The Truth About Cats & Dogs

[xoxoxoBruce]

Well maybe. At least the truth as one reporter has ascertained.

Cat people really are different from dog people, it turns out, according to a study that really was conducted and, presumably, really did receive some kind of funding. Specifically: dog people are more extrovert and agreeable; cat people are more neurotic, but also more open to new experiences. As a cat person, though currently petless, I accept that trade-off.

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Restricting the discussion to pet-keeping, however, you might imagine things would be clearer – everyone knows pets make us happier and healthier. Who'd argue with that? Well, a fair few anthrozoologists, in fact. (Which is rather awkward and irritating of them. They must be cat people.) Herzog notes that pet ownership has been shown to correlate with better survival in coronary patients and lower levels of depression among the elderly; then again, a Warwick University study found no effect on loneliness in adults, while a Finnish one found pet owners got less exercise and were more susceptible to kidney disease, arthritis and more. Studies of "therapy animals" are similarly ambiguous: dogs seem to bring psychological benefits, dolphins don't.

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Yet to say that our relationships with pets are all in our heads isn't necessarily to denigrate them. Isn't the same true, ultimately, about our relationships with humans, too? There's even an argument that animals' lack of language enriches the interaction, freeing it from the complexities and confusion of thought, leaving only wordless clarity. As the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle puts it: "I have lived with several Zen masters – all of them cats."