different creatures than a well-socialized cat that is raised with its mother and its litter. They're loving, intelligent, communicative creatures. Yeah, they're still cats and sometimes you feel like staff, but they do have highly developed personalities.

We'd given a black tom to my daughter and he lived with her for several years. When the older cat he'd spent most of his life with died, he had a complete come-apart, so we brought him back to live with us and his brother and sister. The brother accepted him; the sister never really did but they didn't fight - much. The boys were with us for fourteen great years until they both died within a little over a month of each other last winter. The sister is still with us and still pretty sprightly and healthy in her 15th year.

Oh, and we've always had dogs too. Right now the 15 year old calico's housemate is an 11 month old, hundred pound Bloodhound female named Daisy; now those two are a pair!

All excellent points from one of my favorite writers.
I spent most of 2012 learning about dogs from a Newfoundland who friended me. Yet, I realized that cats really do have two evolutionary advantages over dogs:
1) Feline eyes are much more expressive than canines, and us humans respond to those cat's eyes,
2) Cats are so much smarter than they reveal. It is their great secret.
My current cat finally let his 'dumbness act' slide after ten years, just once. Guess he got tired of needing a better trained human to cater to his every whim.

Its 2am and there's a suspicious noise at my apartment door. Fearful at the sound
my pulse races.
Immediately my watch-cat springs into action. It's natural response to my evident
concern being to protect the pack and issue a warning it lets go with a fierce
and authoritarian MEOW !

How effective do you think that first line defense would be?
My next line of defense would be my Daisy BB gun. Just as effective don't you think ?




'

I love dogs and cats. Both have their advantages. But if we are to compare:
1) Cats are much smarter than dogs. Cats can be trained to sit, come, stay. Cats can also be taught to use a toilet. Ever see a dog on the 'throne'?
2) Cats love you unconditionally. Cats instinctively know when you need comfort and when you don't. They don't demand to go out in the cold rain when it's inconvenient.
3) Cats are better pets. Cats are useful by keeping pests away. They don't eat much. Are inexpensive. A simple piece of string can keep them happy for hours. You don't have to bathe a cat!
4) Cats are happy and fun. See #3 especially about a piece of string.
5) Dogs will kill you if they could. And they have. I've never heard of a owner killed by a cat, have you?

Cats have advantages dogs can never have. Cats can be trained. They can be trained to use a standard toilet. They are inexpensive. A simple piece of string keeps them happy. They sleep with you and don't take the whole bed.
Cats will keep your home rodent/pest free. Their purr has been shown to reduce stress. Cats show what you put in, you get out. Only the owner can teach a cat while a dog will listen to anyone.
I also used to have a cat that would chase the dogs down the street. Don't tell me only dogs chase cats!

I must say I love my dogs too. They give me happiness in life only they can. They're better at being a hot water bottle too! (but they take up too much of the bed)
I don't want to pick. I love them both!

Dog lovers are just too insecure to keep an animal that doesn't slobber all over them with excitement every time they walk into a room. And they are trained to get up a the crack of dawn to service their animals, since their critters can't be trained to use a litter box. Sorry guys, but I'll take cats anytime.

Both animals are special in their own way. I have to say, tho, there are reasons for shows like "Bad Dog" on AnimalPlanet. By the way, I even see that minature horses (or ponies, I forget) were being used for service animals...why? Because they have better memories than dogs and can remember more commands. Back to kitties, tho....dogs are not smarter. The part of the brain that has to do with thinking is larger in a dog, but cats actually have waaaaaaay more neurons in that part of the brain...and the neurons are what have the most to do with the thinking process. Did anyone see, on AnimalPlanet, the blind cat that attacked the stalker that had broken into a woman's home (she woke up to find him standing in her bedroom). Her blind cat attacked him and chased him out of the house. Another cat chased off some guy who tried to steal a handicapped man's laptop. Another cat came flying off a roof onto a back of a pitbull who was attacking the cat's buddy (a dog), another cat alerted its owners to a gas leak just outside the house, and on and on. My cats fetch, my cats come when called, my cats do tricks (sitting up, shaking hands, boxing, etc.), and I even had a cat (Jaspurr) who would salute. I've never seen a dog do that. Cats are are amazing athletes, even better than dogs as a whole, have better hearing, better sight in the dark, have much better vocabularies, are self-sufficient, clean, smart enough not to eat chocolate (which can kill both cats and dogs if ingested), smart enough not to eat a lot of things dogs eat that they shouldn't, don't destroy property like dogs do, DON'T BARK, and on and on and on. Fasted animal on 4 legs? Cats (cheetah). Plus, I would rather fight a dog than a cat....cats have weapons dogs don't. Thank goodness they have personalities that don't lend to attacks such as one hears of happening over and over again with dogs. But if they DID have that trait.....ever tried to hang onto even a small cat when it's just scared, let alone if it actually wanted to go postal on you?!? Man, what those claws can do! Plus, what happened overseas when they got rid of cats? Bubonic plague (black death). The solution? Reintroduction of cats. So, like I said, dogs and cats (and all animals) are special in their own way. To say one is better than the other is like comparing "apples to oranges." Me...I prefer cats cuz they are just plain easier to take care of. And, if you are looking for an apt., sure hope you have cats, not dogs!!

I agreed with everything you said EXCEPT the part about cat's not destroying property. The shredded cushions on my furniture - and the box spring on my old mattress - are all the proof I ever need that some furniture is NOT safe from the claws of cats. I have photos of my box spring when I threw it out. The hole was literally big enough for the cat to climb inside. I once saw him stick the entire top half of his body into that hole.

And to those who would suggest declawing, I will never do that since I learned that declawing is not remotely like trimming their claws: it is the equivalent of amputating human fingers at the first joint.

Bless your heart, Henry, for not de-clawing...I don't believe in that, either. My comment on damages by cats compared to dogs was a general one. I cringe when I see the damage (again on AnimalPlanet) that dogs can do. I think there are things that one can do to protect things from cats that just aren't going to work with dogs. I keep my furniture covered and provide really good options for my cats to claw (including me, ha!). Don't really like having to cover things, but it does work. (PS...sorry for the typos in my original comment...had just gotten up and my eyesight ain't real great first thing in the day so didn't proof it very well (always good to have an excuse, eh?).

Hawkins once again stoops to the perpetration of stereotypical racist anti-feline dogma.