Cat owners vs dog owners.

[MtPockets]

I'm going to get me a six pack of outdoor cats the local shelter calls the "working cat" program. There is nothing more effective at rodent control at my house. My neighbors 2 cats work hard but they are not outside enough.
Mouse traps just don't work.
I love dogs though! Buy they don't catch and mangle mice and roof rats however. Not a problem with a cat.

That's generally true, but not always.
We have 3 "outside" cats and 3 dogs.
Two of the three cats are too lazy to hunt, they just wait for a bowl of food. They sit outside the door and bawl if it's dinner time and nobody fed them.
Two of our dogs, one in particular, LOVES to kill mice. She follows my wife into the chicken pens every chance she gets.

Dogs have "owners", cats have "staff".

 

[Ol' Red]

That's generally true, but not always.
We have 3 "outside" cats and 3 dogs.
Two of the three cats are too lazy to hunt, they just wait for a bowl of food. They sit outside the door and bawl if it's dinner time and nobody fed them.
Two of our dogs, one in particular, LOVES to kill mice. She follows my wife into the chicken pens every chance she gets.

Dogs have "owners", cats have "staff".

Just like people. Some work for there food and some wait for handouts. I had a cat that would dig up gophers and a dog that that killed mice. They don't follow the stereo types, but nature does not use a cookie cutter.

 

[Calvin45]

That's generally true, but not always.
We have 3 "outside" cats and 3 dogs.
Two of the three cats are too lazy to hunt, they just wait for a bowl of food. They sit outside the door and bawl if it's dinner time and nobody fed them.
Two of our dogs, one in particular, LOVES to kill mice. She follows my wife into the chicken pens every chance she gets.

Dogs have "owners", cats have "staff".

one of our dogs is a Jack Russell terrier crossed with some kind of daschund. Whenever we go out to the farm she's just so happy hunting rodents. Mice, squirrels, gophers….those terriers are little killing machines.

The bigger dog is a clueless buffoon!

 

[Mark37082]

I grew up with dogs and a cat. The cat was an amazing hunter and stayed in the barn for the most part. The dogs were companions and protectors. Our current dog is a member of the family that literally puts a smile on everyone's face regardless of the circumstances.

 

[Calvin45]

Oh! And one of the more impressive rodent killers I've seen was a beagle we had back in the day. My dad and uncle were demolishing some decrepit old wooden grain bins. And there were rats living under them, turns out.

Uncle had the shotgun but that was a joke, by the time you stop what you're originally doing, grab the gun, and try to shoot, the rat is long gone already. But that dog got 13 of them if I recall correctly. Just ran them down, gave them one violent shake, and done. A cat couldn't do that.

 

[Calvin45]

As far as cats….while they can indeed be very friendly, I've also long realized that there is a reason we can have dogs up to 200 pounds in extreme cases and cats….domestic cats have to top out around 20 pounds or so.

Two reasons I think.

1. Domestic dogs are all descended from wolves ultimately. The small dogs came later; not first. Domestic cats descend from wild cats that were more or less the same size as they are now. Our history with dogs goes back way further too, to hunter/gatherer days. At some point we and our old nemesis the wolf found a mutually beneficial way to coexist and work together. Truly even without any kind of distance weapons, a group of humans and a pack of wolves hunting together was a force of nature with no precedent. It is believed that had a lot to do with the sudden extinction of all kinds of "ice age" megafauna. We were too dang good at killing everything. Cats and humans only really started mingling once we started being sustained by agriculture and not hunting and gathering (notably in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent/Sumerian valley): where grain is amassed and stored in quantity, rodents and other pests become an inevitability and eat the grain! The kind of cats that specialize in hunting such critters therefore begin to live on a permanent basis among human settlements and proved to be very very useful and valuable. The rest, as they say, is history. And while wolves can be terrifying for sure, they are social creatures with social intelligence and an innate understanding of and capacity for group cooperation…and cats are not (except lions!) Any attempt at domesticating or being "permitted" to hunt in tandem with a wolf-sized cat would be laughable. It most likely just wouldn't stick around in the first place, or it'd kill you. One of those options.

2. This is an extension of reason number one. While our small cats can be wonderful friends and even express empathy and playfulness and such…I firmly believe that a cat the size of a Saint Bernard would only see you as an easy meal, or, even more likely on account of feline indifference , couldn't even be bothered to regard you as anything at all!!!

 

[MtPockets]

one of our dogs is a Jack Russell terrier crossed with some kind of daschund. Whenever we go out to the farm she's just so happy hunting rodents. Mice, squirrels, gophers….those terriers are little killing machines.

The bigger dog is a clueless buffoon!

My mouser is a 100 pound golden retriever. She gets chasing a mouse and you gotta steer clear because she doesn't give 2 shoots what's in the way, she'll run through or over it.

 

[Turkeytider]

Yes cats do think that they are superior to humans.
Ever see a Dog on the Pharaohs Tombs.
That's sad that you were never loved!

Matter of fact, the god Anubis is portrayed as a dog or man with dog head. Mummified dogs were known to be buried with their masters to accompany them in the afterlife. There is ample evidence that the man/dog relationship then was much as it is today.

 

[quigley257]

Cat servants and dog companions...

 

[Coyote Shadow Tracker]

Cat servants and dog companions...

More like the human is a servant to a Cat.
The numbers for how long dogs have been domesticated vary wildly from as much as 40,000 years ago.

The domestication of cats is estimated to have occurred around 4,000 years ago in Egypt, where cats were depicted in wall paintings and made into enigmatic statuary, deified, and mummified1. However, more recent studies suggest that domestication may have first occurred in Cyprus around 8,000 to 9,000 years ago1. A groundbreaking study published in Science magazine theorizes that the history of cats as companion animals goes back much further, approximately 12,000 years2. The modern domestic cat is descended from a wild ancestor called Felis silvestris lybica34. Feline domestication probably occurred about 10,000 years ago or more in the Middle East, in the region of the Fertile Crescent4. The concept of domestication dates back to 8,000 years ago when a cat was buried with a human5.

I have raised both Dogs and Cats for well over 60 years. Some of my cats were way smarter than some of my dogs.
I guess it is all what you put into an animal for training and affection.
I do know that a Dog will put everything in so that they will please you.
Cats do everything to have you please them.

 

[Coyote Shadow Tracker]

Why do you say I was never loved? That makes no sense since you don`t know me.

It was meant to be a joke!
Animals (dog/cats) loving humans.

 

[quigley257]

More like the human is a servant to a Cat.

That's what was implied.

 

[Rosebud]

Dogs have owners, Cats have staff!

 

[Small Lady]

Not sure how many barn cats are here, but plentiful.
They live outside, and hunt rodents for food.
We also have dogs, 9 now, as recently we got a new puppy.
The dogs mostly just run free, and while some technically have owners, they are just happy to see anyone who lives here. Because they have formed their own pack so to speak, they also have a hierarchy among themselves.
The dogs are super friendly to me, the barn cats would rather claw my eyes out if I was to try and touch them.