Dogs or cats? That is a difficult question. I have had dogs and/or cats nearly all my life and my experience is that it doesn’t matter.

I have had a couple of really dumb dogs, I am not being mean, they were just really stupid and unable to be trained and wild. I have had a cat that was crazy, like totally nuts. But these were the exceptions. Most of my pets have been intelligent and entertaining companions, loving and loved.

When I was about 8, my childhood dog once attacked the pants leg of a tax assessor that came to our house when my parents weren’t home and was determined to come in our home and assess our possessions. In the 1960’s that was a thing. You would pay a tax on your appliances or TV if they were newer. I didn’t want that man in our house and my dog chased him right back into his car. She sunk her teeth into his pants leg and wasn’t going to let go, tore his pants, too. I hate to admit I loved the scared look on his face. He thought I was just a dumb, helpless kid, but NO! Of course, later my parents made me apologize to him because they were sure I had sicced the dog on him. I didn’t, we were just that close.

And I had a cat that alerted us one evening when a fire was getting ready to start on a lamp in our youngest son’s room. That cat kept going in and out of the bedroom, crying and carrying on until we couldn’t ignore her anymore. We saw the smoke rising and realized our son had put something over the lamp and it was on the bare bulb. Way back when we used incandescent bulbs.They got pretty hot, and the cat catching that was pretty cool.

I’ve had a lot of cats and a few dogs that were truly remarkable and loved so much. I only have a dog right now, Emmy, and I don’t know what I’d do without her. Dogs or cats, it doesn’t matter as long as you love them and they love you.