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Mar 18, 2008 Pets & Animals

I can’t tell you why I love cats more than dogs.

Dog lovers every where tend to rise up and point out how much more affectionate dogs are. How you can train them and you can’t (with ease) train a cat. How a dog might save you in a fire while your cat would probably wait until you are cooked to their liking and begin nibbling on you—if they haven’t already found some way to escape and leave you for dead.

They might also like to remind us cat lovers of how they’re never stand-offish and they’ll never treat you like a servant, but understand you are top dog and on occasion, an equal.

I don’t disagree with these points and more that dog lovers bring up.

But there’s something about a dog that I can’t connect with. To me, I can’t tell the difference between their feed me barks, their ‘I need to go pee right now,’ barks, and their ‘omg someone is coming/another dog’ barks. I can tell the difference between their ‘eat your face off,’ growls and playful growls. But for me, as much as dog lovers say that cats are a mystery—for me, dogs are the mystery.

Every so often my husband’s sister, Kim, asks me to look after her three huskies. It’s always the most confusing, nervous time of my life. I walk them every two hours because I don’t want to mistake their ‘I gotta pee,’ barks with their ‘hey I like you,’ barks. I keep a constant eye on them because one of the puppies is prone to eating everything that doesn’t move and being an idiot. Again, it all goes back to me not quite understanding them all that well.

And with cats? It’s whole different ball game. I can tell you the difference between Raven’s ‘Feed me now,’ meow, and her ‘I’d like some attention,’ as well as her, ‘back off or Imma cut you suckah,’ merowl. I can tell you by the way Raven walks or moves, how she sleeps or looks about if she’s feeling well or not. I can tell you when Flora is happy to see me in the curl and arch of her back as she rises to sit bastet-pretty for me whenever I enter a room as she’s napping.

I can tell you that outside of the touch of human comfort, there is nothing in this world like the smell of a clean, healthy cat. It’s like the dust of old, loved books mixed with the warmest left over sunshine caught in their fur from their most recent sun-nap. The feel of a contented purr that coaxes me for more affection, felt in the palm of my hands and heard in my ears like the most perfect, wondrous little natural motor. I love best of all this look-that-is-not-a-look they give me, when they are pleased to see me and squint their eyes up tight to show me they mean me no harm then they rub their little triangle heads against me to mark me as theirs for all the cat-world to smell.

There’s always little things to love that one must take in stride. With cats, it’s the surprise left in your shoes after an upset stomach, the dirty paw prints in your just scrubbed bath tub, the entire roll of shredded toilet paper all over the house as well as the daily dig for ‘treasure’ in the litter box to keep it clean.

But it’s worth it. Because there will be days when you just don’t think anyone in the world will ever get you, even your friends, your spouse, your parents or yourself—and out of the corner of your eye you’ll see two tufted ears pop up and perhaps the warm bat-bat of a paw. It isn’t long until this aloof creature that seems to think you are beneath them will curl up near you or on you and begin that beautiful tick-tick-tick-tick purr of theirs.

Everything seems just a little bit better. Everything seems just that much clearer.

Maybe I can tell you why I love cats more than dogs.

Tags: cat, cats, Flora, pet, Pets, Raven