Are Ailurophiles More Considerate Than Cynophilists?

By Ruth aka Kattaddorra

I was fascinated when Riverside Robyn in a comment gave us the word ‘ailurophile’ for a cat lover and have searched for the equivalent for a dog lover. It is ‘cynophilist’.

It sounds a very strange word but Michael agrees it is the correct one. This is not an attack on dog lovers, far from it as I too love dogs, but I love cats more. Cats get a lot of bad press from people who don’t like them, but why, when dogs can be so much more of a noise nuisance do they not get bad press too?

Tom cats yowling in the night get buckets of water thrown at them, yet a dog shut out in a kennel howling and barking half the night has to be accepted. This is what is happening at our home, our new neighbour has a rottweiler in a kennel and two jack russells in a kennel joined to it, both have runs attached.

Dog lovers are less considerate than cat lovers
Poster/collage by Ruth aka Kattaddorra.
Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

The first night they barked and howled and whined and bayed, my sister Barbara describes the rottweiler’s noise as a ‘sonic boom’ and she’s right, it comes from the very depths of the dog, echoes around the kennel and out into the atmosphere.

Worse for us is that these kennels are just the other side of the shared garden fence and literally 5 feet from our living room window. He actually had them right by the fence until we asked him nicely to move them, thinking he would to the far side of the garden.

But no, a few feet was all and he now thinks it’s acceptable that as they are a bit quieter at night and we are allowed a few hours sleep, we should put up with the noise from them so close during the day.

‘Dogs bark’ says he, well yes they do and we accept that and are prepared to give and take, but if we wanted the noisy barking by our own window, we would have dogs ourselves.

‘They will get used to you’ says he, meaning of course we will have to get used to them! Thankfully our 2 cats seem to have accepted that they are there and the noise doesn’t bother them, they don’t go in other people’s gardens anyway as ours is cat friendly and they can also go over to the embankment to their hunting ground without bothering anyone.

Walter had one word to say about those dogs to us, he stood in our garden and looked their noisy way and shouted ****WHACK****. Is that the equivalent of us shouting ***SHUTTTTUP***.

I must admit I’ve forgotten I’m a lady and shout some very rude words at those pesky dogs. There’s a stunned silence and they begin again. One of our neighbours heard some of my colourful words and was quite amused, oh dear that’s my good name gone, although she did say she had shouted a few unrepeatable words too lol

The problem is that it’s easy to blame the dogs, even to hate the dogs for our lack of sleep and the stressful daytime noise, but it’s not their fault. Why have dogs living permanently outside, they are not pets, pets live in the house.

Why do some dog lovers think that everyone else has to listen to their dogs, doesn’t the barking get on their own nerves? Not all dog lovers are so selfish of course, we have other neighbours with lovely dogs that they keep in the house, they don’t expect the whole neighbourhood to share their passion for their pets and their aggravating noise.

People with dogs may argue that cats can be a pest to people who don’t like them. Well maybe so if they have irresponsible caretakers, but one thing for sure, cats don’t keep the neighbours awake night after night and they don’t shatter the peace hour after hour during the day.

If cats made a constant noise like some dogs do there would be even more bad press about them and I for one would worry about the effect on neighbours, yet so many people with noisy dogs think others just have to accept their noise.

So, are ailurophiles more considerate than cynophilists?

Would you worry if your pet was disturbing the peace? Oh yes there are laws supposed to stop it, but how effective are they? Not very by the seem of it, we know a family who have had barking dogs not far from them for months now, diaries have to be kept, evidence shown, the dog owner warned, maybe it will come to an unpleasant court case, meanwhile the noise goes on and on and on ……..

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44 thoughts on “Are Ailurophiles More Considerate Than Cynophilists?”

  1. I think barking dogs in my neighbourhood is hugely annoying and the owners should go away with their loud dogs. I know such a person who seems to think the neighbourhood should be thankful for the ‘extra security’ – she doesn’t get it. I would go nuts and call the police and get other neighbours to call the police in order to force them to do something.

    If people like barking dogs they shouldn’t expect others to – it’s wrong. Simple as that.

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    • I feel the same about screaming babies – sorry. I have neighbours who give the whole area the ‘baby treatment’ and it’s not fair.

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        • Me too but I feel like a creep for feeling that way. At least I wish my neighbours would try to stop it screaming and if they cant to put it inside and not keep it out on the balcony with them. It’s a bit unfair for those who didn’t have a baby because we didn’t want the soundtrack that comes with it. But I am far more of a creep than that. I think having babies in this day and age is just plain stupid and selfish. In a world which doesn’t need any extra humans they will struggle to find jobs and suffer the selfishness of previous generations. It’s very selfish for people to do this because they feel they have a right to it. I disagree. We lost our rights ages ago and I can live with that and I will. Sorry for being such d*ck towards an enormous percentage of the world’s population but that is truly how I feel. Even if I met the right lady and wanted to have a kid I couldn’t because there’s no space and no future. If I did it would be purely to satisfy my ideals and desire. I think humans have a history fo being incredibly selfish and if there is one thing that has got to be a big no no it’s making more darn humans.

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          • I think having babies in this day and age is just plain stupid and selfish….

            Yes, it is the stupid human acting in an unthinking way. I think we need mass, obligatory education and indoctrination on how not to breed.

            It is the only way. Most of the world is breeding and it is the poor who do it the most. I don’t blame them and I am sympathetic but it doesn’t help the bloody planet.

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          • I’d just like to add that even 20 years ago things were different – although there was a space issue there was still a positive outlook on quality of life so I only really think its people who decide now or lately to have kids that should really think hard before doing so.

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            • Perhaps. as economically things become more difficult because of higher human populations people breed more as a form of insurance. Most breeders do so in the belief that their kids will earn money for the family.

              It is classic human short-sightedness. Short-sightedness is possibly the biggest human weakness. It is a sign of a lack of cohesion, stupidity and desperation.

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              • I agree – short sightedness is an absolute killer. The inability of humans to look beyond their own lifetimes has drastically changed our lifetimes and we are continuing in the same way. A child of today will still be alive in 60 or 70 years. I wonder what it will be like in 70 years from now. It’s hard not to be pessimistic. I actually think that for westerners to have kids it’s just another form of consumerism. It’s part of the consumers dream to have extra cars extra rooms and extra kids – it’s the dream for so many. In this case the kids are just a part of the consumerist ideals.

                In the developing countries it’s different as you say – more about extra working hands. It can’t work this way. It won’t work this way.

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                • I actually think that for westerners to have kids it’s just another form of consumerism..

                  Yes, I agree. Kids are just another possession in the West. House, car, kids, TV, Fridge, sofa, cat, dog. In that order 😉 People have kids because they want kids. There is no consideration given to what the kid might think.

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        • lol you two will get yourselves in to trouble from baby lovers lol
          I can’t say that I’m keen on them either lol
          Add to the equation next door a 4 year old boy who screams on a morning …mmm…another story but not for PoC

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        • This is my cue to bring out that old chestnut…”I quite like babies – but I couldn’t eat a whole one” boom boom (i’m hearing too much of the sonic boom and starting to boom as much as Basil Brush)

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    • The police can’t do anything! Only the council can and despite phoning them twice they still haven’t got back, other neighbours say they have complained, 2 of the male ones were ‘going to have a word with him’ hah when? Next Christmas?
      It was so peaceful here until the conwoman flitted from the house next door leaving huge rent arrears and it was auctioned and a buy to let got it, the house agent he uses couldn’t care less what the other residents suffer as long as they get the rent paid for their DSS tenants.
      The last 2 were evicted but it took us 9 months and the agent says ‘we are very happy with this tenant’ aaaaggghhhhhhhhh it’s a parallel universe

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      • That’s really horrid – I’m sorry you have to deal with all that. There’s really nothing worse. It can really make you crazy. You have to go talk to all the neighbours and agree on being in it together and then all of you knock on his door or all of you go to the council. They can’t ignore residents in larger numbers and they won’t ignore it.

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      • On a serious note, legal nuisance through noise is not uncommon and I think it is written into council tenancy agreements.

        I am guessing and one does not really want a massive argument with a neighbor because it is a lose-lose situation but if barking dogs are a bad nuisance it must or should be in breach of a tenancy agreement under a heading entitled “nuisance” or something similar.

        If that is so it means the agreement can be terminated and the occupier removed.

        Although, I totally agree that if it is so it will take a bloody lifetime and be hell in the process.

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      • Only the council can…

        The council is manned by idiots or sloths. They are swanning around drinking cups of tea discussing God knows what on inflated salaries. They think they know the answers but know nothing.

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        • lol – lovely picture you paint there Michael. I must agree with it though. It seems council workers in England aren’t in a hurry to do anything useful because I personally think that they don’t really seem to care as long as they have their jobs and monthly paycheque. That’s the awful thing about government jobs. Security without any motivation to do a good job, hence the incredibly slow bureaucratic pace of anything that needs doing. You sort of have to beg and then you feel lucky if something happened as it was supposed to at a reasonable time delay. It’s hard not to expect the worst if you need help with something like a local nuisance. One already assumes they aren’t going to care or help unless they really have to and then if they do it will be not without a grudge of “who are you trying to get us to do our job properly anyway” – it’s all wrong.

          Now this an area in which the Swiss excel. The local council is something people know and like and use most effectively. I have to say that after living here for a while it has become addictive. It’s always a breath of fresh air arriving back in Switzerland because things run smoothly and well and people seem pretty happy about it. There’s very little to be depressed about in that sense. You never walk out of a building with a feeling like it’s all unfair and wrong. It’s pretty cool actually. I can’t even believe I am saying this.

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          • Sounds like Utopia, or almost. Britain is largely broken. There is so much wrong at the moment. Or maybe I’m just being typically grumpy!

            When I was a solicitor I tried to get a job at a council’s legal department. In the interview (there were three of them – all women) I felt like a fish out of water. I was free thinking and they were programmed and unimaginative 😉 Sort of dead.

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        • They don’t care either,I’ve rang them repeatedly asking for someone just to come and see the situation for themselves, right we’ll get back to you …still waiting.
          I wonder how they would like to live like this?
          But it’s mostly the house agents fault, as long as the DSS pay the rent they don’t care that decent people have to suffer from the freeloaders they put in their houses.
          I wish there were cat villages where we who love cats and just want a peaceful life could all live together. Let dog people, baby people, whatever people, live with their own ilk too.

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  2. My God yes some dog owners are very selfish there’s nothing more irritating than constant barking especially at night.Why keep dogs outside I can’t see the point in having them.
    That house next to you must be cursed Ruth and Barbara 🙁
    I also love dogs,had a few rescue ones but they are much more trouble than cats IF looked after as they should be.That’s another thing people grumble about cats but their bury their mess,some dog owners leave their dogs mess for people to tread in,poo on your shoe is horrible and dangerous to kids.
    So I also agree ailurophiles are MUCH more considerate than cynophiles but it’s easier to say cat lover and dog lover lol

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    • Yes, a good point. Cats are criticised for pooing on a neighbor’s garden but many dogs poo on the pavement or in the park when going for a walk and it seems to be accepted. Of course the new regulations in the UK are to pick it up but I don’t know how well enforced it is.

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      • Not well at all, I think Ruth has mentioned one of our local irritating characters who thinks everyone loves her and her dogs which she allows to run free to chase other dogs and neighbourhood cats and cr** on the grass while she gossips her way down the path on each of her twice daily walks, she picks it up alright, oh yes, but then she swings it round a few times and lobs it up into the trees and it hangs there ever after, or at least for the couple of hundred years it takes for the poop bag to decompose. Some people do pick up after their dogs, some have a look round first to see if they can get away with leaving it where it is, some couldn’t give a sh** about where their dog cr** and have no intention of touching the horrible stuff thank you very much.

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  3. A resounding YES and I’m going to keep it simple and just say cat lovers and dog lovers, though sometimes the twain DO meet. The neighbour Ruth describes is what we would call a “man’s head” a little man with a big dog as a **** substitute, he knows it all (he thinks) and is quite prepared to stand and meander through his views on dogs ad infinitum to the point where, on the three occasions I’ve spoken to him about the doggy problem, I’ve had to make an excuse and walk away mid-blether. This morning he came to the door to ask if we’d had a better night after he took the umpteen stone Rottwieler indoors for the night, well yes of course we had even though the 2 jack Russels had tittered away a time or two, it’s the big BOOM of the Rottwieler that shocks us awake,you can feel the vibration as well as hear the roar of it, the JR’s only irritate once we are awake. Anyway in conversation I said to him does the constant barking right outside his patio doors not get on his nerves, “Oh yes it does” says he, “but I go and look out of the window and point at them and they know they have to stop” ha,you could have fooled me. But his whole attitude is that he is a great dog man who has decided to grace next door to us with his presence and though he was willing to move the kennel a couple of feet to accomodate us, plainly he can’t understand our reluctance to have three dogs outside our window and he really thinks we should accept that dogs do bark!! Even for people who choose to be dogless! Meanwhile I don’t think he’s seen and definitely he hasn’t heard our two cats who are no trouble and never have been any trouble to anyone in our Grove. So I say without any doubt at all that cat lovers are far and away more considerate than dog lovers!!

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    • Translation: Your cats get their dogs barking, and all neighbors who have complained about your cats, don’t really exist, or they must be mistaken, or they just hate cats, or …. all the typical excuses that cat-lickers give of why THEY are NEVER the problem. I surmise your dog-neighbors are going to teach you a much needed and MUCH deserved lesson until you figure it out.

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      • Woody, why are you such an complete pain in arse (ass). What happened to you? Were you bitten by a cat when you were 3 years of age? Or was it your father who taught you to hate cats so irrationally? You have to understand that you come across as mad and bad in your comments. You rant and your anger is written all over the page.

        The comment you just made is pointless and senseless. Go away and harass someone else.

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      • Woody you are SO predictable, I was waiting for you to come along and you walked right into the trap.
        Our cats have never set a dog barking in their lives, READ and take this in, they do NOT go into anyone else’s garden, they are quiet and entitled to sit in OUR garden in peace just as we should be! Here is a picture collage:

        our cats in our garden

        Would you like 3 noisy dogs under your window? No sleep? No quality of life?
        As for teaching us a lesson, what the hell are you on about, you are obviously a woman hater as well as a cat hater as well as hating anyone who loves cats.
        You are ugly inside, bitter and twisted and far from convincing anyone you are right, you are poisoning yourself from the inside and will develop a dreadful disease and die ….well I for one won’t be sorry as you are a waste of space.
        You need to figure it out Woody YOU are the problem to yourself, NOT cats, not cat lovers …YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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        • Hi Ruth, I have added your college to your comment for technical reasons. The page will load up faster that way. Well said. Woody just stirs things up. He’s slightly or very mad.

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          • Thank you Michael, now Woody can see our very peaceful cats sitting in our/their own once peaceful gardens, NOT bothering anyone as we don’t bother anyone either apart from helping them when they need us.
            The dogs haven’t even seen the cats, they are shut in kennels the other side of the 6 foot high fence between our gardens, where they see nothing but each other through the run part of them and through the slats in their garden fence at the back they see glimpses of people with or without dogs going past on the path behind the houses, they have nothing to do but bark.
            It has nothing at all to do with our cats, so there is your much needed lesson to figure out Woody. You’ve once again made a complete and utter fool out of your twisted bitter cat hating remarks and proved you don’t even bother reading articles and comments, you just swoop to regurgitate your poison.
            I’m truly sorry for your pointless existence, it must be horrible to be full of hate and have no friends, but you are your own worst enemy.

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        • Thanks for that Ruth. I think he just assumes alot and knows very little. Hate will do that. All he can really do is laugh at us or hate us. Such and enormously incredible loser. You made a good point about your cats being peaceful – he probably needed to know that but I wouldn’t bother doing anything more than laughing at him. He won’t take it into account – he will still think that your cats make the dogs bark. He will die a very unhappy man with nothing left except cynical laughter and anger. He doesn’t realise how painful that is compared to being normal, caring and considerate when discussing issues.

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          • Thanks Marc, yes hatred poisons a person from the inside and they need to spew it out and Woody hopes to spoil our articles and upset us all, but he can’t see that he fails, that we laugh at his stupidity.
            Maybe he thinks if cats didn’t exist in our world then dogs wouldn’t bark any more?
            He has no logical thoughts so I wouldn’t be surprised.

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      • How dare you!! What do you think gives you the right to be so rude and unpleasant to people,why have you posted a reply to my comment which is nothing but a personal attack on me who you don’t know and never will know? You have made up in your stupid sick mind neighbours who you say have complained about our cats – what neighbours? Why would our neighbours complain about cats they rarely see and never hear, and why do you assume that dog loving neighbours are sick cat haters like you are yourself? Ruth never said that the person she is writing about doesn’t like cats and in fact he does like cats and so does his child, he prefers dogs as we prefer cats but that doesn’t make him a cat hater. What is happening has nothing to do with cats, even if we didn’t have cats the noise from his dogs living in a wooden box 5 feet from our living room window and directly below a bedroom window would be unacceptable and a health hazzard. And finally I don’t like your tone in your last sentence, I find it threatening, again how dare you speak about us being taught a much needed lesson? What lesson do you think we need to learn then Woody? Humiltiy? Submission to the male of the species? Slavish, mindless adoration of any dog just because it happens to be a dog? If your intention is to spoil the pleasure of decent people who come to POC then you’re going to be sadly dsisappointed little man so why don’t you go and polish your big car and take your big dog for a walk, yes I think we have here another inadequate little fellow who tries to roar like a lion but is in fact a wee little mousey. “Boo mousey – go away!”

        Reply
      • Sigh aka Woody if your intention was to spoil an article written by a very respected member of PoC then you have miserably failed you inadequate excuse for a human being.
        What’s wrong,have you a w****e the size of a threadworm that anyone who saw it would laugh at?
        You sit in your hovel playing with your mouse because you have nothing else to do and try to make yourself look big and important by coming here,ah now I get it you are banned from every other internet site.
        Buzz off little man you are boring me to tears now with the same old comments time after time,not an original thought in your head.
        Poor sad Woody sitting in his house
        W****e so tiny he plays with his mouse.
        It makes him feel big or maybe feel cool
        He doesn’t know he comes across as a fool.

        Reply
    • we would call a “man’s head” a little man with a big dog as a **** substitute

      Sounds like Woody 🙂

      On a more serious note, some insecure men (with little w*l**s) have dogs to make them feel more secure and more “male” whatever that is. It is a bit like men having big cars. There is an ego problem with the male of the human species and it shows in behavior sometimes.

      Reply
      • Yes it’s a known fact isn’t it? Inadequate males bolster themselves up with flashy twin exhaust cars and big dogs. Pathetic 😉

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  4. Another point. Barking dogs are a massive nuisance, far more than cats can be. All that cats can do is trespass and pee on someone’s garden etc. Mind you, that upsets some people but barking is very disruptive particularly at night.

    I am shocked at the response of your neighbour – far from adequate. I would feel like throttling him.

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  5. I believe I know the answer to this question, which, by the way, is a good one. Men are more likely to be predisposed towards the dog. They are more likely to be cynophilists. I think another word is cynophile. Women tend to favour cats.

    As the male of the human species tends to be more arrogant than the female and as arrogance is a cat’s whisker away from intolerance and being inconsiderate, the answer to the question in the title is, Yes.

    Reply

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