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I own a cat and the cat does not understand a single word I say. On the other hand, I have owned dogs that understand a wide variety of words and even complicated (for dogs) phrases such as "Want to go for a walk?" or "Want to go for a ride (in the car)?"

I had a dog that when hungry, would actually trot over to me with his empty food dish and flip it over at my feet. I have never had a cat do anything quite like that.

It is a common perception that cats are smarter than dogs but I am not convinced. While dogs are certainly more high maintenance and more obsequious and submissive than cats, which are admittedly less dependent upon humans, I think that dogs are much smarter.

Nevertheless, cats have their place too. The cat that I presently own keeps rodents out of the house and for that alone, I appreciate having a cat around the house. But dogs are much better companions (and good burglar alarms too).

Cat's can be a kind of passive alarm. When I was single and something went bump in the night, I would just check the cat. If she was cool, I knew there was nothing to worry about. The other morning, there were strange, remote noises in the house and DH and I were trying to find the source. When we caught the cat staring intently at the attic door, we knew it wasn't just tree branches scraping the house - there was a squirrel stuck in the attic (still haven't figured out how it got in!).

Both cats and dogs seem to have some kind of internal GPS. When we pull out of the driveway and turn right, kitty starts coming unglued because that's the way to the vet. If we turn left, she is cool, because that means a visit to Uncle K, her other favorite person.