The resignation last week of James Garnor, a parish councillor in Whittlebury, Northamptonshire, may look like further proof of the maxim, established by the infamous Jackie Weaver lockdown meeting, that low-level politics produce high-level emotions. However, the cause of his undoing was nothing as trivial as democratic principles; it illustrates a far more profound question that, sooner or later, we all confront: are you a cat or a dog person?
Garnor, we may safely conclude, is not a cat person. He quit following allegations that he rigged up a bird table with a firework device so that it exploded when a cat paid a visit. The consequences of this shocking but non-lethal incident, which took place back in 2023, have only now come to a head, but it’s fair to say that, as anti-cat statements go, a remote-detonated IED is at the extreme end of things.
Apologists for feline terror will doubtless argue that it wasn’t really anti-cat so much as pro-bird. For it’s estimated that domestic cats account for more than 50m avian deaths each year in the UK.
As the dog-lover’s favourite walk is up on the moral high ground, that’s a statistic that could appear decisive in the matter of which species of pet is most deserving of our respect and affection. But before anyone cracks open a celebratory can of Chum, let’s note that one Australian study found that dog-walking in woodland led to a 35% reduction in bird diversity.
Added to which, there’s also a 5,000-10,000 annual UK death count of sheep (mostly lambs) to be placed in the canine con column. Suddenly that familiar hangdog look, often witnessed when a cut of meat goes missing, makes more sense.
It’s a measly number compared with the 14m sheep slaughtered each year by human hand in this country, but then this is not about us. It’s about their relationship with us.
“What relationship?” is the question many dog people might ask of cats. For, make no mistake, you could die in a ditch before your average kitty would give you a second look – unless it’s feeding time. Imperious, capricious, indifferent, oblivious and bored are just some of the adjectives that are closely associated with what we must term the feline mystique.
If that sounds harsh, it should be said that these are the very same qualities that many of us look for in our partners in human relationships. Perhaps this is why it is often and wrongly claimed that Sigmund Freud said: “Time spent with cats is never wasted”, as if their enigmatic detachment repaid close behavioural study.
In reality he once wrote to a friend: “I, as is well known, do not like cats.”
Yes, the father of psychoanalysis was actually a dog person, and dog people appreciate other characteristics such as loyalty, obedience and enthusiasm. Or to put it another way, eager subservience.
Philosophically speaking, is it better for an animal to be content in servile compliance or miserable in haughty independence? Which is smarter, the stoic conformist or the high-maintenance rebel?
Looked at from a different perspective, dogs aren’t submissive and oppressed but noble and collaborative, and cats aren’t suave and independent but selfish and calculating. The American cultural critic Adam Gopnik once went so far as to argue that all cats are Republicans and all dogs are Democrats, although that was before the rise of Donald Trump and the triumph of fat cats and top dogs.
It’s easy to run through their respective plus points: dogs can help the blind but cats are less needy; you can’t take a cat for a cross-country walk but then you don’t have to; dogs greet each new morning as if it were their first, while cats are cool if you just want to have a lie-in.
Yet this doesn’t establish exactly why we like one more than the other or what the healthiest preference is. Perhaps we are approaching this pet battle from around the wrong way.
The problem with deciding who most merits our indulgence is that it’s a question driven by sentimental preferences. All those wasted hours of scrolling through videos of daredevil cats living their nine lives and hysterical dogs reuniting with someone they haven’t seen for a decade are, like so much in the digital world, siloed endeavours, reaffirming tastes we already hold.
The age-old nature of the subject demands a more primal reckoning. It’s not about whom we love most but whom we dislike most. The critical thing about us is not whether we’re cat or dog people but whether we’re anti-cat or anti-dog people. Our latent antipathies may be more telling than our avowed predilections.
Garnor clearly nailed his colours to the bird table, but say what you like about cats, they’re not in the habit of leaving a steaming shoe-ready pile on the pavement. And they don’t go to pieces if you go out for the day. Nor do they bark or bite.
Cats can be vicious, especially with other cats (and birds), but around humans they’re, well, pussycats. Whereas who has ever encountered a salivating XL bully straining at the leash, and felt wholly at ease? As the old joke goes, it may be safe but you’re not.
And yet, and yet, what has a cat ever done for me? They’re all but giant fur balls during the day, as animated as a scatter cushion. Then at night they’re out screaming like wounded banshees, martyrs to petty territorial battles. They are, let’s face it, squarely among life’s withholders and takers, those incurably precious beings whose idea of giving is tolerating your generosity.
That doesn’t mean they should be blown up. I’m not deranged. But when I see our 11-year-old terrier growl at some insouciant moggie strolling along the top of the garden wall, I know in this ancient enmity which side of the fence I’m on. I’m Team Bow-wow all dog day long.
• Andrew Anthony is an Observer and Guardian writer
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