Difference between dog people and cat people?

Hi, I thought this would be a fun thread. I had one other cat for almost 19 years who was like my first child. I loved her so much. But since then I had a dog for 13 years who was a German Shepherd. He was so smart and sensitive. This sounds weird, but I think I would have trusted him with my life.

Now my new kitty is so sweet (about 75% of the time) and we also love her so much, but it's just not the same. I'm wondering if, underneath it all, I'm really a dog person. (Please don't kick me off this board!) I was watching a show on cable from the Humane Society where they showed animals that were up for adoption. The dogs were all so goofy, I found myself laughing out loud, and saying OHHH. What a sweety! I want to bring him home. I just didn't do that with the cats. They didn't touch me in the same way.

Unfortunately, this is not the time in my life for a dog. But it's a perfect time for a cat. And our kitty has already given our family so much and we've only had her a little over 2 months. She gets so much love and attention and I know it was the right decision. But still . . . maybe someday, I'll get another dog. Do any of you consider yourself cat people as opposed to dog people? Or both? If you are a cat person, why is that?

I grew up with a dog and loved him to pieces. He was in my life throughout my childhood and into my teen years so I could not have imagined life without a dog. When my parents made the tough decision to have him put to sleep, I was devistated (we all were).

When I first struck out on my own I wanted a pet... and a cat was just more convenient for apartment living and being a young woman with a full-time job. I fell in love with Comere and he was the only pet I knew from the time I was 18 right until 2005. When we had him put to sleep I was heart-broken.

At that point in my life, almost two years ago, I could have gone either way. Dog or cat. And if I'm completely honest I'll just say a cat is a lot less work. I don't want to feel like I'm raising a toddler again (my kids are teenagers). Dogs require more work, more training and more direct attention to things like socialization. A cat, at least in my experience, just becomes part of your life very easily. I feel like you have to change your life for a puppy or dog, but with a cat you sort of adapt to each other

I really could be a dog person again if I weren't so lazy -- but I do love them both. Right now, cats just suit me better.

As for me, I've always been a cat person. Some dogs are cute especially puppies (of course ), but I'm just helpless to resist cats!!! Though I suppose it might have something to do with having allergies to dogs (but luckily, none to cats) so I've never really gotten to know dogs. Still, I have a really deep love and affinity with cats that I don't think I could have with any other animals.

The dogs were all so goofy, I found myself laughing out loud, and saying OHHH. What a sweety! I want to bring him home. I just didn't do that with the cats. They didn't touch me in the same way.

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That's me exactly except the other way around!!! ^_^ Every cat I see I want to take home with me. But for me, dogs don't really have the same appeal.

I don't know what the difference between dog people and cat people could be though!! Perhaps to do with their general natures? Dogs are so faithful and cats tend to be more like casual friends - of course it's possible to have a close relationship with a cat, especially the mother substitute with kittens, but in general they tend to be more attached to places, where as dogs are to people.

Sometimes I say that dogs are my heart - but cats are my soul. I'M not even sure what I mean by that, but it sounds good :-)! I feel very fierce about the dogs (when I think of anyone at all hurting them), but the cats are like having a special secret treasure... I do love them both ridiculously, but the dogs are 'harder' (they're Samoyeds) in some ways, and I'm getting old :-)!

I'm both. I love the interaction I can have with training a dog. Cats I've trained little things but it's not the same as a dog. So I'm more of a dog person to. But on a cold rainy day I love to cuddle up with Puff. Each day I hold him in my arms like he's a baby. I love it and so does he!

Hubby and I thought we were dog people, until we got our first cat. Now we say we are both dog and cat people because we really can't choose which we like best

I think when you see a dog on tv you go awww cos dogs are so out there with personality, but with a cat you need to spend a little time with it to get its true personality. just my opinion though.

My sister was surprised when I got Gizmo, asking if I wasn't a 'dog person'. I replied that I was an 'animal person' and that I like most mammalian pets. The only one I would not want is a guinea pig. (My sister actually has had many of these for years.) A rat is brighter and easier to clean up after.

I like cats and dogs equally well.

I would have a dog, but I like how laid-back and low-maintenance cats are.

I'm a both - grew up with both, currently have 2 cats/1 dog. But I'm honestly slightly more of a cat person as they are easier to take care of. Dogs are fun cause you can train them in many things and they do get you out of the house to walk and meet people better then cats can.

I think most people are both - those that are dog or cat people I think really hate the other breed.

I am an animal person through and through; my mom thinks I must have some kind of mutated DNA 'cause my interest and affection for furry, slithery, flying things started so young and so strongly.

That said:

I love my dog because of her loyalty and her trust in me - she so willingly does just about anything I ask of her. She makes me proud by her obediance to and focus on me when we're in public, and she'd defend me against any and all comers, even though she's only eight inches tall. She'd actually drown herself to stay with me. (She jumped in a lake I was swimming across many years ago and tried to follow me. It never crossed my mind she'd do that-or that the person I had watching her would let her-but, thankfully, I was able to return in time to catch her as she was tiring out.)

I love my cats because they grace my home and my life with soft, furry, purring affection. Their adoration for me (Ollie likes to lie with his paws on my neck or shoulder and his face as close to mine as he can get it, and Allen drools and purrs if I so much as think about stroking him) humbles me deeply. A cat's regard is not an automatic or sure thing, and the love my four have for me is a gift I don't always believe I deserve.

And, of course, they all keep my bed warm at night and make me laugh with their antics during the day.

I'm am DEFINITELY no doubt about it a cat person. This isn't to say that I don't like dogs...I think they're wonderful and would like to have one someday when I'm settled down a bit more.

I'm a cat person because I'm a homebody. My cats make being at home so much better...they're what MAKES my home. I also like how soft and cuddly they are, and how they just seamlessly integrate themselves int your life....no training, no crating, no destruction of everything I own....it's like they decided they wanted to live with humans, whereas dogs we had to domesticate and help them adjust to home life.

Also, at this point in my lie, a dog would be a tremendous amount of work that I don't have time for. I don't want to walk to the dog run twice a day, I don't want to go to puppy class, and I don't want to have to deal with all of the little adaptations to home. Not yet at least. I want to wait until I have a house and maybe even a courtyard or yard before I do these things. I don't know how people keep big, hyper dogs in apartments and condos and townhomes around here. Seems unfair to the dog.

Oh yeah, and I haven't gotten used to that dog smell yet. That will take some doing!

I am DEFINATELY a cat person. I grew up with cats, and I've had some bad experiences with dogs (with some scars to prove it). Not that i don't see some puppies and go 'aww' or appreciate the beauty of some dogs. i think i prefer cats because they arn't so needy, if they want to be with you then they sit on your lap (or your arm, or your leg...) but i just have this idea that a dog is a lot more work. I can't say that the whole 'oh when you go away you can leave your cat alone and you can't with a dog' because i take dante whenever i go home, and when i go on trips he can't go on he goes to my parents house (i just can't bear to think that he is home by himself).

On the other hand, my boyfriend is a dog person. You can tell this when he plays with our kitty and tries to wrestle with him. Or he thinks that dante will sit on his lap if he picks him up and holds him on his lap.

I don't know if there is a real difference in personality that makes us this way though, maybe he is more needy or just wants things when he wants it, and not when the pet wants it! Or maybe i'm just lazy. Its hard to say.

You guys have made me think. Thanks. I guess like a lot of you, I really am just an all around fuzzy animal person. We had pet rats for years, and I loved them too. They used to sit on our laps and clean themselves, just like a cat!

So, maybe someday I'll get a dog. But when it's freezing outside, like now in Seattle, taking a dog for a walk is the last thing I want to do. My kitty is content running around the house and helping me sort the laundry. She likes to grab the socks and run.

I really don't like dogs at all. I don't like their paws, or barks, or defecating habits, that they raise a leg to pee and the tongue is hanging out and their breath and how groveling they can be. eeewww- please dont send me hate mail. we had a boston terrior as a child and I guessed i loved her but no dog has evinced the love that most cats evoke in me.

I'm definitely a cat person. It's not that I don't like dogs, but they don't make me ooh and aah in the same way as cats do. I had a dog as a child (no cats) and loved him, and my sister has 2 black labradors and they are gorgeous and lots of fun, but I like the independence combined with cuddliness that you get with a cat. The way they walk along the back of the sofa and purr in your ear - you don't get that with a dog! When they run and jump they look just like a miniature tiger or lion - the movements are same. They're wild animal and cuddly babe in one package. I like the fact that you can't train them and bend them to your will like you can with dogs, you have to earn their respect instead. They just appeal to me more. I was going to say they don't slobber all over you either, but Magpie (bridge baby) was a dribbler He didnt' take a drink of water and then come and rub his wet, dribbly mouth all over my legs though

I sometimes feel a bit guilty when I realize I don't have the same feelings for dogs that I do for cats now.

We had both dogs and cats when I was growing up. My first "best friend" was a cat named Teddy Bear that used to walk me half way to school and meet me at the half way mark when I would come home when I went to kindergarten and first grade till one day he disappeared never to be seen again. After that I always had at least one dog that was like a "best friend" to me.

When my kids were growing up I had a companion dog that was "my dog". My husband had gotten her from the humane society for me. She was a St. Bernard/Shepard mix and she went everywhere with me. Like Anutie Crazy, my Lady would have given her life for me. I don't think I've ever felt the same about a dog since I had to have her put down.

I was nearly a cat hater for years because my mother bordered on hoarding and I had taken to avoiding going to her house in her last years because of the smell from too many intact cats in her house.

My Jade adopted me about a year after her death, (and six months after my husbands). Jade was judged to be about 12 by the vet, nearly toothless and front declawed. She turned into the most wonderful companion and helped soften some of my grieving. I've always told people that if there is such a thing as reincarnation then Jade was my mother come back to hook me into caring for cats and she succeeded.

I really can't say the cats are less "work" than dogs because I take care of strays and ferals and now have a total of 19 out here that I care for, but they are such wonderful creatures. They all have their own ways of sharing their love and allowing me to be their slave. :-)

After typing this it just seems that I have come full circle back to the cats.

I'm really not a dog person though I have helped people doing dog walking duties and friends dogs appear to want to 'play' with me all the time. I find dogs a lot of work and there is nothing as bad as the smell of a wet dog imho...
Rather than saying I am a cat person I would say I am an animal person as I love a whole range of critters- I still miss Epona's budgies every day

Before I got my first cat, I would not have admitted that I was a cat person. Only because the cats I saw were strays running around the neighborhood that were mean and dirty. And maybe because I never had any pets growing up, other than some hamsters and fish, but nothing that I bonded with. Five years ago, a friend of mine encouraged me to get a kitty and I have never regretted the decision. I just got another kitten in November so I guess I'm becoming a crazy cat person.

I don't know if there is a "dog person" in me since I've never had one. But at this point in my life, I wouldn't want to have the responsibility of taking care of a dog. Many say that cats are lower maintenance and I would tend to agree.

My husband is a dog person and I'm a cat person, although we both love the other species. I think it's the intuitive bond that we have with our species of choice. My husband looks at a dog and immediately understands what it is all about. Same for me and cats. I'll never be able to put my finger on it, but the dog listener, Jan Fennell, told me her theory about human's intuitive bond to animals. People had a much closer bond to animals as they worked thru domestication, and now that society no longer uses cats/dogs for the purpose by which we domesticated them, most people have lost that bond. She has noticed in her many years of training dogs that the owners that have the easist time with a dog (or cat) are those that still have the intuition for them.