Cats and Dogs

This is going to be a post about dogs.

1. Dogs are not cats.

2. What a dog needs and what a cat needs are as different as the dogs and cats themselves.

Some people are strictly dog people and some people are strictly cat people and some people are both.

Even if you do not own either a dog or cat, you still know which kind of person you are, don’t you?

Yeah.  Everybody does.

Dogs are a lot more needy than cats.  If you have a happy dog it’s because there is regularity and predictability in your life. Your dog gets fed and walked and played with at regular and count-on-able intervals.  If you miss feeding or walking or playing with your dog at the time your dog expects it, the dog is unhappy and you probably feel guilty, because you’re a dog person and that’s the way you roll.

If you have a dog and your life is all random and unpredictable and you are a self-centered asshole, chances are you will have a neurotic and/or unhappy dog.  Dogs need care, attention, petting, and love.  They are pack animals and you are their pack. If you don’t want to be involved in anyone’s “pack,” or are a self-centered asshole, please don’t get a dog. Get a cat instead.

Cats are not pack animals.  You will have meaning in your cat’s life, but you will never really know what that meaning is.  You might suspect, or guess, or fantasize about the meaning you have in your cat’s life, but you will never really know for sure.  Only the cat can know this.  And he/she will not tell you.

The cat won’t rely on you for very much.  Put down food and water at regular intervals, change the litter, and the cat is pretty happy.  If it gets attention and love at regular intervals, that’s a bonus for the cat.  The cat always assumes that it is your need to pet it, and not its need to be petted that is provoking the petting. It likes to humor you.

Even if your life is random and neurotic and you’re an asshole, the cat is pretty much cool with that.  Most cats dig a certain amount of random and neurotic. They get it.

Dogs do not get it. They hate it. They’ll pee on the rug to punish you for  all your mental illnesses, –even ones you don’t actually have.

If you have a dog and a cat, and you are random and neurotic, you are obligated to get prescription meds and take them for the sake of your dog.  Your cat will probably grow to expect and appreciate any regularity and predictability you show to your dog.  In this, the cat might eventually become somewhat dog-like.

So, to summarize thusfar:

Dog people should be relatively well-adjusted, responsible, not assholes, regular in their habits, happy to be part of a pack and like to take walks and throw frisbees.

Cat people can be random and neurotic if they want, keep irregular hours, get all wrapped up in their projects and jobs and lose track of time and it’s no biggy for the cat.  They’re cool with it as long as you can get your shit together enough to feed them and clean up their shit from time to time.

3. College students should not have dogs.

Most college students, even it they’re not neurotic assholes, do not live lives of regularity, predictability or sanity.  Their lives are chaotic and quixotic and spontaneous and sometimes drunken.  They are trying to get an education and get laid, and figure out the meaning of life, and remember if it’s “beer before liquor never sicker?” or the other way around.

Today I am hoarse in the throat and my voice is 2 octaves lower because Boomer got attacked for the 2nd time by the dogs of college students who live 3 doors down.  As they descended on her, I started bellowing in my biggest, deepest, loudest, “alpha male” get-the-fuck-away-from us voice: NO! NO! NO! And when the college student owner of the dogs came running over to get them, I then laid into him with both barrels and I swear I was *this close* to calling Animal Control and having those dogs impounded, or whatever the hell Animal Control does with them.

The guy begged me not to call Animal Control.  I told him he needed to take responsibility for his animals.

But I doubt he “heard” me. He needs to find those dogs good homes and get himself a cat.