I’ve always been a ‘cat person,’ but I never fiercely defended my loyalty until I met someone who has to insist dogs are better and can’t abide someone having a different preference.
I don’t like that now I tend towards looking down on dogs (and by extension dog people) and comparing them unfavorably to cats. I don’t want to do it! I’ve always liked dogs, too–I just prefer cats. There was no mental shift to some different ideology. The only thing it took for me to start getting prejudiced was for a prejudiced person (on the other side) to start putting me down by implying that cats were obviously inferior and an inferior choice. This is all defensive.
It’s so stupid. If the original person (who is a family member, who I see maybe once a month) had enough confidence and security that they could live with having a preference and not needing it to be the One Right Choice, I wouldn’t be having these thoughts. This is the kind of person who really thinks there is One Right Way to do any thing and if someone does it differently than she does, it’s Wrong.
I’d always seen “Do you prefer cats or dogs?” as a neutral question, like “What’s your favourite colour?” Then this family member’s mother once pestered me at Easter dinner about whether I thought there were more cat people or dog people. I really didn’t know and I really didn’t care so I started by just giving non answers like, “I’m not sure,” or “It’s probably pretty even.” But she kept at it! The most definitive answer I gave was, “I don’t know if there’s really a consensus,” which made her raise her voice and say, “There is a consensus!!” (OK, then what is it? If you’re so sure that there is one, why don’t you tell me what it is?)
That’s how this person was raised. Everything’s a battle between Right and Wrong and everyone else does it the Wrong way.
This person has a dog and rarely volunteers something positive about the dog. She only starts talking about how Dogs are great when we talk about how much we love our cats! Do you know how infuriating that is? We’re expressing joy and talking about how happy our cats make us. And then she–not responding directly of course–perhaps it’s just merely a non-sequitur–starts posing the question about whether dogs or cats are smarter? And that it’s probably dogs.
We say our cat’s name and how he’s so beautiful, and he looks off in the distance. The typical cat thing of needing to not show too much interest even though they love that you’re focusing on them. And she says, “See, if you said a dog’s name, it’d look at you. Cats aren’t smart enough to know you’re talking to them.” I say my cat’s beautiful and it makes her insult me [really passive aggressively]. I can’t be happy with a choice she wouldn’t make.
I can’t be happy with a choice she wouldn’t make. That’s her in a nutshell.
What’s also funny is that she has some prime cat personality traits. (Especially the ‘I want attention but I’m not going to admit it, so I’ll just interrupt you and be a nuisance so you’ll pay attention to me.”) But she wants other people to be like dogs because she likes that dogs are attentive and want to please her. She doesn’t like cats because they don’t treat her like she’s the centre of the universe. It’s pretty clear that it’s basically a tantrum she’s throwing because the cats have boundaries, which she can’t abide anyone to have.
But it still hurts and upsets me. I know exactly what’s going on here. I know she’s taking out her insecurity and One Right Way mentality on me. It’s just really telling that I can still start to get snippy about dogs even though I’m aware of what all is going on.
I do want to find a way to respond to her (and to my own feelings when I’m by myself). Something like: I’m always happy when people love animals and have animal friends. I’m glad I can have that with my cats and I’m happy when people have that with their dogs.
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