Well, JD did get some of the facts right - a neighbor did threaten to kill my dogs. But, it was simply because the dogs barked at all, not because there was any "frequent or prolonged" barking, which is the common definition of a dog becoming a nuicance.

If my neighbor had come over in a friendly manner and let me know there was a problem, I would not have been so "indignant". But, when he came over half-crocked and reeking of beer, cussing profusely and threatening to kill my dogs, I was not happy. He was not happy the next day when he was trying to explain to the police why he was threatening to kill my dogs.

Obviously, if your neighbor's dog is barking at night and keeping you awake, there is a problem. You need to go over there and let them know, in a polite but firm manner, that there is a problem. TODAY! A citronella barking collar should fix the problem very quickly.

Cats are not the angelic creatures you would make them out to be. If the cat jumps on my vehicles, it is not cute. If it buries it's crap in my flower beds, it is not friendly. When my eyes burn and I have trouble breathing because of it's dander, it is not sweet. When it sinks it's teeth and claws into my hand when I am petting it, it is not playful. When it passes ringworm onto a child or other animal, it is not welcome. When it's steaming piles cause the owner's house to reek, it is not attractive. I could go on and on.

Dogs and cats are animals, and we really can't expect them to have perfect behavior all the time. Dogs will bark, cats will bury their crap in their neighbor's yards; it's all part of living in town. If you can't handle the city life, then move to the country.

But I do agree that it is the owners responsibility to keep their dogs under control. But that can be hard to do if nobody informs them that there even is a problem.

Amen Jeff! And dogs don't poop in my babys sand box or kill the lovely little birds that come to my feeder. Thye don't drag headless shrews to my doorstep for me to squish on my way to get the morning paper!

A pox on all cats!

Jeff's right: beer probably enhances the barkitude of any dog, and his neighbor didn't handle the situation properly. But he must also admit that the times he's brought Murphy to work, the damn dog's barking has certainly been "frequent or prolonged". Usually both.

But I do agree that it is the owners responsibility to keep their dogs under control. But that can be hard to do if nobody informs them that there even is a problem.

Come on! Are you telling me that the owners of the dog don't realize that its constant barking is a problem? If it's keeping them awake, wouldn't it be reasonable to suspect that it's keeping the neighbors awake? If it were my dog barking, I would be well aware of it, and it would eat me up inside with guilt. I would not keep a barking dog. (Actually, I prefer the much-maligned little yippy dogs in the first place, so it probably wouldn't be a problem.) I think the real problem is that some people are unwilling to discipline their animals, cats or dogs, and thus they become nuisances.

Also, I never claimed cats were angelic. I've not been shy about sharing our problems with Toto, the bitch-cat, and Simon, the bedwetter. I freely admit that my babies are a curse on the songbird population in Canby, Oregon. But I've never had a cat ruin a nice pair of pants and a dress suit by jumping on me with muddy paws. I've never stepped in cat shit while walking in a park. I've never had a cat kill patches of my lawn by urinating in it. I've never had a cat keep me awake barking all night.

I'm not pretending that cats are angelic (only fish are angelic), but they're certainly smaller and more reclusive and less annoying than dogs...

Meow!

"Cats rule and dogs drool... Cats rule and dogs drool..."

I'm not pretending that cats are angelic (only fish are angelic), but they're certainly smaller and more reclusive and less annoying than dogs...

Cats are low maintenance, Dogs are high maintenance, at least with respect to one another.

Cats are solitary, dogs are pack animals. And when you have a dog as a pet, you are it's pack. So you have to interact with it. Having a cat is having a pet. Having a dog is like having a 3 year old child with poor language skills.

Dagny and I had a long running argument about pet intelligence. My basic argument has to do with the relative prevalence of seeing eye cats vs. seeing eye dogs. There has been research, and it's been found that a dog will learn to interpret what a person is saying to it (ie, when it's being scolded, when it's being asked about going for a walk, or whatever), and will learn what signals to give to indicate to the owners what it wants. Cats, on the other hand, don't learn these things. Their owners, instead, learn to interpret the actions of the cat. The dog learns how to communicate with you, whereas you learn how to communicate with the cat.

I like dogs, because I feel a connection to them. I feel like I can communicate with them on some level. They interact with me in a way that's meaningful for both of us. I don't have that connection with cats (although some people probably do).

My friend Zoe has cats. She's had clothes ruined because of cats peeing on them. Heck, one of her cats pooped on her son Alex's pillow.

I've never had dress clothes ruined by a dog with muddy paws, but I have been bitten and clawed (to the point of blood being drawn) by cats. In contrast, I can remember a 2 year old pulling a ball out of my dog Betsy's mouth and then the kid pulling on her tail, and Betsy just sort of sat there and took it, because she knew it was a kid. If I'd done those things, she'd have growled at me, but she knew this was a baby and tolerated it. I've not known a cat to react similarly.

Dogs barking during the day, when the owner is at work, is frequently a problem that the owner is unaware of, yes. It sounds like that may have been the issue with Jeff's dogs.

Obviously, JDs neighbors are probably aware of the barking (unless they work a night shift). If it bothered them, they would try to do something about it -- they may not perceive the barking as a problem (some people can sleep through that sort of thing). They need to be made aware that others can hear the dog, and that there is a problem with it's behavior.

The fault is not with the dog. The fault is with the owners of the dog.

Much as I hate cats I have to say that cats do distinguish between adult humans and babies. We had an old siamese cat when I was a kid that definitley knew the diff. The babies would pull it's ears and pull it's mouth way back and that old cat never did a thing to them! But that cat was half human; nothing like the other cats in the world! :)

A WELL trained dog is an absolute joy to have around. A POORLY trained dog is hell. I've had both in my life time and the difference is amazing. I've also had cats (Dante and Zeus) that were great and cats that were terrible (Willow and Patches). Personally, I'd take a well trained dog over a great cat any day. I like to feel needed and appreciated, feelings that are doled out by dogs more often than by cats.

i've always said that living with a cat is like living with a european. living with a dog is like living with a retarded child...

and tammy hating cats? hah. big surprise there... make sure you invite me to your christmas party, dear. i can't imagine missing it.

with comments like that mart, pretty soon you'll have the comment section all to your self. Lay off man. Jesus.

Now, now, boys. Let's not fight like cats and dogs. I, for one, find Mart's comments hilarious. "Living with a dog is like living with a retarded child." Heh.

I think that Dana is absolutely correct, that on aveage dogs are more intelligent and more interactive than cats. I think of it like this: if dog intelligence can be mapped on a bell curve, and cat intelligence can be mappedon a bell curve, then the lower-end of the dog spectrum overlaps the upper-end of the cat spectrum. To explain the math: this means that the most intelligent cats are smarter than the dumbest dogs, but that the smartest dogs will always be smarter than the smartest cats.

That being said, it's perfectly possible to have a personal relationship with a cat. It's easy, in fact. And communication is not a problem, either. I will grant that it's much easier to communicate with a dog you've just met than with a cat you've just met, but once you're familiar with cats and their ways, communicating with a new cat is not that difficult. Cats do learn their owners' signals, but it requires more work than teaching them to a dog.

I like both cats and dogs. Cats happen to be the best pet for our purposes, so that's what we have. I'm not opposed to dogs. Just dog that bark frequently or for prolonged periods. :)

My biggest opposition to dogs is that they are far too high maintenance. The walks, the baths, the neediness. Cats are easy. I spend ten minutes a day, tops, on cat maintenance--including cleaning out a litter box for four cats and twice-daily feedings.

Who knew this topic would cause such a big controversy? Learn some respect, people.

That being said, it's obvious that cats are totally better than dogs.

African Dwarf Frogs are angelic also.....easy as pie to take care of and happy to see me come home because it means they get to eat. Plus they're cool.

Another comment - I agree with J.D. that the dog-poisoner was completely wrong and should not have poisoned pets.....but if the dogs had been on a leash, their owners would have known they were eating the meat.

Leash laws are there for a reason.

Uh I don't get marts remark to me. Is it suppose to be satire, tongue in cheek, serious, funny? Sorry I'm so dense but, yeah, Mart, you can come to my christmas party.

Have you ever noticed how JD can post about anything and we all jump in for a debate. Even when no debate is intended!?

Yeah, sure, African Dwarf Frogs never jump up on you and leave muddy paw prints, nor do they poop in your baby's ear holes, but having to trek all the way up to the Arctic Circle, hire the local bone dancer, and perform the Forbidden Slush Thrashing just to procure the Frozen Blood Worms for their repast is really a pain.

Crap - the guy at the pet store didn't tell me about that, Joel!

I like both dogs and cats, depending a lot on the animal. While the boys were growing up, we had dogs, with the occasional cat thrown in. Was it Wonderman (our cat) who used to sleep on Charlie's (our St. Bernard's) back on the porch, J.D. and Jeff? If I got a dog now, it would be a small one, probably a Yorkie like Tony's. But I don't plan to get a dog. I like my cats and feel a certain loyalty to them. For one thing, cats smell a lot better than most dogs, and that may not be important to a lot of other people but it's important to me. I could never get our Shih-Tzu Hairy to smell at all good, no matter how many times I bathed him. (Although watching his crazy antics after his bath made it all worth it. LOL!)

My cats are affectionate. They are intelligent. Stevie always can tell when it's the morning that the cleaning woman comes and I'm going to shut her up in the office. That happens every two weeks. I don't know what gives it away, but she will run and hide. Fortunately, I know all her hiding places and so can roust her out of them until she gets to the point where she will run upstairs and hide under the office bed, which is where I want her.

As for cats liking children, my cats give my grandsons a wide berth. However, Chester has in the past seemed to realize that they were little people and different than adults, because there have been many times when I have had Michael and Alex outside when he's been out there and the boys have taken off after him (he is irresistable to little boys, even little Noah) and he has stopped and rolled over in the gravel of the driveway or grass of the lawn and let them pet him. He has to be in the mood to do that, and hasn't been much lately, but he has definitely been very patient with the boys. I have a picture I love of Michael holding Chester, where the cat is stretched out and almost as long as Michael was at the time.

As far as dogs barking, that has been shown to be an effective deterrant to burglars. However, Charlie didn't prevent us from being robbed when we had him. I guess he was just too friendly -- or else the robbers knew how to handle dogs. I read in a history of Shih-Tzus and associated breeds once saying that they were used in China many centuries ago as "bark alarms." Obviously, that can be good and bad. Sometimes I think it would be handy to have that service available around my house.

For now, I'm happy to be a "cat mom." :-)

My cat sits for treats.

When my cat, Toto, was young, she would fetch. Now, through stubborness or lack of practice, that skill has vanished. She once opened a latched bathroom door. She's always come to her name, though. Almost instantly. She has a negative reaction to the names of her brothers. When I call for Simon or Nemo, she cackles or growls or hisses. She knows what's what. She's the smartest cat I've ever known (not that I've known a wide range of cats...).

A friend of mine had a cat that would sit, stay, roll over and play dead on command. I have never seen another cat that has been trained to this extent, but of my two cats one will consistently come when called and the other will play fetch.

Excellent point about cat and dog smells. My cats don't simply fail to smell bad; I positively enjoy sniffing their coats. Despite being very similar breeds (one is Siamese and the other is half Siamese/half Burmese) they have distinctly different smells.

JD, do you know if anything ever came of the table idea Bridget had for Herb?

This is a test

I have 2 cats - I love their smell.

The younger one learned how to open doors by the time he was 8 months old. They both know their names. The older one will always come when I call. She also puts one of her favorite toys in a visitor's shoe, on their coat or in their bag or purse if she likes them. The younger one will come when I'm calling him for a treat, but won't come if I'm trying to get him to come in from outside.

I swear my first cat understood English. Whenever my little cousin came over (he loved to grab the cat by the tail, pull his hair & ears, etc) as their car pulled up to the curb my grandma would say, "Oh look, Eric's here!" And my cat would immediately jump up, run down to the basement and hide behind the washer. Another time, I was sitting with my uncles on their front porch and they were talking about what a wuss my cat was. While they were talking, a neighborhood cat was strolling across the sidewalk in front of the house and my cat came tearing out the front door, down the walk and attacked it.

I'd say both cats and dogs are pretty smart, and their behavior and interaction with their owners and other people is due in large part to how well they are loved/treated/attended to - just like humans.