As someone with both, I actually really appreciate that my dog forces me out on regular walks.
Yep, without my dog there are days I would not get out of bed, and feel like shit because of it. Even if it’s winter, it’s good for my mental health.
Agreed, my dog has probably kept me significantly more physically and mentally healthy than I would be without him.
But your cat “gets” you
Lol, you got me… But my dog would die for me. It’s my honor to walk her in the snow. In fact, I’m hardly even worthy.
You would be surprised by a cats loyalty.
Nothing wakes a cat owner faster than the sound of hyuk hyuk HYUK HYUUURK on the only piece of carpet in the house.
my cat likes to fake hyuk ON THE BED and then turn and look at us like “so you’re up! and my food bowl is mysteriously empty!”
I hope my cat doesn’t learn that trick.
True, but also no slop water drinking or wet dog smell. Give and take
Or a dog owner
Idunno, my flatmate has a dog and he’s never woken me up like that. The dog has though
So you agree
I wanna play pspspspstation so bad rn.
- that cat
I’ve owned most of the common furry pets (except guinea pigs and rats) and there’s unique challenges with taking care of each of them. What is burdensome is also different for each person.
I love cats but I don’t think I’d adopt another. I don’t want to catproof my shelves nor my plants. I don’t want to smell kitty litter either.
I love rabbits but same thing. I don’t want to rabbitproof my house. I don’t want to clean litter boxes. And most importantly, I don’t want the hassle of finding someone to take care of them when I’m gone.
I love dogs and will probably stick to dogs. I like going on walks and sitting in the yard. I don’t mind drying his paws off when it rains or walking the yard weekly to pick up his turds.
All pets are great. Animal companionship is the best.
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Also, kitty litter is awful.
You’re not buying the right kitty litter.
Recommendation?
We use tidy cats stone pellets with the pee pads liner.
Not environmentally friendly, but it’s the first time I’ve actually not minded dealing with the box.
We never used normal litter, it’s terrible. We used to use the tidy cats brand scoop able stuff. And that worked… Fine. Solids came out easy enough. But urine was either too gummy if you tried scooping it too soon. Or it broke up into stinky little bits too small for the scoop, if you waited too long. And God forbid the cat dig to the bottom before peeing, so the clay glues itself to the bottom of the bin, amplifying the goo/break problem.
And eventually, no matter how well you scoop, the little bits of urine build up and start to stink like ammonia, until you have to throw all the litter away and wash the box. Which is extra unpleasant if it’s winter.
But the stone pellets and pad? The solids are easily scooped. And the urine is trapped in the pad, locked in, never smell it.
And no matter what you do, cats will track litter around the house. But the stones are so big and heavy that they almost all fall off the paw before they make it 5 feet from the box, so the area to clean is much smaller. And the stones are surprisingly less annoying to step on.
My friend has the cedar pellets, and it’s better than litter, yes, in some ways. But I still smell the ammonia.
I will say we’ve never tried the crystal cat litter, and some of our other friends swear by it.
Fresh Step cat litter.
Yeah, we buy an amazing blend of sand. Leaves no odors, no dust, and has great clumping.
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Yeah but you don’t know that until you get the cat. I have a ton of houseplants that would kill a curious cat, too.
My advice is to never get birds, it is very different from other types of pets. I love having them, but it honestly requires a certain level of insanity. Which means keeping them is absolutely not for most people
I don’t think I’ll get another pet that requires a cage after hamsters! (My rabbits were raised like cats, litter trained and no cage)
Birds shouldn’t really be caged either, though it does create some problems how to keep them safe in your home (especially with other pets). Personally I have them just free in their own room, and they only sleep in their cages (for safety). If I couldn’t do that, I’d have them in an aviary when I can’t supervise them.
Perhaps “cage” was the wrong word - I meant pets I have to corral to a specific location…but I would prevent my cat from going outside so maybe that’s not it either lol
So I guess it’s just back to my original point: I find the space and care accomodations required for birds to be much too inconvenient
Oh that is an entirely valid point! And again, I definitely would not recommend birds to anyone, it’s that type of thing where you kinda need to stumble into by yourself. It’s just, like with rabbits, people still have misconceptions about keeping them in cages, and I’m always ready to correct facts about that… Since some people still get even those tiny round cages and put birds in them, it’s truly awful
That’s my friend’s parents. They get little budgies and keep them in the worst cages which means they only get the worst parts of pet ownership
Heartbreaking! Poor birds :(
Cats are great, but they’re nocturnal. Many will skitter around, scratch stuff, scream, or otherwise bother the heck out of you when you are trying to sleep. I get so little sleep as it is, I’m not willing to deal with that again.
Cats are crepuscular, meaning they’re more active at dawn and dusk, but they may be somewhat active at any hour if they have slept enough.
my cat isn’t noctural. not all cats are the same.
That’s possible, too. My cat wasn’t like that but I know my friend’s cat is banned from the bedroom
6am I am sitting with my half-adopted stray by the heater cause I don’t have a cat door and he panics if he wants to leave and I’m not there to open the door
It’s -1°C outside so I have to do this… until I get the right gear
Huh, is it really that unusual for my cat to sleep through the night? She goes to bed around midnight and wakes up closer to dawn naturally, which tends to be a bit late this time of year. That’s around when she gets a first meal.
The dog can go run out back and shit, I’ll pick it up in the spring.
that’s a long time to leave a dog outside
You clearly have never tried to get a Bernese Mountain Dog out of fresh fallen snow.
I have a golden that loves -20 and new snow. Plays in it for hours with her magpie buddies.
it keeps well around 0C. It only spoils when it starts to warm up outside
I wish my cats would nap with me like that, but it’s my fault for not getting them used to it when they were kittens. They’ll stay put for a minute under my arm and then dart off the bed.
I was surprised my cats weren’t sitting on my lap, so when they were close to two years old I started holding them captive for very short periods while petting them how they like, and now I can’t keep them off me. It seemed like the only reason they weren’t sitting on humans before is that they didn’t think it was safe.
Aww, yeah, cats are like that. It speaks volumes of people who can earn their complete trust.
That’s not my case here, as we treat them with utmost respect. I actually have all of them on my bed right now, but they just don’t tolerate being cuddled that close. One of them does like kneading and sleeping on us, but It has to be on his terms or he doesn’t want it.
Yeah, that’s what I figured they were like and why I was content to let them be if they didn’t want to sit on me. We just kept having these moments where they clearly wanted to snuggle, but seemed to be afraid I would crumble beneath them and shatter their tiny paws to dust. We’re getting to a point now where I can even adjust my position underneath them, but only sometimes.
Mine sleeps with me but will randomly start clawing at my neck while purring in the middle of night.
I think she thinks that’s “petting.”
That’s kneading. Kittens will knead at their mother’s stomach while nursing, and adult cats usually continue the behavior to a lesser or greater degree. Some do it subtly and gently, and others are made of knives.
this cat clearly wants to escape in the picture
“Halp meh!”
Having whippets, i can tell you that they would rather stop drinking and eating, that go out in weather like that (and rain too)
So do you have an indoors toilet for them?
They actually won’t go out in the rain, so they get to go in the carport 🤷 It’s got a roof, gravel flooring, and we clean it out once in a while (although always pick up after nr 2) so its not so bad
cats: hate rain
dogs: hate rain
me: hates rain
all of us: have fucking jobs, who the hell is lounging around in bed all damn morning
On a weekend?
Your pets have jobs?
Eliminating pests and guarding home if they are traditional. Social media influencers if they are new gen.
I’d rather not have cat poop in my houses air.
Dogs poop in the house sometimes too. Anything living will poop in your house if you let it in for long enough. It’s nice they are considerate enough to go in a box and not in the floor
But human poop is perfectly fine? You saw that one Mythbusters episode, right? Feces is everywhere.
It’s at least a lot more normal.
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Cat flap in a door solves this, but you do need a vented room to keep their litter box that’s not a garage because those usually need a fire rated door.
Air purifier are useful tools for a lot of things.
Cats poop outside.
They just don’t need a chaperone to do so.
You’re funny. The cat woke me up for food is the reason the dog got to pee outside before the sun came up.
my wife woke me up for food (we shared the last bagel. it had no garlic) and it’s the reason the cats got extra snuggles this morning
this is fake news. puppygirls for example do not like going out in blizzard.
That cat looks like they are trying to escape.
Normal cat look
Imagine sleeping in cat hair tho
I find dogs shed significantly more than cats in general.
They smell a lot worse, too.
In my experience it depends. Most cats smell better, but I had one cat that wasn’t great at cleaning herself and definitely had a bit of a stink
Conversely, my dog is a northern breed and doesn’t have much natural smell, plus he likes to roll in my fresh sheets, so he usually smells like fabric softener
imagine not
Done
Imagine doing laundry? Yeah the fur sheds, but you just clean more often to compensate, it’s fine.
Nah you can’t do laundry fast enough to not sleep in fur constantly. My dog has his own bed and he’s short haired and still I have have several air purifiers and clean at least once per day to maintain everything. So people who sleep with cats are straight up hoarder territory of nasty imo lol - tho I don’t judge as connecting with an animal like this might be well worth the mess for some people.
I wish, as soon as the sun comes up that little fucker is punching me in the face to fill up his food bowl.
He waits until the sun comes up?
Yeah, prime time seems to be about 40 minutes before sunrise, regardless of the time of year.
