by Kandie Beck

Created on: April 15, 2008

Dogs make More Useful Pets than Cats
Why are owning dogs better for us then owning cats? For the most part it seems that people are either primarily cat lovers or dog lovers - Oh Yes! Some people have both and that's OK but the dogs are still better.

First we have to describe what I mean by "better". Better is how useful the animal is to us as a companion. Historically humans have been capturing animals and domesticating them for X millions of years. I imagine the first pets were animals found as orphaned babies and fed out of compassion or curiosity. Dogs learned to respond in kind to cues get free food. I call them food sluts.

Cats and dogs are not the only animals mankind had adapted for use. Horses, chicken, and cows, they all have direct uses. But cats, except for the fact some of them, some of them will be good at catching rodents. What else are they good for? Do they - ? Can they -?

On the other hand dogs are a lot more useful. Who has a Seeing-Eye Cat? Have you ever seen the police with a drug sniffing cat? Does the airport hire bomb sniffing cats? How many cats sound the alarm when a strange car pulls up in the driveway? How many shepherds use cats to drive their flocks to the summer pastures? Cats are thought to have been domesticated 100,000 years ago, while dogs have been with us for 15,000. What have cats learned to do in 85,000 more years?

My cat was only friendly and affectionate when he had missed several meals. He never learned the leash thing and boy oh boy did I try. In all fairness I have heard some cats have learned to walk on a leash, ones that were drugged maybe. Most cats freak out when in a moving car for some reason. My neighbor's kitten managed to craw down inside his rear door panel and would not come out. I have to admit we didn't use tuna and just wait it out.

The one really cool trick I've seen on TV is the cat that learned to poop in the toilet and even flush it. Now that's impressive. Still that's a one trick cat. Cats can climb trees and dogs can't. But if dogs could climb trees they'd also figure out very quickly how to get back down again.

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