differences

MLMM Friday Faithfuls — Cats (and Dogs)

Fandango7 Comments

For this week’s Mindlovemysery Menagerie Friday Faithfuls challenge, Jim is asking us to write anything about cats. The picture above is our cat. Or was our cat. He passed almost two years ago.

For most of my life I had dogs and was definitely not a cat person. But then in 2007, my wife brought a cat into our lives and I fell in love. Sadly, our cat passed away in January 2022, fourteen months after we lost our dog in November 2020. Now we are back, after having rescued a dog in March 2022, to having just a dog as a pet. I love our dog, but I really do miss our cat. And I can tell you first hand that as a pet owner, when it comes to dogs and cats, it doesn’t have to be an either or situation.

In the years that we had both a dog and a cat they were fine together, keeping one another company and living in a sort of peaceful coexistence.

I’ve previously posted this, but for any of you who are considering getting either a dog or a cat (or both), I have itemized, in no particular order or priority, the twenty most important factors you should consider when making your decision.

1. Dogs can be trained quickly, some in a matter of minutes, to obey basic commands like “come,” “sit,” and “stay.” Cats are difficult, if not impossible, to train to respond to directives.

2. Dogs take a long time to housebreak and some never quite get all the way there. Cats can be house-trained in an instant as long as they have access to a litter box; there’s no training to it. It’s instinctive.

3. Dogs will sit, lie down, and heel on command. Cats will smirk and walk away.

4. Dogs come when you call them. Cats take a message and get back to you when they are good and ready.

5. Dogs will give you unconditional love forever. Cats tolerate you as long as you feed them.

6. Dogs will tilt their heads and listen whenever you talk. Cats will yawn and close their eyes.

7. Dogs wag their tails when they are happy to see you. Cats wag their tails when they are stalking prey and are about to pounce, even if you happen to be their prey.

8. Dogs will bark to wake you up if the house is on fire. Cats will quietly sneak out the back door.

9. Dogs will bring you your slippers or the daily newspaper. Cats might bring you a dead mouse.

10. Dogs lick you. Cats scratch you.

11. Dogs will greet you and lick your face when you come home from work. Cats will ignore you because you had the nerve to leave them alone while you went out.

12. Angry dogs will snarl and growl. Angry cats will hiss and spit…and growl.

13. Dogs will play Frisbee or fetch with you all afternoon. Cats will take a three-hour nap.

14. Dogs love to go for rides in the car and will happily sit on the seat next to you. Cats hate to go for rides in the car and have to have their own private carrier or they will not go at all.

15. Dogs need you to take them outside and walk them multiple times a day, and they don’t care how hot, cold, rainy, or snowy it is outside or how miserable you are. Cats don’t ever need to be walked, but they also don’t care how miserable you are.

16. Dogs like to be comforted by you when they’re sick or injured. Cats just want you to leave them alone.

17. Dogs can be a comfort to you when you’re sick or injured. Cats just want you to leave them alone.

18. Dogs are social beings. They want to be with their pack, even if “their pack” is your family. Cats are solitary by comparison and their primary attachment is to their territory rather than to other two or four-legged animals.

19. Dogs claws are always extended and become blunt from constant contact with the ground when they walk. Cats have retractable claws that stay sharp because they are protected inside the toes. You’ll want to stay out of the way from cats’ claws. Seriously, stay clear of their claws!

20. A dog’s memory is only about five minutes long. Cats can remember for up to 16 hours…although it seems like they never forget that one time you forgot to feed them.

And most important of all, a dog looks at you and thinks to himself, “You feed me, you shelter me, you love me. YOU must be God!” A cat looks at you and thinks to himself, “You feed me, you shelter me, you love me. I must be God!”

I conclude with the old adage that Jim also mentioned: dogs have owners, cats have staff.

WDP — Dogs AND Cats

Fandango19 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Dogs or cats?
View all responses

It seems that the WordPress Daily Prompt writers like to pose “either or questions.” Last week they asked about “adventure or security” and today they’re asking about “dogs or cats.” I say dogs and cats!

For most of my life I had dogs and was definitely not a cat person. But then in 2007, my wife brought a cat into our lives and I fell in love. Sadly, our cat passed away in January 2022, fourteen months after we lost our dog in November 2020. Now we are back, after having rescued a dog in March 2022, to having just a dog as a pet. I love our dog, but I really do miss our cat. And I can tell you first hand that as a pet owner, when it comes to dogs and cats, it doesn’t have to be an either or situation.

In the years that we had both a dog and a cat they were fine together, keeping one another company and living in a sort of peaceful coexistence.

My dog and cat from five years ago. Now both are gone.

For those of you who are considering getting either a dog or a cat (or both), I have itemized, in no particular order or priority, the twenty most important factors you should consider when making your decision.

1. Dogs can be trained quickly, some in a matter of minutes, to obey basic commands like “come,” “sit,” and “stay.” Cats are difficult, if not impossible, to train to respond to directives.

2. Dogs take a long time to housebreak and some never quite get all the way there. Cats can be house-trained in an instant as long as they have access to a litter box; there’s no training to it. It’s instinctive.

3. Dogs will sit, lie down, and heel on command. Cats will smirk and walk away.

4. Dogs come when you call them. Cats take a message and get back to you when they are good and ready.

5. Dogs will give you unconditional love forever. Cats tolerate you as long as you feed them.

6. Dogs will tilt their heads and listen whenever you talk. Cats will yawn and close their eyes.

7. Dogs wag their tails when they are happy to see you. Cats wag their tails when they are stalking prey and are about to pounce, even if you happen to be their prey.

8. Dogs will bark to wake you up if the house is on fire. Cats will quietly sneak out the back door.

9. Dogs will bring you your slippers or the daily newspaper. Cats might bring you a dead mouse.

10. Dogs lick you. Cats scratch you.

11. Dogs will greet you and lick your face when you come home from work. Cats will ignore you because you had the nerve to leave them alone while you went out.

12. Angry dogs will snarl and growl. Angry cats will hiss and spit…and growl.

13. Dogs will play Frisbee or fetch with you all afternoon. Cats will take a three-hour nap.

14. Dogs love to go for rides in the car and will happily sit on the seat next to you. Cats hate to go for rides in the car and have to have their own private carrier or they will not go at all.

15. Dogs need you to take them outside and walk them multiple times a day, and they don’t care how hot, cold, rainy, or snowy it is outside or how miserable you are. Cats don’t ever need to be walked, but they also don’t care how miserable you are.

16. Dogs like to be comforted by you when they’re sick or injured. Cats just want you to leave them alone.

17. Dogs can be a comfort to you when you’re sick or injured. Cats just want you to leave them alone.

18. Dogs are social beings. They want to be with their pack, even if “their pack” is your family. Cats are solitary by comparison and their primary attachment is to their territory rather than to other two or four-legged animals.

19. Dogs claws are always extended and become blunt from constant contact with the ground when they walk. Cats have retractable claws that stay sharp because they are protected inside the toes. You’ll want to stay out of the way from cats’ claws. Seriously, stay clear of their claws!

20. A dog’s memory is only about five minutes long. Cats can remember for up to 16 hours…although it seems like they never forget that one time you forgot to feed them.

And most important of all, a dog looks at you and thinks to himself, “You feed me, you shelter me, you love me. YOU must be God!” A cat looks at you and thinks to himself, “You feed me, you shelter me, you love me. I must be God!”

I conclude with the old adage that says it all. “Dogs have owners, cats have staff.”

One-Liner Wednesday — Differences

Fandango3 Comments

“It’s not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”

Audre Lorde, American writer, feminist, and civil rights activist

Written for Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday prompt. Image from Snowpeaceful at zazzle.com

#WDYS — A New Normal

Fandango11 Comments

Most people were frighten. They didn’t know what it was, how it got there, or who put it there. All they knew was that it wasn’t there when they went to bed that night, but it was there when they woke up the next morning. And that it was huge.

Was it good? Was it evil? No one seemed to have a definitive answer. Some feared that it was an avenging angel sent to Earth by God to make humanity pay for its sins and evil ways. Some agreed that the angel was sent by God, but that its purpose was to guard over and protect the people.

Many took the sudden appearance of the angel as marking the beginning of the End Times and that the angel was going to escort the devout believers, both living and dead, in their ascension into heaven and deliver them unto Jesus Christ at the Second Coming. These people were rejoicing.

There were those who ascribed the giant as some sort of manifestation due to a form of mass hallucinations, possibly engineered by agents of a foreign nation in order to bring about a panic and to cause our society to crumble. Still others claimed that the giant angel was an extraterrestrial being sent to enslave the human race.

Days went by and the giant angel, as if made of stone, did not move. The authorities had no answers and the people continued to speculate over what it was and what it meant. But regardless of what they believed the angel to be, they all seemed to agree that life as they knew it was would never be the same.

The only difference was that some looked upon the angel as hopeful, a harbinger of a new, better existence, and to them it was a good thing. They believed the angel was something to be worshipped. And some looked at it as a foreshadowing of a new dark age filled with doom and gloom, which was a bad thing, and that the only course of action was to destroy the thing.

As was typical of human beings, the divide between the factions grew wider and precipitated bitter fighting. After a while, though people got used to the giant angel standing over them. And life eventually started to return to “a new normal,” nearly as it was before the angel mysteriously appeared. Yet the rivalries persisted and even intensified.

And from an immeasurable distance, two entities, one thought to represent good and one thought to represent evil, gazed upon what had happened since they introduced the angel to their playground. One said to the other, “I told you that everything would change.” The other replied, “But the reality is that nothing has changed.”

And they were both right.

Written for Sadje’s What Do You See? prompt. Image credit: Kellepics @ Pixabay.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #128

Fandango22 Comments
FPQ

Welcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.

By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

This past week I heard someone say, “opposites attract.” A few days later I heard someone else say, “birds of a feather flock together.” These two statements seem contradictory to me. I thought about my wife and me and realized that, while she can be high strung and emotional, I’m more laid back and easy going. But aside from that, we have much in common, almost like two peas in a pod.

So I wondered if people with opposite personalities, beliefs, and physical traits are actually drawn together like opposite poles of a magnet. Or are similarities in age, intelligence, religion, and education level the keys to lasting, healthy relationships?

So my provocative question this week is…

Do you feel that people are more attracted to one another by their differences or by their commonalities? And why do you feel that way?

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments.