Pets

[teamsaint]

:
That plus the need to pick up warm poop in plastic bags the whole time renders the whole canine idea a complete non-starter for me.

imagine trying to market a product with this as a design feature .

[pastoralguy]

I recently found a 16mm film on eBay that had been taken very close to where I grew up in Edinburgh. The film focuses on the Fountainbridge area of the city whereas I lived about a quartet of a mile away in the slightly more upmarket area of Viewforth. The film was taken in 1979 and was a fascinating reminder of that part of my native city when I was growing up there. However, I was shocked to see how dirty the buildings were in those days, probably not helped by the fact that there was a brewery and a rubber mill in the area. This may sound irrelevant but, when the rubber mill closed, parts were demolished causing a migration of mice (and probably rats!) to the surrounding buildings. This caused such consternation that my parents decided to get a cat. We still had a coal cupboard in the house and my mother was horrified to find a nest of mice had taken over. So, we got a cat that my sister and I named Fluffy! So, we've had cats ever since.

[MrGongGong]

Are you blind?
Do you have a flock of sheep?
Do you need to sniff out narcotic substances?

If the answer is NO and you live in close proximity to other human beings do you really think a dog is a good idea?

[gurnemanz]

I have nothing against pets as such but would not want the encumbrance and expense and noise and smell of a dog. My sister has a delightful dog as a pet, but it is not an edifying spectacle to observe it licking its private parts in full view in the living room.

Ideally, a pet's toilet arrangements would take place within the confines of the owner's premises, not in public view. A local cat regularly uses our garden for this purpose. I have allocated one old garden trowel to the specific task of clearing this stinking muck up, which will kill the grass if you leave it there. They attack garden birds and a cat once jumped on and killed our daughter's pet rabbit which was in a run in the the garden. Cat owners let their animals roam free without knowing what they get up to and get upset when ghastly things happen to them as a result.

Dog owners do for the most part clear up after their animals, but the bright red dog excrement boxes are not a welcome adornment to the local environment, especially when overflowing. Why shouldn't dog owners be made to pay for these bins and the cost of emptying them by some sort of dog licence? Most garden fences round here are stained green at dog-pee level. Dog walkers think nothing of letting their pets urinate on the flowers bordering the pavement at the front of our house, even within our full view. They clearly think it is acceptable behaviour.

[Serial_Apologist]

I don't like dogs at all - too boisterous and/or randy in the main, as well as too right wing. But I love cats, to the degree that my ability to empathise with them - they always come over at my invitation unless clearly pre-traumatised - has suggested that I maybe was one in a previous incarnation, though I don't absolutely believe in the latter. My ex-girlfriend nags me to get one as a pet - she has always had at least one - but for one thing health problems are a reminder of my age, and vet charges are huge, imo, so I am able to enjoy the neighbourhood cats for nowt, and one greets me like no other person ever has, whenever I go out, challenging the widely held view that cats don't care. As well as being smelly, dogs seem either too randy to species other than their own, too vicious or too obsequious; cats' main fault is that they often torment their live prey, though in a TV programme about feline habits out of human sight, this was suggested as likely to outbreed itself as domestication goes on.

[Serial_Apologist]

Are you blind?
Do you have a flock of sheep?
Do you need to sniff out narcotic substances?

If the answer is NO and you live in close proximity to other human beings do you really think a dog is a good idea?

You missed out "do you hunt?"

[Nick Armstrong]

imagine trying to market a product with this as a design feature .

[Nick Armstrong]

it is not an edifying spectacle to observe it licking its private parts in full view in the living room.

An indelible memory of Christmas past is of the consequences of giving the cat at home some pre-Xmas foodstuffs (giblets probably); almost precisely on the downbeat of "Once in Royal..." at just gone 3pm on Christmas Eve, the treble soloist was accompanied by said cat projectile-vomiting across the hearthrug.

Laugh? I almost spilt me advoCAAAT!

Ahh - we still reminisce about that heart-warming festive moment!

[Richard Tarleton]

Are you blind?
Do you have a flock of sheep?
Do you need to sniff out narcotic substances?

If the answer is NO and you live in close proximity to other human beings do you really think a dog is a good idea?

I learnt a useful variant on an old proverb from a farmhand I worked alongside about 40 years ago:
What the eye doesn't see, the foot treads in

[burning dog]

I don't like dogs at all - too boisterous and/or randy in the main, as well as too right wing.

The running dogs certainly are

[Serial_Apologist]

An indelible memory of Christmas past is of the consequences of giving the cat at home some pre-Xmas foodstuffs (giblets probably); almost precisely on the downbeat of "Once in Royal..." at just gone 3pm on Christmas Eve, the treble soloist was accompanied by said cat projectile-vomiting across the hearthrug.

Laugh? I almost spilt me advoCAAAT!


Ahh - we still reminisce about that heart-warming festive moment!

Reminds me of the story about the young man with a bad stammer, who, on moving to a village, finds that he is too shy to strike up acquaintanceships. Eventually the local vicar takes pity on him, and invites him round to the vicarage for afternooon tea with himself, his wife and their daughter. During a long pause in the conversation the young man notices the vicarage cat vigorously licking its paws. "I b-b-b-bet you c-c-couldn't d-d-d-do that" he says to the daughter - by which time the cat is licking itself somewhere else!

[gradus]

We have two cats and we're very hapy with them and I think vice versa. Can't think of any downside, we get on just fine. My wife doesn't like dogs although I do, so we compromise by not having one!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Reminds me of the story about the young man with a bad stammer, who, on moving to a village, finds that he is too shy to strike up acquaintanceships. Eventually the local vicar takes pity on him, and invites him round to the vicarage for afternooon tea with himself, his wife and their daughter. During a long pause in the conversation the young man notices the vicarage cat vigorously licking its paws. "I b-b-b-bet you c-c-couldn't d-d-d-do that" he says to the daughter - by which time the cat is licking itself somewhere else!

There is also the Mike Harding version - as a young man, he was taken to meet his girlfriend's parents. Conversation was stilted, and gradually peetered out until MH noticed the family dog licking its "somewhere elses".

"I wish I could do that!" said MH
"Offer it a biscuit and it might let you," responded the girl's mother.

[Dave2002]

I have nothing against pets as such but would not want the encumbrance and expense and noise and smell of a dog.

Large ones can be very smelly. My friend has one, nay two - rhubarb tarts!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I have nothing against pets as such but would not want the encumbrance and expense and noise and smell of a dog.

. . . which is exactly why cats are so perfect. They spend 70% of their lives asleep, keep themselves clean and well-groomed and keep the local rodents at bay.