Peace With Cats Around

Having lived with cats for 40 years now, there is no comparison to living with dogs as we did in our younger days and I would never want to do that again. Cats are such very peaceful creatures, also so very fascinating, I could just sit all day and watch our two and never get bored. Every sound a cat makes is beautiful to me, a meow, purr, even the yowl of an un-neutered tom cat sounds like a snatch of opera to my ears.

Peace with cats compared to dogs
Poster by Ruth aka Kattaddorra
Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

Babz and I were talking to a neighbour at our gate recently and we were telling her about the torture of living between two houses with two noisy dogs in each. The barking and howling was driving us mad! I remarked that we shouldn’t have to listen to them day after day, sometimes at night too, why should we have to suffer from their choice of pet! All the time we were chatting, dogs were barking near and far, there must be countless people pestered by the noise from neighbours dogs. Do they not get on their owners nerves too? Surely they must!

To have dogs you should have time to give them, take them for walks and train them, why do people who don’t want or haven’t the time to do that, get dogs at all?

The neighbour we were talking to said ’It’s easy to see that you two don’t like dogs’. But she was wrong! We don’t dislike dogs at all, in fact we love them, but nowhere near as much as cats.

Later I got to thinking about the noises animals make and how a dog’s noise is the most aggravating, stressful noise of all. I don’t know of any other creature who goes on as much as a dog.

Some people say cats are a nuisance, well maybe the ones whose caretakers don’t really care and look after them properly can be, but I’d say dogs are a hundred times more of a nuisance than any cat. The constant noise of a dog can ruin a person’s quality of life.

Our situation has eased a bit as one side neighbour has moved with his two dogs, we hope and pray we get someone in there without dogs next! The other side two yappy terriers are not only a nuisance barking but one jumps snarling at the dividing fence too. Thankfully it’s a good strong, high, new fence and it doesn’t bother our cats at all, they know they are safe, no dogs run loose in our street. But why should we have to accept that we can’t go into our own garden in peace?

Why were dogs designed with such loud and irritating voices they like to use constantly? OK if there’s something to bark at, but most just bark for the sake of it and all you get for complaining is ‘Well dogs do bark’

Thinking about other animal noises, a cow’s moo, a horse’s neigh, a sheep’s baaa, etc, are all very pleasant noises, I think. So who on earth designed dogs to have the ugly noises they make!

Ruth aka Kattaddorra

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45 thoughts on “Peace With Cats Around”

  1. Thanks Ruth aka Kattaddorra
    Its a very kind, truthful, very relax giving article for people like me as I only love these tiny friends of mine and wanna give as much care as possible to them. I wanna live for them and I wanna pet them, touch them, even straight away give them a deep BIG KISS on face, belly, ears and chins. They do the same and lick me, bit my beard slightly and hug me tight.

    I just want to deeply thank you for your effort in the article, thank you <3

    Reply
    • Thank you Ahsan, I think you truly love cats as much as I do. I can’t imagine life without them around, I have worked with them, volunteered with them and lived with them all my adult life, I am very lucky.
      This is Walter and Jozef who are my sun, moon and stars.
      I very much admire what you do for the cats where you live.
      x

      Reply
    • I want to thank you deeply, Ahsan, for all you do for ferals.
      It’s all very important to me.
      The obstacles that you face humble me when I may complain about some of mine.

      Reply
      • Thank you, too sister. Its my duty as a muslim to take care and accept them as I want to accept my self in this world. The welfare is the main task and due to lack of many facilities , I am just bound to my limits, otherwise the world should see a new theory and ideas about cat welfare specially FERAL CATS. I have many in my mind but…. waiting for the positive BEST for them. <3 thanks again. 🙂

        Reply
  2. Ruthie – thank you for another great essay and wonderful poster!

    I differ from you in that I don’t blame a dog for yapping. Dogs are immensely attached to their parents – they have a lasting umbilicus. Human children want to distance themselves from their parents by age 12-13. Dogs? Never. I agree with you, though: certain dogs are overwhelming. Labradors are notorious for pouncing, slobbering on and loving everyone indiscriminately. ‘One-man’ dogs (very reserved) are Dobermans, cocker spaniels and chows – also perhaps Kerry Blue Terriers. When it comes to dogs that don’t bark, think there’s a breed called the ‘Bedlington Terrier’ that looks like a lamb and is near to being completely mute. Not sure of that, though.

    The reason dogs yap is that they’re neglected and feeling lonely. The whippet or greyhound is supposedly a house-dog that enjoys sprawling on your sofa all day, and apparently requires little physical exercise. After my cats passed away, I might have gotten a rescue from the racetrack – such dogs are available over here – but when they’re let loose, they’ll chase down and instantly kill any cat wandering by, and I have one or two that crawl under the fence in one spot in my garden. But again, I’d probably take issue with your assumption that dogs are inherently noisy. They’re just unhappy and relegated to an insignificant object by their ‘owner.’ I’m grateful that the properties out here are large: the one in back is at least three acres, which means I’m not especially bothered by the periodic noise from what sounds like half a dozen dogs kept outdoors year ’round, and fed – who knows – presumably the cheapest pellets from Walmarts. Yes – they’re miserably neglected by the ‘owner’ and at times will all howl in unison. Why? Because they’re bored and spiritually desolate.Why such people have dogs is beyond my comprehension, and I’m sure you feel the same way.

    Other than that, though, this wilderness-neighborhood is quiet as a marble orchard. My garden is twitching with grasshoppers in late summer. Not sure if they are or are not related to those crickets beloved by the Chinese & Japanese, who buy them from a pet store and keep them in a tiny cage inside the house, because they enjoy the noise. Never mind that the cricket suffers in his tiny prison. I enjoy their singing, though, as much as the silver-bell song-fest of frogs all night long, beginning in early February and lasting until mid-May in this neck of the woods.

    But quietude? Yes. And it is sublime. At night you can walk outside and hear nocturnal loons calling to each other — they always chat in the dark and during the day the silence is filled with a temperate rainforest chorus of birds, especially mourning doves.

    Am heading up to the library today after mowing the grass, which has sprung back to life after two days of rain. xx

    Reply
    • Howdy my friend, I don’t blame dogs for barking, they can’t help being dogs, but it doesn’t stop them being irritating because to me it’s a harsh and ugly noise they make, the high pitched wooowooowooo of one of them next door drives me mad, yet the sonic boom of the rottweiler the other side really got to Babz.
      I suppose all humans have different levels of tolerance, but when both lots were at it at the same time it was like living in a kennel block.
      Email awaiting you x

      Reply
    • Hi there Sylvia, I agree that Dogs are often not Cared for Properly. Especially when they are left outside in the Cold with not much Food or haven’t had attention well. My Sister has 4 Dogs which she Cares for Properly. They get to go Inside at nighttime so get a Life of a King. I sometimes have horrible Tolerance to things. Being so Sensitive to things.

      Reply

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