Are you a cat person or a dog person?

[Mult]

Cats are fine, but it seems I've developed an allergy to them since I lived with a cat for 2 years in university.

 

I've always had dogs, so easily I am a dog person. I've also had rats and bunnies. I like taking my dog for walks while the bunny prefers to stay at home—they do get along because my dog is a good boy around small animals so he doesn't bother them. My dog is so used to small animals that chipmunks can run right up to him and he just watches them. 

 

Personally I find the concept that cat = feminine and dog = masculine to be quite annoying. I don't find either argument to why they represent each gender to be very compelling. I would not describe myself as cat-like in personality despite being a woman. I don't think the stereotype holds up at all.

[Mult]

On 2/5/2023 at 2:32 PM, Ceebs said:

When I first moved out of my mum and dad's I got a cat to keep me company, and he was quite young and rambunctious and he stressed me out so much to the point of feeling like I was going to have a nervous breakdown over things. The allergies didn't help of course; my parents' home is large and my flat was very tiny, and being in such close quarters with an animal I'm allergic to wasn't great. I basically took antihistamines automatically every day. My friend who lived upstairs in the same building is a major cat person and I ended up giving him to her

That really sucks but I'm glad you found the cat a good home.Taking care of an animal can absolutely be so stressful especially if you didn't want to be burdened with one.

 

Cats make me sneeze like crazy, and oddly enough pretty much everyone I know who have cats are somewhat allergic to them as well. I think it has to do with how they groom themselves and their shedding fur carries around their saliva. 

 

 

[Mult]

On 2/5/2023 at 3:31 PM, Acing It said:

For the animals, I can't stop thinking about cr*p. For cats in the garden and for dogs having to clean it up when going for walks. Yuk

I'm a plumber, so I already deal with people poop, hahaha. 

 

I do hate that people let their cats poop anywhere. Pets should be kept inside or monitored outside.

[Philip027]

I'm not a <any animal> person, but if I absolutely had to pick one of these, cat.  They aren't as noisy, and they generally aren't as touchy either.

[Mult]

6 hours ago, Philip027 said:

They aren't as noisy

My flatmate's cat would yowl so loud at 4 in the morning 😭. I had to blast noise from my phone all night just to drown it out. It was because my roommate didn't like the cat keeping her awake after it demanded to be fed at 4 in the morning, so see would lock him outside her room. Cats can be trained to eat at different times of the day but she apparently had no issue sleeping through a literal Banshee screaming for an hour or two.

 

Most pet problems are the result of bad pet owners. 

[Philip027]

It's sudden loud noises I mainly don't like, which barks qualify as.

 

And yeah, I'm sure noisy cats exist, but I simply haven't run into as many of them as I have with dogs.  I've only ever known one dog that basically never barked.

[Mult]

1 hour ago, Philip027 said:

It's sudden loud noises I mainly don't like, which barks qualify as.

 

And yeah, I'm sure noisy cats exist, but I simply haven't run into as many of them as I have with dogs.  I've only ever known one dog that basically never barked.

It is hard to describe the sound of that cat amplified by a stairwell. He was deaf so he put everything into his yowling, I've never lived with a louder animal despite owning and babysitting many dogs. I can control my dog's barking and train him but nothing worked with the cat 😬. The one that needed training was the owner 😒. I'm sure a proper routine would have fixed the issue, but I wasn't the one feeding it.

 

A truly quiet pet would be a bunny. Cute little thing that can honk at you but never make such a loud noise—unless it is in absolute distress , I suppose, but I've never heard that before. Their litter doesn't smell as bad as cats or rats either. Major downside is that hay gets absolutely everywhere, but honestly I prefer that over kitty litter any day. I did house-sit a cat that had dried corn for the litter box a long time ago, and that was actually way better than kitty litter imo.

 

 

On the topic of gender stereotypes, it's quite ironic that the cat = feminine belief along with cats being generally quieter conflicts with the stereotype that women are Chatterboxes or naggers. The fact that cats are more often aloof but women are accused of being clingy and attention grabbing with the stereotype of straight men just wanting to be left alone also contradicts the animal connection. No stereotype actually holds up because people are nothing like cats and dogs, and women and men aren't all the same in a binary divide. Like all stereotypes, it just doesn't hold water.

[retrobeetism]

I prefer cats as pets. Now if you use cat person and dog person as allegories for woman/femininity and man/masculinity, I'm more of a platypus person

[J. van Deijck]

How have I not seen this thread? 😱

 

Anyway. I'm a cat person and I've always been. I've been growing up in family that always had cats (my dad is strongly a cat person, too). There were always cats in our house. When I moved out, I got a cat on my own, it was Victoria. Then I had one more cat who is with me until today. I love her as much as I loved all my previous cats. Can't deny that it was Victoria who stole my heart completely and I loved her the most of all the cats I've ever had, I'm still heartbroken about her passing.

The first cat I remember my parents had was Agatha, she looked similar to Victoria and apparently had similar personality (I don't remember much myself because I was, like, 2 or 3 years old then, but my dad told me a lot about her). We had a dog at the same time, too, but somehow he didn't really steal my heart and even though we had three dogs apart from cats, dogs have never really become my favourite animals. Sure I don't mind dogs, some of them are amazing, but I wouldn't want to be a dog owner at all. I'm really a cat person, really much. During all these years I learned to understand the feline language and I know cats are more than some people think, and they do love their owners, they just express their love in a different way than dogs.

[DriftingAimlessly]

Definitely a cat person. 

 

I don't mind visiting dogs. I just don't want one.  I would consider a rabbit or a chinchilla. My neighbor has both and they are adorable.

[Snittingnexttoborpo]

on principle, i like both, but i think i get along with dogs better
there is the fear that i'll get a cat that hates me. i would feel deep regret if i bought a cat that turned out to hate me and i just had to suffer for the next 16-20 years.
i feel like i know how to handle dogs better. if they hate you, they show it up front, so i just won't pick that one. with cats i feel like they might love you one day but hate you the next. 

 

to be fair i have never had a cat, but with my mild allergy i feel it's not worth it

[GRBookworm1818]

I like both equally, but unfortunately i am very allergic to cats so i think i will only ever be able to have dogs as pets (i'm allergic to their saliva, so i don't think hairless cats will do the trick here).

[Jan_J]

I applaud the intriguing thought. This is something (as trivial as it is) worth novel pondering, for me. It is expected for queer culture -- or really just the internet in general, though to a lesser degree -- to be more "in-tune" with animals. Animal obsession is demonstrably prevalent within online spaces especially such as this forum. Observing the results, it comes as no surprise to me that cats are evidently favored. But it is not without curiosity that I wonder why exactly this is. What is exactly the reason cats are disproportionately favored in these types of spaces? 

 

I purrsonally love cats and dogs equally. :3

[Tanwen]

I admire cats because they're so d*****d independent - they get what they want and don't care how they go about getting it. On the downside, they tend to get the zoomies at stupid o'clock in the morning. And don't anyone try to tell me that they're silent!! 🤣
Having said that - I am most definitely a dog person - I love that they're up for whatever mad idea I may have, happy to go for walks even in the pouring rain (well, Barney is - Max doesn't like the rain), on the other hand, they're more than happy to vegetate if that's what I want to do. On the downside, Max snores and the only time Barney barks is in his sleep  

[J. van Deijck]

1 hour ago, Tanwen said:

And don't anyone try to tell me that they're silent!! 🤣

My Victoria was, and sometimes I had doubts if she was really a cat  exceptional case, really. Such a cat happens one time in a million.

[Tanwen]

1 hour ago, J. van Deijck said:

My Victoria was, and sometimes I had doubts if she was really a cat  exceptional case, really. Such a cat happens one time in a million.

When my son and his wife were living with me, she had a cat and I adopted a little black female - when they had their mad half hour it was like a heard of rampaging elephants 🤣

[J. van Deijck]

10 hours ago, Tanwen said:

When my son and his wife were living with me, she had a cat and I adopted a little black female - when they had their mad half hour it was like a heard of rampaging elephants 🤣

To be honest, my younger cat Susie is like that, too. Midnight zoomies at their best  but she's a typical cat, and typical cats have noisy zoomies at weird times of a day  Victoria was only noisy when Susie tried to play with her and she was mad about it. I can imagine your kitties being like that.

[Ruru+Saphhy=Garnet]

I love both cats & dogs 💕💕