THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CATS AND DOGS

I have had cats, she showed up in the driveway one night a long time ago and checked me out. She then proceeded to drop kittens in my garden secretary in the back yard. I also had dogs at the time, Buddy, a 115 lb. great dane/ Husky mix and Sadie, a football dog I mean a lhas apso (sp? I don't know...maybe football dog was more accurate, but she was cool). They discovered the kittens. They wouldn't leave them alone. So we moved them into the house and introduced everybody. It worked. Turned out Momma Kitty was kind of a slut, and we had another litter that was recieved with loving arms from all involved, human canine or otherwise. We kept the first litter and adopted out the second...well, one of the second. The other two went to the humane society. The remaining cats stayed with me for a decade. There was mama kitty and her daughters, Ginger and Mary Ann. Mama eventually shined us on for somebody down the street who had a better brand of food and left us. She would come back every year or so to visit and finally fell off the radar. Ginger fell victim to antifreeze ( cat crack ) and I found her stiff in the yard one morning. Mary Ann was the wanderer of the cat family, disappearing for weeks at a time and not very attached. She was seriously injured by another animal at some point and after the vet saved her she hung close to the home for about a year and was a much more loving cat. And then she fell back into her old habits...gone for 3 days, a week, a month and then just gone.
Sadie went back to Ohio with the woman who robbed me of 8 years of my life 11 years ago, I'm sure she has passed through that arch of milkbones by now and is shitting on clouds. Buddy died in my arms in '93 at the ripe old age of 14 and is buried in our back yard.
Then there was Diamond, the boxer, that I got from a treatment center. She demonstrated her loss of her other dog friends by chewing up my sons action figures. So we got her a friend from the pound, Cypress, and it was all good. Ann, Kyle and I picked him out and Diamond loved him. Ann and I took Diamond and Cypress with us on our honeymoon. Three weeks in the Rio Grande National forest in Colorado. It was so awesome to watch Cypress running through the mountains of southern Colorado, and awesome to feel him snuggle up in the tent at night when it got cold, me and Ann and diamond and Cypress all snuggled up. We were a pack. Two weeks after we got home, Cypress was killed by pit bulls from down the street that came into our yard uninvited, diamond was seriously injured but survived. I killed said pit bulls. When Diamond was ready for another partner she let us know by chewing up more of my son's action figures. Enter Skeeter, a brindle male boxer with a penchant for bass and drums. We were lucky to have him for five years and then an aortic anuerism killed him, I found him dead on the kitchen floor one morning.
In short order, we got our current crew. First, Theo, born on the side of IH 35 and whelped at our vet. Then Irene, abandoned on a ranch in south Texas, and then Sullivan, from our vet, because we are suckers for black dogs...he is the hardest case, survivor of parvo, lived in a vet pen for a few months, didn't like men for the longest time.
So we were up to 4 until Diamond died, in my arms at the vet, at the age of 8.
Since then it's been the five of us...five distinct personalities under one roof, not always harmonious, but always family.
And as we go gray together and by virtue, closer, I understand the difference between cats and dogs, and I prefer dogs.
C'mere Theo...gimme a hug.