Idiot cats/Intelligent cats?

Which are best, dogs or cats? According to today's Daily Rant (I am down to one copy of the Daily Rant per week now, on a Thursday, so my detox programme is going really well!), dogs win by a teent, tiny margin.

Now, I've been a mum to both dogs and cats during my life, so I feel well qualified to comment on the whole dog/cat who's da best issue. I've also mumsied bunnies, guinea pigs, gerbils, hamsters, stick insects, a canary called Brian, a pony, chinchillas, and of course, chickens. But they are not the issue here. What has been addressed in this study is which makes the best pet - a dog or a cat?

The catagories tested were things like traits and skills, bonding, popularity, problem solving, training, usefulness and, would you believe it, eco-friendliness. What the report fails to address are the most important, and to my mind more pertinenet issues regarding poop, demands for food and entertainment from their human companions and anti-social habits like begging for food and opening the fridge and helping themselves to the last bit of trifle.

Cats, according to the report, win on skill, popularity, purring (because dogs can't???), sense of sight, smell and hearing, and eco-friendliness. Apparently, they are not as good as dogs at bonding, ability to understand words, problem solving, ease of training and usefulness.

Well, I beg to differ. And I shall use Phoebe Fat Cat, Tybalt the Tall and Pandora Trumpet Trousers to state my case, m'lud.

All three of our cats are VERY bonded. The number of times I nearly tread on Pandora in a day, for example, because she is always trailing around the house behind me. And if I go out, she tells me off when I come home for leaving her behind. And in the evening, all three know when Andy is due home and will congregate in the hallway about 10 minutes before he arrives, to greet him on his arrival. When my Mum visits, Phoebe will appear for granny hugs and sleep on her lap for the entire visit. And Tybalt is King of Bed Rolling in the morning.

Tybalt also knows which of the tins in the cupboard contain tuna and not, for example, something boring like kidney beans or tomatoes. He is very close to being able to use a tin opener.

Pandora plays fetch. She has also solved the problem of maintaining her centre-of-attention-let's-all-focus-on-Pandora-because-she's-best issues by sitting on top of the telly and threatening to jump onto either the mantlepiece or Terwilliger the fern and wrecking either and/or both in order to make one of us get up and play with her. And Pandora is extremely useful for dusting behind the fridge, as I have mentioned in previous posts.

So personally I think cats are best. The two dogs I've mummied have both required walking, pooper-scooping, brushing, bathing, paw-wiping, rescuing from canals and feeding enormous amounts of food. And whilst I loved them both dearly, my prefered pet is a cat.

Except when they get fixated with bags. Like this...