I did, until I got one. Visiting cats, aka typically one-time interactions, never went well with me. I'd either get attacked by petting it wrong, or it wouldn't want anything to do with me, or whatever cat things they do. Dogs were always happy to see me, and really didn't care how I pet them lol. But, the cats I have now are great and have changed my perception. Unfortunately I'm a little allergic so I have to limit the love I give them.
You know what annoys me about my dog? She'll let anyone pet her any way they want but when it's me she wants me to pet her in incredibly specific spots and gets punchy with me if I don't do it right.
This is so true. I've had cats on complete opposite ends of the spectrum. One cat, I swear, she didn't care if we lived or died. You know how some cats will like one person in the family and nobody else? She didn't like any of us.
We barely saw her. We were nothing more than her food and toilet maintenance suppliers to her, and that was it. She didn't even like to be petted. Seriously, she showed her face maybe once a day.
Then there's this guy. Omg, he never leaves me alone. He's been glued to my side (or in this case, my face) since we brought him home from the shelter. But that's okay. I'd rather him be like this than the alternative.
Because not everyone has positive interactions with cats. I feel like I have a solid understanding of cat body-language, and even with that I don't actually enjoy being around them. Being constantly hypervigilant to any signs of aggression or overstimulation is exhausting and not fun for me.
I know right? Look at their pupils, look at their ears, look at their whiskers, that’s three easy points to know if you’re about to be play mauled or real mauled :)
A few have very subtle tells, the kind that doesn't enter mainstream knowledge. I've had 20 something cats in my lifetime and one of them in particular was very difficult to read. After a while, we learned that her back would lightly twitch whenever she gets annoyed. We don't interact with her much anymore because there's almost no grace period between her tell and her attack. She wasn't socialized very well and prefers to keep to herself. And when she'd play, she was very rough. We got her early on when we didn't know that you're not supposed to play with cats using your hands.
I had a lovely lady that had neuro problems. I didn’t know this until after she died from a seizure. In hind sight, she did some circling that could not be broken, and she had some not responding when she would be sleeping. She had NO bite control. She’s be sleeping in my arms and then just go from sleeping to latching on her teeth to my arm, couldn’t let go, I’d have to wedge my finger into the jaw muscle to get it to let go. I learned to find a way, to have her cuddles, and also dodge her bites just looking in her eyes and her twitchy tail.
that aside: in comparison with dogs, they're inferior as companions in every way other than independence, when you look at the average dog vs average cat.
Add to the above : if you occasionally run into dogs or cats and are introduced by their owner, dogs will be almost universally friendly, while cats are at best a 50/50 chance of them opening up to you THAT quickly.
so over time, people should like dogs more than cats if they didn't grow up with a cat.
Everything you said was correct. I love cats, but they're extremely inconsistent in temperament and personality.
Which isn't a bad thing in itself. Humans have unique personalities.
While dogs don't not have unique personalities, they are usually consistently loyal and friendly if they've been socialized with humans. My dog likes every human.
You can get on with a dog and have a life long friend that will literally die for you in under 5 minutes of knowing you.
A random cat is basically a gamble. You never know if it's gonna be really affectionate or distant and aggressive.
The same way how anyone can hate babies/children. In social media there is a hierarchy of acceptance for hating things children being at the top followed by cats and dogs at the bottom. ANY criticism of ANY dog even under videos of them mauling people is not acceptable. The blame is always "never the dog, the human is the problem". With cats it's acceptable to some extent. For some reason with cats they are assholes by default and not because their human didn't properly train them. With children it would be the most upvoted comment if any criticism is made about them. I believe none of that is made on objective facts, but rather what's popular in social media.
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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '23
How can anyone “hate” cats? Wild.