At the risk of being dog-tagged for life as a
mutt-hater, I’m sticking to my view that cats make better pets than
their canine cousins. With one exception.
Dogs keep you fitter – and the bigger the
better. In fact, if you can afford to buy and feed a Pyrenean
mountain dog, he’ll be happy to drag you on a double marathon
‘walkies’ over the nearest mountain range – in record time.
Before I came to Spain, my house in Manchester was like a Home for Lost Pussies. So many waifs and strays
came and went that I swear our friendly little dog Carrie thought she
was a moggy herself.
She was certainly adept at squeezing
herself through the cat-flap as a quick means of exit, even if the
poor mongrel never quite mastered the art of getting back in
unassisted.
Because so much commitment is involved, I’ve not
owned a dog since Carrie died aged 15 of a heart condition. However,
my love affair with cats purrs along today at my villa near
Guardamar, where I have two permanent residents and also spend considerably more on feeding the local stray and feral community than I do on myself. Hence most of them are even more, shall we say, 'rounded' than myself.
I also have my own two black cats, Tommy and Molly, though Molly has her own agenda - she moves in with Barbara and Ross in the next street whenever they are over from England. It might just have something to do with being the centre of attention.
The sad thing is that only two of the 41
villas in my immediate neighbourhood has a regular feline presence. In fact, there are only a handful of dogs as well, which is perhaps the reason our local Spanish vet bought his home slap bang in the middle of us. It's his way of keeping business and pleasure apart.
My biggest worry is what to do with Tommy and Molly if ill health forces me to return to the UK. The obvious thing is to take them with me - but I fear they may have trouble settling in because they can only miaow and purr in Spanish and Catalan. Not to mention the menace of moving to Manx-chester, the city which gave its name to cats with no tails.
Equally, there are residents who actually believe that feeding feral cats encourages an infestation of vermin. The reality is that where there are cats, there
are unlikely to be rats. In fact, any roaming rodent that wanders
into the vicinity of Tiddles’ mouth is likely to become
rat-atouille in an instant.
In my last article on dogs and cats, I gave you chapter and verse on doggy poo and the filthy creatures which deposit and leave it as the staple diet for the soles of our shoes. I wish someone would invent incontinence
pants for out-of-control growlers (that’s roughly 93 per cent of
all dogs, by my reckoning) and with it redefine the expression
‘’doggy-bag’’.
I must emphasise here that a ‘’catty bag’’
is not the feline equivalent of a doggy bag, but a label one might
put on a spiteful female of the human variety. I’m told that
efforts were once made to breed a cross between a cat and a dog known
as a ‘’catty bitch’’ but the animal was so venomous that
scientists abandoned the project.
More seriously, cats are considerably less trouble
than dogs. To start with, they never need a bath (just try giving
them one and you may well get your head ripped off). They spend half
their lives washing their body, legs and tail with their own saliva –
and the other half trying to paw it all onto the top of their head, the one place their tongue can’t reach.
While Tiddles always washes herself, all Fido much
prefers to wash YOUR face, hands, feet with a giant moist tongue that
is as soft as a cat’s is rough. Keeping Fido himself clean is a major operation.
The best bet is probably to plonk him in the bath under a warm
shower, though that is a bit of a gamble in itself. He’ll either
love it or make a dash for safety, leaving the entire house three
inches deep in water on his romp to the open front door – and thence to the nearest garden wall for a mega-sniff of his pals’ doggy wee.
Unlike Fido and his mates, cats will also control
their motions almost indefinitely. If there is ANY way Tiddles can
avoid messing in the house, she will. I had one amazing female cat who, having sussed out the sewage system and knowing she’d fall
off the seat if she tried to use the loo, always urinated in the
bath. And immediately over the plughole, too. That’s what I call a well-drained pet (the
puns get even worse!)
Every moggy will head instinctively for the great
outdoors when nature calls. Tiddles’ biggest failure here is that
she tends not to look while she is burying her poo. She prefers to
whirl round and round kicking soil, gravel and defecation into the
air.
The end product is often a mound of soil topped by
a modicum of No.2 – perfect for Fido to stick his nose in next time
he comes back from soiling the neighbourhood streets.
Yet overall, and despite my own bias, it seems
that animal lovers generally prefer dogs – but only just. A survey
of 3,000 people in the UK found that 31% cent of households owned
dogs and 26% cats.
All I can say is that if people are happy
combining walkies with cleaning up their dogs’ runnies, that is
their business. Personally, I’d rather settle down with my cats and
watch our favourite film.
The Mog-nificent Seven.
