have
a dog that will not stop barking all night (whether inside or out, though if outside the neighbors will call the police ~10pm)
or
a cat that occasionally pees on things that are not hir litterbox (for example, your bedspread or the couch)?
Why? (Answers do not need to be in Haiku.)
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September 15, 2015 at 3:43 am
a dog is your friend for life
a cat will pee on your bed
It means nothing at all
cause we all like things differently
but I like dogs.
September 15, 2015 at 6:33 am
Well, cat. Because cat.
September 15, 2015 at 7:02 am
None. We recently return our cat to the animal shelter for the same reason and got two cockatiel. Couldn’t be happy more.
September 21, 2015 at 10:02 pm
Jeezus fucke. You “returned” an animal to the animal shelter? I can’t even.
September 15, 2015 at 7:03 am
dog. I can buy earplugs, and might enjoy life more sleeping with them. also, I could then leave my windows/doors open/unlocked, because if robber than dog will go bananas.
Incontinent cats destroy houses over sufficient time. And generally do not become more continent in old age, where some barkers do mellow out.
September 15, 2015 at 7:29 am
Dog. There are ways to address excessive barking through training, and — if one wants to be truly cruel — surgery can be used, too.
Cat pee smell is pervasive and very hard to get out of upholstery. At least with bedding you can usually wash it out if you get it promptly. If I had a kitty that peed like that I’d have a water-repelling mattress pad on every bed and I’d use plastic covers on my furniture. I’d still not want such a cat inside, though. I usually don’t support people having outdoor cats but a cat like that needs to be outside.
September 15, 2015 at 7:47 am
As a complete dog lover, I still say CAT in this instance. Two things that I can’t stand & that greatly increase my stress levels and lower my quality of life: 1) loud noises that prevent sleeping and 2) inconveniencing other people. So I would clean up cat pee rather than deal with a bark-y dog. Our dog barks on two occasions: an unexpected door knock (she can tell by our response whether we expected it or not) and when that evil devil, the vacuum cleaner, comes out to play! So…maybe once a week at MOST.
September 15, 2015 at 8:40 am
Barking dogs piss off
the whole block. Up until last
year we actually
lived in/with the cat
situation but I would
still prefer the cat.
September 15, 2015 at 8:45 am
Seriously, dogs that bark excessively can be trained to not do so. Anyone who says otherwise is too f*&%ing lazy to do it or too f*&%ing cheap to pay a professional trainer to help them figure out the best way to fix the issue. Such people should never have a dog anyway.
September 15, 2015 at 12:26 pm
I took the question as stated…meaning you couldn’t do anything to fix the barking (training) or the urinating (maybe a medical issue?) and would just live with it forever. Obviously if I had a dog that started barking like that I would try the training thing, but I wouldn’t knowingly get a dog that barked all night just like I wouldn’t knowingly get a cat that would pee all over my house.
September 15, 2015 at 12:32 pm
Yes, training didn’t work, not a fixable medical or behavioral issue (though I guess maybe one could silence a dog surgically if a vet is willing to do it) , and you don’t have friends with a barn. (Though I suppose sending the creature to the shelter to die is an option.)
September 15, 2015 at 5:46 pm
Training doesn’t always work.
September 15, 2015 at 9:00 am
Dog, assuming training is possible. If the dog could not be trained, i guess maybe the cat. But I’ve known lots of cats that occasionally peed in gross places (my bed!!!!), and never known a dog that barked all night, every night, forever.
September 15, 2015 at 10:36 am
If I already had a dog and it started barking incessantly, I would consult a professional trainer or two, or three, or however many were needed. Likewise if I already had a dog and it started peeing inappropriately, I would consult whatever professionals might help me get to the bottom of it (so to speak).
If an animal new to the household immediately starting displaying behavior problems, however, I would very likely return it to the shelter from whence it came, before an emotional bond was made. I realize that problem animals are more likely to be destroyed, or if in a no-kill shelter, classified as unadoptable, but I’m a little hard-hearted about that. I don’t believe in investing a lot of time, effort, emotion, and money in trying to “save” a problem animal when non-problem animals are being killed by the thousands.
September 15, 2015 at 10:41 am
I already have that cat (she pees in a specific house plant if we don’t clean her litter in time) and would prefer to keep her :)
September 15, 2015 at 10:54 am
Would take both as sign that the animal was unhappy and do best to rehome – perhaps to someone with a lot of land out in the country.
September 15, 2015 at 12:05 pm
I think there is a reason I do not have either/any pets……… And that is prior to hearing what vet bills run these days.
September 15, 2015 at 5:58 pm
I’m with jane. Can I just choose no pets please?
September 16, 2015 at 11:06 am
I hate the dogs that annoy everyone else. At least a cat only inconveniences its own household — the dog’s problem barking has widespread nuisance, and if it’s your NEIGHBOR’s dog barking, you can’t really train it yourself.
September 16, 2015 at 11:13 am
I’m not so sure about a cat only inconveniencing its own household, or maybe you mean in this specific example that’s the case. I’ve seen a LOT of cats wandering around outside here, which shocks me. I’ve been volunteering with a local animal rescue organization and commented on that once to one of the volunteer coordinators and she sort of shrugged and said “cats like to go outdoors” or something like that. In Chicago, you kept your cat indoors if you didn’t want to run the risk that it would get hurt or killed. Here people seem to think that letting their cats roam around (and climb into other people’s yards, stalk the bird feeders, run across the road, etc.) is their god-given right. No wonder they also let their dogs run around off leash in the clearly marked on-leash only areas, too. Ugh. (OK, I’m done ranting about pets and how people do or don’t care for them responsibly now!)
September 16, 2015 at 11:20 am
Indoor/outdoor is definitely an owner choice! (Yes, animals can escape, but that’s still something the owner mostly has control over.) Allowing outdoor peeing would be a potential thing one could do if one owned the peeing cat, just ask keeping the dog indoors at night is something one could do with the barking dog.
September 16, 2015 at 12:19 pm
I personally think pet cats should be indoors all the time unless you have a farm. I would never let ours roam. I wish people would keep their damn dogs indoors. Loud f*ckers. Once I lived near a dog that barked so loudly that when it was INSIDE, you could hear it barking 3 floors away. I hate those asshole humans to this day. That dog was not happy. They swore that training wasn’t a thing that anyone could do. Jerks. I hope they die and the dog gets a better home.
September 16, 2015 at 6:54 pm
Definitely the cat (I, too, have lived in that situation). If the problem were regular rather than occasional, however, I might be tempted toward some combination of indoor and/or outdoor cages and/or confinement to rooms with no upholstery and easily-cleanable floors/floor coverings.
But I’m a cat person (would never get a dog of my own accord, though I’d happily live with one if it were important to a co-habitant who was important to me, or if I promised someone who was important to me to care for the dog in case of their death/disability), and I’m not good with loud noises (if I found myself co-habiting with a regularly-barking dog, I’d definitely explore all remedies short of surgery/direct or indirect euthanasia).
September 16, 2015 at 9:43 pm
Our dog is nigh on perfect but we also already have this dog in the form of a neighbor’s dog who won’t shut up ever. Barks day and night. It’s sort of become my hated background noise. Now if it were my dog, we’d be training that out of him because I’d hate to live with it but it’d still be preferable to the smell of cat pee which I seem to recall doesn’t really come out?
September 16, 2015 at 9:48 pm
It does not.
September 17, 2015 at 8:17 am
Aww, I just feel sad for both theoretical animals. I would say that the cat you could potentially confine to areas less susceptible to pee damage, although that would be a tough life. The dog barking can be trained, as other people say, but a) seems like a *difficult* thing to train (although I’m sure someone could use shock/citronella collar :( ) b) I’m not sure how I’d survive through the training period when the barking problem was still ongoing.
September 18, 2015 at 9:12 am
Just coming back to the indoor/outdoor cat thing. Outdoor cats kill *billions* of birds and small mammals every year. They are recognized as one of the worlds worst invasive species. These are not food kills, they are sport kills – cat’s are sociopaths (I say that with love, I have two cats). Keeping your cats indoors will substantively reduce your detrimental impact on the ecosystems around your home.
Outdoor cats also have about half the life span typically of indoor cats (because they get hit by cars or fall from trees or get into fights etc.). So, if you’re ever in the position to make the choice of indoor vs. outdoor, please don’t make it lightly.
September 20, 2015 at 2:59 pm
Cat. I hate barking dogs.