Qualities and characteristics of cats and dogs, a comparative essay

Cats and dogs are the most popular pets in this side of the globe, and also popular culinary dishes in the other side of the world, but that is a subject that we won’t discuss here. Dogs have receive the title of “man’s best friend”, while cats have being relinquish to a second level. I am not trying to convince anyone that one is better than the other, but there are some differences that should be taken into consideration.

When you get a new puppy or kitty, potty training can be difficult, like when you are potty training a 2 year old. Puppies, I have found, are more difficult to train than a cat. A puppy needs to be taught that they have to do their peeing or popping outside of the house, since it can leave a bad odor in the floors, sofas, beds or the house in general. Cats are easier to train. Once you show then where their litter box is, they know where to do it, and it’s very difficult that they do it around the house. You can also teach your kitty to use the toilet seat with a fantastic DVD sold by Litter Kwitter.

Dogs are easier to take out for a walk. You can put a leach on them and walk or run with them around your neighborhood or a park. Some people are taking their dogs everywhere, including malls, with their leach or a dog stroller. Yes, now dogs have strollers too, like babies. Cats do not like the leach. They like to be free and walk whenever and wherever they want. I tried to put a leach on my cat, Maquiavelo, once since he was so energetic. I thought I could take him out for a walk. But he paralyzed when I put it on. I have desisted on this idea, also because he scratched me when I took it off.

Dogs cannot clean themselves. Depending on the dog and the dogs surrounding, you have to bathe them at least every two week, sometimes a week. If you have a dog that has a lot of hair, you also need to brush their hair, almost twice a week, so it doesn’t get tangled. Cats clean themselves, not because their owners are lazy, but because their body is prepare for that. Cats have in their tongues backwards-facing spines made of keratin. They are rigid and function like a brush when they lick their fur. Since I suffer from asthma and allergies, I bathe my cat at least once a month. He really hates it, and I have to do it with long sleeves because he will scratch me till I am done.  

On the other hand, dogs have a schedule more or less equal than humans. During the day is when they concentrate more their activities. Dogs have a sleep time average of 10 hours per day, like humans do. And they tend to have dreams. Play during the day, and sleep during the night, like most humans do. Cats pretty much do whatever they want regarding their schedule, and are more nocturnal. They tend to be active during the early mornings. They take a lot of naps during the day, and are active during the night, like hamsters. This is called crepuscular behavior. After finding this fact, you might think cats are more Twilight fans than dogs are. This can be a problem, because sometimes you want to sleep, and you cat wants to play. That’s when they start licking your neck and pushing their little paws on your chest, that can hurt because their nails come out and scratch you.

Dogs can be taught tricks; they will catch a ball or a Frisbee. Roll over and play dead. Cats will look at you, yawn, and then cat nap again. The only time I have seen my cat play dead is when he was a little kitty and was trying to play with Felix, the older house cat. Felix doesn't like to play with Maquiavelo, he still doesn’t understand why. One day he was ready to play, started running towards Felix, and when he hissed at him, Maquiavelo suddenly stopped and “drop dead”. It was funny, and I have only seen it once. Too bad I didn’t have a camera with me at the time.

People say that dogs will wait for their owners at the door when they come from work, but everyday my cat waits for me at the door. They also say dogs can feel when their owners are sad, depressed or happy, and they can join the happiness or try to cheer them up, but this is a characteristic I have seen in cats too. They are both certified breeds for Emotional Support Animals, as well as monkeys, ponies, and birds. So this quality can be questionable.

Being a past dog owner and a recent cat owner, you can see that both animals have their own traits and qualities. And although dogs can be call “man’s best friend”, it’s a personal choice when you choose the kind of pet you want to have, because both have their own uniqueness’s. 

Background check? How did it shape me?

I am the youngest of my family. Actually I am the youngest of generation in my dad’s side of the family. I have two older brothers, way older than me. One is 13 years my senior, and the other is 9. I have always thought I was an unplanned baby, since there is a huge gap between us, but that is one question you can’t pop to your parents. “Hey mom, so, was I an ops?” I wouldn’t blame alcohol, since they are very Christians and I have never seen them drunk.  They  were into their forties when they had me. My dad worked for the Federal government, and my mother work with the State Government. They had 7am-4pm jobs, so most of the time I spend it with my brothers or at my Nana’s. Is not that I didn’t see my parents, but my dad put long hours at his job during the week, and on the weekends he and mom worked around the house. We usually spend Sunday’s together, at church, a very hot boring church if I can say.

During the week I stayed at my Nana’s, they lady that took care of me after school. It was in the projects were my mother grew up. I walked to her house every day from school with my brother, the middle one. I really hated this because I am pretty sure my mother gave my brother money for the bus, but he always had to have a mayorca for snack after school so we would walk while he ate his mayorca. We would walk from bus stop 19 in Santurce to stop 24, and then we would get deep into Santurce to get to Nana’s. Every day I saw so many people, mostly people that worked in the businesses or government offices in Santurce, but I would also see so many homeless people, which became regulars in our walks, or just random characters that lived in Santurce at the time. We always remember La Nena, because she was really hard to miss. She was this 70 something lady that would wear neon spandex and very revealing shirts for her age. She wore heavy make up all the time and very high heels. I don’t think she was a prostitute, since she was so old, but there was something about her. She looked so sad, all the time.

Once at my Nana’s house I would meet other kids that were waiting for their parents too. We took a shower, ate, and made our homework. Since my mother was from the projects, I was the only one allow to go out and play with the “local” kids. Most of them were from single parent homes, or they lived with their grandmothers. We would play Cops and Bandits, I was always a cops, and I was so slow it was torture. We also used to climb up where the garbage cans were. I know it sound really nasty, but it wasn’t. The cans were in this little open space and had the handyman’s office right next to it. So we would climb up to the little roof and just jump back to the ground. They treated me differently, because although my mother was a “local”, she left the project, and was middle class now. So no matter how fast I ran, how good I was at baseball or jumping fences, I was not one of them completely. I was also the only girl most of the time, so that was another battle I had to fight. A girl couldn’t be that good at baseball apparently.

The time I didn’t spend at Nana’s I was at home. We lived in a nice neighborhood. The one were house have pools and baseball hoops. During the weeks I would get home and read a little bit, eat again and then go to bed. No wonder I was so overweight during my teenage years. I spent half of them eating. I really didn’t like sleeping at my house. My brothers were always making night pranks, and I was always scared. I never went to bed before midnight and that very hard for a kid. There is not so much you can talk with your dolls at 9. I was always aware, because they teased me a lot, and took advantage of their age against me. Sometimes my mother would leave them chores to do, and they would make me do them. All the time.  My parents never knew they “abused” me that much, since they thought being older they would have been more responsible and caring to their little sister. But now that I am older, I don’t blame them. It’s in our genes, making fun of people, pranking them. I would have probably done the same.

During the weekends, if the abuse wasn’t going on, we would go out around the island, and on Sundays we would go to church. My parents were very involved in church. So involved that sometimes during the week, we would go to church too. I didn’t mind going to church, except for the heat in that building. It was so hot, that if I wore pantyhose I’d be scratching my legs the whole service. My brothers went with us until they were old enough to decide that church on a Sunday wasn’t fun, and the bed was cozier than a wooden bench. I had to keep going, not only because I was a minor, but I was a Sunday school teacher to kids younger than me. At first it was very fun. But when I got into my teens I also wanted to stay in bed.

Once I got into college I broke down the church cycle. Little by little I stopped going. When you start college, you blend with so many people. You start questioning things you didn’t question before. And you sadly start seeing the reality of life. I started to see how they would say things in church, like loving everybody, but then slashing people that didn’t believe in what “we thought”. I started to see that to be a good person, a good civilian; you didn’t have to go to church. My mother kept begging me to go to church, she still does, but I have come to an agreement of going once a year, twice if there is something very important, like a baptism. 

So being the youngest of the family, and spending time with different kinds of people shaped me into the person I am today. I don’t judge people from their background. I have been in both sides of the spectrum, and there is no difference. If you are a good person, why should it matter where you were raise or grew up? I blend well at very group I have to join or work with. When you are the youngest you get raise by your parents, your brothers, your nana, the church, school, and you get a little bit of every one. At least I did. I am a blend of the way my parents thought, of what brothers made me do for them, what I taught in church, what I learned in college, and what I believe now. I am probably not what my parents expected me to be, but I have never been arrested (knock on wood), never been fired from a job. And everybody that meets my parents tells them how great of a person/friend/coworker I am.

I might be the youngest, but I honestly think I am the wiser, and funnier.