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08-8-2001 Daily Record IS IT REIGNING CATS OR DOGS? THE new movie Cats And Dogs alleges that our humble household pets are at loggerheads, with man's best friend trying to stop the monster moggies in their fight for world domination. So if this battle were really to take place, who would win? Gethin Chamberlain and Joan Burnie enter the great debate... FELINES ARE FIRST-CLASS By GETHIN "Aristocat" CHAMBERLAIN DOGS are the rednecks of the animal kingdom - smelly, dribbling idiots with all the charm and style of the deposits they so readily leave on every available inch of public pavement or park. It's not just that they are stupid, but they have no class. If dogs were human - which is how some deluded fools treat them - they would watch GMTV and Trisha. Dogs would even watch Saturday night TV. They would eat at McDonald's, shop at Kwik Save and listen to Hear'Say. These poor benighted creatures wouldn't last a day on their own and pedigree dogs are even worse. They are like members of today's aristocracy, for whom centuries of in-breeding has succeeded only in producing a gibbering fool. Mark Twain would be a cat. The Duke of Edinburgh would be a dog. You can groom a dog as much as you like, teach it to walk to heel or round up sheep, stick a studded collar on it and call it Butch if you like - but throw a stick and they all revert to the floppy dimwits they really are. As the owner of two cats - one called Widget (as in what you get in a can of beer) and Esk (as in the river), I know you won't catch a cat chasing a stick. The best you can hope for is a look of pitying indifference. It's a look that says: "If you wanted it back that badly, you shouldn't have thrown it away in the first place". Because cats are sleek, cats are elegant, cats have class and they know it and they make sure you do, too. Try clipping a cat's fur the way some people do with poodles and you might as well stick your hand in the blades of a lawnmower. And there's never a dull moment with a cat around. Like the time one deposited a neighbour's prized canary (deceased) on the doorstep. Or the moment they turfed the neighbour's dog out of its kennel into the rain so they could sleep in comfort. Then there was the one who caught climbing in through a neighbour's bedroom window and making off with her underwear. That took some explaining. But at least they don't try to have sex with everything in the house and they don't stick their heads in visitors' laps and drool. Cats may be ruthless, independent, single-minded killing machines, responsible for the slaughter of millions of defenceless creatures, but I'd rather have something like that as a friend than an enemy. Cats were so divine that Egyptians once worshipped one as a goddess. The closest dogs can get is Lassie, who isn't even a bitch. Dog lovers claim their pets are their best friends. Cat lovers suspect that dogs are not so much dog owners' best friends as their intellectual equals. Geri Halliwell and President Bush both have dogs as pets. That says everything you need to know about dogs - and the people who own them. But the best thing about cats is that, on a night when the big match is on telly and the rain is lashing, you don't have to take them out for "walkies".
MUTTS ARE MAN'S BEST FRIEND BY JOAN "GROWLER" BURNIE I WOULD no more want to own a cat than crawl naked over broken glass. But then that is the point - no-one owns cats. They own you. Or rather they graciously agree to allow you to provide them with board and lodgings, which, no matter how rich or luxurious, they soon make clear is way beneath their feline dignity. They are the stuck-up snobs of the animal kingdom who, despite their size, look down their whiskered noses at the rest of us. Their tenuous connection to the kings of the jungle has given them a misplaced superiority complex so that even the mangiest moggie behaves as if everyone else, including humans, are peasants whose sole function is to serve him. And, of course, like the upper classes they think they are, they kill - not for food but for pleasure. Cats play with their prey. They don't just let them die cleanly, they have to make them suffer. I bet if they would deign to talk they would even assure us that birds really ENJOY being murdered. Dogs, on the other hand, are more like your laid-back hippies, who want to make everyone, particularly their owners, happy - man. And woman. They are forgiving and will do everything which is asked of them. They are loyal and faithful and, in exchange for a meal a day and a clap, they will slavishly love, honour and obey their owners until they go to that great kennel in the sky. You cannot, of course, train cats to do anything unless it suits them - particularly in the matter of defecation. Some may, occasionally, if they don't fancy going out, use their litter trays. But they assume gardens are their personal conveniences. Tip: do not have gravel paths if you live next door to a cat. So yes, dogs do dump where they shouldn't, but only if their owners are too idle to either teach them or to wield the pooper scooper. Finally, can you imagine guidecats for the blind? Or guard cats? Where cats are solitary and selfish, dogs want to be part of the pack. They would give their lives for their family. Same could be said for their owners.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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