Theme Thursday: Cats and Dogs, Disliking Each Other In My Home Since 2012

Yeah, it’s totally like that.

What is Theme Thursday?  ‘Tis a Thursday with a theme.  This is a gently used Theme Thursday post, originally for the theme cats vs dogs but now slightly modified for this week’s theme of rivalries!  Please join me over at Something Clever 2.0 to read what other folks have to say about rivalries by clicking on the perty blue Theme Thursday button!

I have owned cats for over half of my life, and have now owned a dog for about five months.  I’ve never really been a dog person, and I feel bad about this fact.  I totally get why people who love dogs love them so much.  I just personally relate better to cats.  I’m really not sure why.  I’m more used to cats?  After all, I never owned a dog of my own until recently.  I’m more LIKE a cat?  I don’t hide under my bed and growl at people, so this certainly wouldn’t be it either.

My dog is the eternal optimist.  His bowl is always half full, and his trash can is fuller.  This is because he would rather eat out of the trash most days than his dog food.  He thinks that everyone in the world is there just to play with him.  Someone comes to the house?  They have come to play with me!  Someone walks past the window?  They have come to play with me!  We see another dog?  It has come to play with me!

The cat… does not play with him.

Don’t mess with the upstairs-it’s her domain.

My cat is a pessimist, for lack of a better word.  I think she has spent a good deal of time trying to figure out which method she is going to use to do the dog in.  It’s not like he is taking over or anything, she was antisocial before.  All she ever did was hide under the bed.  Occasionally she would even grace us with her presence and let us pet her for 4.5 seconds, sometimes even twice in the same five minutes.  I think that now that she is used to him being here she is actually more social than she ever has been.  There is totally a reason for this-she’s trying to show him up.  Think about it.  I have seen this firsthand.  She jumps up to be petted, the dog is instantly jealous.  I swear she is almost sticking her tongue out at him “Thhhhhhpppppt!”

She IS beautiful, and she wants everyone to know it.  I think of the old “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” commercials, only she wouldn’t care if anyone did hate her because of it.  The dog may think that everyone is there to play with him, she believes that everyone is there to admire her and bow in her presence.

True… true…

I just want everyone to get along.  The cat chooses to disagree.  Meanwhile the dog never gives up on hoping she will play with him, or he just has a really short memory.  He runs up to her whenever she enters the room, wagging his tail, she hisses and growls. Sometimes she will even retreat under the couch and continue to growl.  It sounds like the entire couch is growling.

We’re not oblivious to the fact that our poor doggie could use a furry playmate.  We have been looking around for quite some time for a kitty that could hold its own and that actually might let the dog near it.  Our dear departed kitty was much more like a dog.  He was sweet.  He was tolerant.  He was so laid back in fact that my children could lay on top of him and he would maybe blink.  He would have made a great companion for our canine.  He was also the size of a small dog.  When he sat around the house, well, yeah… he sat around the house.  He was a fabulous lap cat, because he took up a whole lap and then some.  But he was not fat.  He was big boned.  Really, really big boned.

Having the dog has certainly made life more interesting, but also much more messy.  While the cat’s messes are confined to the occasional hacked up hairball and the wooden scratching post formerly known as a banister, the dog seems to make messes everywhere.  His trash addiction, which he lovingly brings into the room adjacent the living room for some odd reason, is maddening enough.  I seriously am going to ask for a stainless steel doggy proof trash can for Valentines Day.  Then there are his toys.  There is nothing that this dog cannot destroy in a matter of minutes.  NOTHING!  And these little remnants are everywhere-I will have just picked up and thrown away half a dozen stringy thingys that were once toys, only to find three more shoved into the couch cushions.  And pieces of rawhide chews.  And whatever else he’s been playing with.  Now that I think about it, it’s like living with one great big furry toddler.

I love both of my animals.  However if I had to choose between the two, every time I would choose the cat.  Sorry dog, it’s true.  You say dog, I say cat.  I will always be a cat person, and I’m not apologizing for it.

My cat and dog. He is bowing in submission, because he simply wants to play. She wants him to just go away.

My friend Steve likes cats. People are always saying “Oh, Steve’s really a cat person”.  No he’s not.  If Steve were a cat person it’d be, like, “Hey, Steve never goes in the pool” -Demetri Martin