Sure, in our modern-day world, detached from nature, you might call it a tie, after all, it’s just a matter of preference. If you look at human history as well, though, dogs are the clear winners. We might not have gotten to where we are today without them. You can’t even begin to make the same argument about cats. They might catch a mouse now and then, but a cat isn’t going to guard your livestock, help you hunt for your food, or drive off large predators intent on killing you and your family.
“...a cat isn’t going to guard your livestock, help you hunt for your food, or drive off large predators intent on killing you and your family.”
That’s what my grandmother, who grew up on a farm in Northern Ireland would say. She had such respect for the dogs they had. She would always talk about how the dogs would take the sheep out in the morning, watch them all day, and bring them home at night.
In the US I don’t think she ever had a dog as a pet, but I know they had cats when my mom was young. Punjab was their great cat, he was almost killed by bluejays once and he could open a bedroom door by shaking it from the bottom.
But she didn’t have much use for cats, and I guess she didn’t really see dogs as pets.
That is also debatable. There is a reason cats were regarded highly in a number of cultures (particularly agrarian cultures) due to the impact they had on grain and food supplies (rodent control which was important not only because rodents could eat the grains, but just as, if not more importantly, because the rodents would leave droppings in the grains that can cause mass food poisoning). That is one of the main reasons why cats gained prominence in Egypt and got associated with the goddess Bastis. Interestingly, by the way, one of the major theories behind the Bubonic Plague in Europe, which killed a THIRD of Europe (25 million people) in just 3 years, is that the mass killing of cats (by the start of the 14th century the European population of cats was down to few wildcats as most domesticated cats had been killed due to their association with the devil and heresy) had caused the rat population to significantly surge. I doubt killing most domestic dogs in Europe would have led to the death of 25 million people in 36 months.
Technically, even in history at best it is a tie when it comes to dogs vs cats (and considering human civilization started to rise with the agrarian revolution, the impact of cats had an effect that most canines would find it difficult to match).