by Greg Mayer
In Jerry’s absence, I’m relaying an item from the New York Times that he may not see right away:
I early noted Pamela Paul’s perspicacity, and Jerry has taken note of her views a number of times. It’s in the paper of record, so it must be true!
Money quote:
Only in truly knowing and accepting one another, do we achieve deep love.
Yes, what I’m saying is that cats are more like people. As with humans, so with cats, who can be adored but not mastered; responsive, but never controlled; truly loved only with mutual acceptance and respect. And why expect more from our animals than we would wish for ourselves?
🙂
“Everything I know I learned from my cat: When you’re hungry, eat. When you’re tired, nap in a sunbeam. When you go to the vet’s, pee on your owner.” Gary Smith
My daughter’s cat taught me:
“I don’t forget so don’t mess with me”
Of course cats rule! 🐈
In fairness dogs may be better at scaring off intruders. My parents were convinced their 3 dogs prevented a robbery. One afternoon they came home from work and found the power had been switched off. But nothing else was amiss.
Theory: someone switched the power off to deactivate any burglar alarm. But as the thief approached the house the 3 Corgis would have started barking like crazy. Thief decides to depart and look for a house without dogs.
Cats rule. Dogs drool !
The floor board at the of the top of my stairs creaked once slightly when an intruder entered my home via patio doors on the upstairs deck. My calico cat, sitting in my bedroom window, and I both heard it. I looked at her cat an she said ‘There’s an intruder upstairs, you need to deal with it,’ and raced off to hide. Her reaction was precisely what I needed to know that I wasn’t imagining it, and to be able to deal with it.
That must have been scary. What happened?
As I am always late to these conversations, and it’s long, I didn’t want to add the whole story, but I really did want to speak up for cats!
I teach women’s self-defense, and instructors role play the part of the Attacker to student’s Defender, so it wasn’t scary. Attacker’s choices were either he would figure he was heard and leave quietly, or he would wait to see if there was a reaction, then continue to come downstairs, as upstairs was mostly an empty room with nothing of value.
So, I waited as long I thought he’d wait until moving, and how long to get to my bedroom door and pause. So when I saw a shadow by my door, I conversationally asked, “What’s up?” and he left silently hough the front door.
After it happened it still took me several minutes to get up prove to myself that it happened, as I was really tired that evening. But the front door was unlocked, so I called police. Couldn’t give a description, no fingerprints found. Detectives later told me there was a stalker who was targeting members of the HS girl’s volleyball team, his thrill was watching the girls sleep. (My last name was similar to one of the girls on the team. )
The incident gave me another success story to share in class, and I didn’t unknowingly sleep through the whole encounter, because of the cat.
Good to hear it ended uneventfully, thanks to the cat!
When you’re having a massage and experiencing pain, a dog will come and lick your hand. I guess I need to get a cat to see if a cat will do that. I’ll consider it.
Cats are all about freedom. Dogs are all about loyalty. I like wolves: the best of both worlds.
After thinking about this a bit, I have a rebuttal.
The problem with this conversation is that very few of us have dogs or cats that are gainfully employed these days.
I have a couple of barn cats, and they do their job very well. Their job is to kill or scare off any critters that approach the house or enter the barns.
The dog does this to some extent as well, but his main job is to scout for me when I am out in the mountains. He finds chipmunks and prairie dogs more interesting than I do, but when there is a bear or mountain lion close, he takes warning me very seriously. Importantly, the dog wants to tell me about the critters, while the cat mostly just kills whatever he finds in his territory. Sometimes the cat will leave me a gift of a chipmunk, but that is as far as including me in his interests go.
My neighbor has a dog that herds cattle. The dog is familiar with the different pastures, and when he is instructed to do so, he will move the herd from one pasture to the next.
If the neighbor sees a particular cow that is straying away, he needs only to point at it, and the dog will react and bring that one in.
A little dog being pushed around in a stroller by a pensioner is probably not a good example of the potential of the species. Either species.
But dogs can and enjoy doing fairly complex tasks, that cats seem at least unwilling to do.
I wonder why humans like cats, which, contrary to dogs, are solitary rather than social. Because of this they are indifferent to human behavior, signals and voice, as opposed to dogs which are ultra sensitive…a highly adaptive trait for social animals living in groups (like humans). Accurate interpretation of movements or sound or language is vital to the survival of social animals as well as to mutual relationships. I dont recall ever hearing about a cat who, when its owner returns after work, runs down the hall, jumps into his arms and licks him. Cats dont even know their names or other words, and have no social instinct to cooperate with anyone, including other cats. When dogs are abandoned they find other such dogs and form packs, a very adaptive trait. I suspect that it is the absence of
demonstrable emotion of cats that spurs humans to attribute all kinds of abilities to them that they dont possess; they are mysterious and therefore we think they are just concealing their intelligence. No. They are smart enough to live in their own environment on a solitary basis. But they are not smart enough to form
intimate relationships with other cats much less people.
Wow, that’s a pretty out there view, and most of it simply not true. You obviously do not have much, if any, personal experience with cats. As with any animal, one must form a bond with a cat. Cats are individuals and time must be taken with them, they are not for mindless company. It may be a bit harder to develop a bond with a cat than with a dog, but the bond is no less powerful and is absolutely worth the effort.
My cat knows his name quite well and routinely comes to greet me at the door when I come home. He is very social and wants to be with us pretty much all of the time. Absence of demonstrable emotion? You must be joking. He doesn’t run up and slobber in my face but his affection is unmistakable and not some form of human projection. It’s all the more powerful because it has been earned. He has a very close relationship with both my wife and I and is as much a family member as I could ever envision any pet ever being.
Enjoy your dogs, you are welcome to them. But stop slandering cats with such palpable nonsense.
Lorna captures my sentiments perfectly.
I’ll just leave it that.
Dogs provide incredible service to people who are blind. That alone should end any argument. But dogs also provide rescue, search for earthquake victims, bring medicine to remote communities (Alaska) in desperate need. Cats can provide comfort and companionship, but they do not help humanity to the extent that dogs do. And dogs are just as good at companionship and better at loyalty.
You are neglecting centuries of effective rodent control, and the consequent public health and nutritional benefits.
I would also note that all normal Presidents love their dogs, and Trump is not a dog person. Case closed.
Trump does not care about any living creature except himself.
+1 / And if Biden had truly loved his replacement German Shepherd— the one that repeatedly bit the staff— he would have found a way for this issue to be resovled. Even if it meant giving up to dog.
This article has clearly riled dog owners, who are furiously claiming to “end arguments” and “close cases”. A nerve has well and truly been hit.
Cat owners, like their pets, are unimpressed by your arguments and unmoved by your fervent assertions of canine superiority. Ms. Paul’s central point stands.
Meow.
Commenters rarely get riled in WEIT on important topics, let alone over a humorous opinion article like the one above. Some people like cats, others like dogs, some neither, but if you need for others to agree with your taste on pets then WEIT might not be for you.
You clearly missed my humor. I was just attempting to engage in banter, since it is, yes, a humorous article, and some of the “pro-dog” responses were rather harsh.
I’m a bit baffled why you’ve taken such offense. In case you haven’t noticed, WEIT has something of a “pro-cat” slant. It seems like a pretty extreme reaction, telling me to get off the site. I don’t think I’ve broken any Roolz, but if Dr Coyne tells me my comments are out of bounds, then I will apologize and endeavor not to re-offend.
I don’t take offense, and I don’t see a violation of the “Roolz”, but words like “riled” indicate an emotion that is in contrast to the humorous nature of the post and the general tone of the comments. Personally I am neutral on the topic as I am not partial to either as a companion species. Having said that I too have noticed the inclination of a majority of the commenters to be felinophiles, which is strange to me (or maybe my personal reference sample is strange, difficult to know). In any case, when it comes to personal preferences there is no right or wrong (unless it violates a universal moral axiom), a bit like arguing between chocolate or vanilla, and the reason why I found the term so strange that I had to comment.