Cats are very controversial animals.
It’s amazing how cats can bring out the worst in some people. For some strange reason cats are not a “neutral” animal. Everyone seems to have a definite opinion of cats. They are either liked or intensely disliked. You could see a yak walking down the street and when someone said “Hey look there goes a yak” the response would be a shrug of the shoulders and a comment like “so what, yaks are yaks.”
However, you can see a cat cross the street and make the comment “Look a cat,” and someone will almost always respond with a death threat for the cat. There are many articles written about why people hate cats and almost all are written by cat lovers. They all seem to miss the point and many attribute the dislike of cats to some primal “fear of cats.”
Fear could not be further from the truth. Most cat haters derive their dislike of cats from experience with them. Cats are not very trainable. You never see a duck hunter going out with his retriever cat to bag some mallards. You never see a fetch cat get the morning newspaper, or see a sign that says “Beware Watch Cat.”
Cats have an attitude. They are demanding and tend to ignore any command you give them. Come to think of it, so do most wives.
On the other hand a friend of mine says they are just stupid and don’t have the capacity for learning commands and spoken words like dogs do.
Cats don’t like water and most humans do. This may have something to do with it. You can always take a dog out boating. Dogs love to swim and play in the water. Cats on the other hand, almost never bathe. They sit around and lick themselves. I’m sorry, licking yourself is no substitute for a good soaking bath. John S. Nichols said, “Cats aren’t clean, they’re just covered with cat spit.”
On top of that, they cough up large slimy hair balls. You would think that cats would learn that eating your own hair makes you barf, but no,they keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. Sort of like politicians.
Women seem to like cats more than men do. Maybe they have more in common with cats than with dogs. After all, I don’t know of any women who are good at fetching a downed bird.
Dogs are very grateful animals. They will wag their tail to show satisfaction and they will eat just about anything you give them. Cats are no where near as amiable.
Cats wag their tail to show you they are annoyed, and they quite often turn down the same food they just ate four hours ago. Cats are not reliable sniffers. This may be the reason you never see an officer walking around an airport with his drug sniffing cat. Cats get away with more.
If the cat took a dump on your wife’s favorite rug it would be no problem. You would hear comments like “poor thing, you must be feeling bad.”
But if you just happen to spill some barbeque sauce or beer on the same rug all hell would break loose. Just what is it about these worthless cats that deserves this special treatment? Cats are just not very smart. A cat will whine and want to go outside on a cold raw day only to whine and want back inside 10 minutes later. Then in an hour or less the stupid cat will forget how raw and cold it was and want back outside again.
In my opinion cats bring out the empathy in most right-brained people. Cats, being basically worthless, bring out an unconscious empathy for such a stupid creature. A lot of people are also like that. Not all cats are cast from the same mold. Some cats have an identity crisis and even think they are dogs.
There is no greater cat hater than a cat that thinks it’s a dog, sort of like reformed smokers. Now don’t get me wrong. Not all cats are worthless. Some cats are very good mousers and ratters. Outdoor cats are preferred by most ranchers and farmers for that very reason. I guess most of us guys can learn to tolerate
Larry Oscar is a graduate from the University of Tulsa and holds a degree in electrical engineering. He is retired and lives with his wife on a lake in Oklahoma where he brews his own beer, sails, and is a member of numerous clubs and organizations.