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Comment by metadat | Hacker News Reader

At the risk of upsetting the "cat people":

What exactly is peaceful about cats? Cats murder birds and other generally desirable creatures for no purpose other than personal satisfaction*.

I'm struggling to see how they spread peace, except in net when in confined spaces with their owners..

Full disclosure: I've always been more of a dog person. But have known some nice felines, no doubt.

* If cats were somehow able to mostly limit themselves to killing rats and mice, I would be in love with them!

Edit: re: the extreme reactions - the cats people hate this comment, I'm not bothered by a reduction in Internet points, but the tribalism is also pretty hilarious, to be honest. My intent wasn't malicious <3 take care sensitive folks and stay safe

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I have four cats and a dog. I love both dogs and cats.

I used to be a “dog person,” until I fostered about 150-170 kittens (I lost count). My reasoning? If I give them up to adoption homes as kittens, I just get infinite kittens, which is undebatable cuteness with none of the “adult cat” tendencies.

Of course, then I realized that cats, while much-maligned, are really fairly incredible creatures, are extremely different from one another, and have extremely distinct personalities.

So sure, while they may create havoc for small rodents, birds, spiders and the like… they can be exceptionally loving and peaceful animals to their humans and other animals. My dog and cats cuddle together, except for one cat that refuses to accept the dog.

I agreed with fostering too because we could have infinite kittens! What could go wrong? We’ve taken care of at least as many bottle fed kittens. It’s worthwhile but not always fun.

Yeah - sometimes things go wrong in unpredictable ways. But to say it’s been rewarding would be an understatement.

Mmm, and every now and then, a bull terrier or german shepherd or mastiff or pointer or rottweiler or great dane or somesuch turns and kills a child, or even an adult. Usually a child of a dog person. At the risk of upsetting them.

(And that’s before you consider the number seriously injured by mauling. About a third of all people have been bitten by dogs at least once)

It's honestly a little absurd to me how much hand-wringing people do over cats killing birds and mice when society has more or less just accepted dogs killing/maiming humans as a thing that happens.

In fact, many dogs are explicitly kept at least in part for their belligerence, but somehow it's cats that have the reputation of being violent. Is it simply because cats' hunting instinct is uncommanded/uncontrolled by their owners, unlike with [well-trained] guard dogs?

And in many countries it is currently radically worse -- like 200%-300% increases -- because of the number of dogs that were taken on as pets in the Covid lockdown era that are now poorly-socialised three and four year olds.

In the UK the year-on-year rate of death has tripled, AFAIK, and this year does not look better, despite new restrictions on a dangerous breed (the American Bully XL -- absolutely a breed selected for belligerence)

The focus of positive attention they provide for children is valuable and beautiful. This is also true of dogs, however.

They're cute, they have their own distinct personalities, they're curious. The primary reason I, personally, prefer cats over dogs is that you (usually) have to earn the affection, or least lack-of-indifference, of a cat.

The supression of their "kill everything" desire is basically to keep them enclosed such that they can still run and play but not destroy the local fauna. Not an easy or cheap task, depending on one's living conditions.

and how, exactly, does your cat murder birds? did you leave the bird cage open?

oh. you meant feral cats. outdoor cats.

cats really shouldn't be outdoors in most circumstances, and they should never ever be feral.

and feral dogs kill cats, dogs, chickens, goats, sheep, and sometimes horses.

no animal does this for personal satisfaction. see that little word in there: "person". it means what humans do, nothing to do with feral or wild animals which do what they do because they are actually animals. it's a moral code that is far simpler and far more perfect than ours. no animal other than human has ever murdered another (killed certainly).

so you can be a "dog" person or a "cat" person or a "chinchilla" or "rat" or "fish" or "horse" or "chicken" person, or all of the above and more. its means you love and get along with the particular psychology of and interaction with those kind of animals. that's fine. one likes what they like. you may not understand someone else's attraction to spiders or weasels and that's fine too.

but you can't compare bad or feral animal A with domestic family member animal B as some excuse for why your favorite animal is better. that kind of superficial "reason i like X" is a sure tell one doesn't really understand any animal relationship at all.

the attraction to any domestic animal really boils down to the fun and achievement of learning and trust and communication across different brain and psychological types. it's also pretty good practice for communication with different human psychological types. it should be a symbiotic relationship. cats nay be a little trickier than dogs because, at least superficially, some dogs are natural "people pleasers". but dogs can be difficult in their own way. cats are a little less followers. they might agree to be your peer, if you are worth it. it's good for your humility, if nothing else.

and cats make this awesome rumbly noise when they sit on your belly and are happy.

To be fair, cats do play with rodents and whatnot, sometimes just for fun, and bring them home to their humans as a “present” in hopes of praise.

Plenty of indoor/outdoor cats do this, and while I agree that cats shouldn’t be feral, if a cat is too feral to be an indoor cat but works well as an indoor/outdoor cat or barn cat, that is far superior to putting them down.

Such a typical pedantic comment from HN.

Dogs are also carnivores and would hunt and kill smaller animals if left to roam. In western society, there’s more tolerance for outdoor cats. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of an outdoor dog.

I like dogs more than cats, personally.

My cats don't insist on licking my face or jumping all over my toddler and knocking them down and nipping at them. I don't have to walk them every day.

Then again, I love dogs too.

The whole cat-dog person thing is an overblown, unnecessary misconception of reality.

Is it possible to have pets that don't impinge on other life forms? Even placid dogs still need to eat (I'm not sure how popular vegan dog food is, although it does exist). Some (not all) plants are not a net-negative on other life forms, and some chemosynthetic organisms use chemical reactions as their energy source. In the extreme, perhaps those pets wouldn't have any negative impacts on any other life forms. </silly thought experiment>

>Is it possible to have pets that don't impinge on other life forms?

Pet rocks are pretty benign.

Fish?

If you let them outside, then yes generally they become cute little murder machines.

I have cats now, had a dog before, love both, and what you say about cats applies to dogs too in my experience.

Yes, my two Afghan Hounds did recently kill a rabbit. The only creature they've killed in their twelve years.. but you're not wrong, you're right. Thank you, I'll have to reflect on this.

While in the case of dogs, behavior changes a lot by breed (ours was a German shepherd), I think it mostly boils down to how much time they spend outdoors and how busy they are.

It’s possible to have a healthy indoors cat while this probably only applies to some breeds of dogs (certainly not German shepherds… I dearly love (still) her and have her ashes in my desk but I wouldn’t have one again unless I moved to the country and had an actual job to give them).

So basically, I think the secret is, if you have dogs, make sure they get the level of activity their breed demands, and give them a job if they were bred for they, and if you have cats, keep them indoors, or take them out with you around (we do that when ours go out to the balconies and we’ve saved a few birds that way, in fact, the only bird they’ve killed so far got trapped because it flew into the apartment).

Most cats are chill. All creatures kill.

> Don't kid yourself, Jimmy. If a cow ever got the chance, he'd eat you and everyone you care about!

Brick Top: You're always gonna have problems lifting a body in one piece. Apparently the best thing to do is cut up a corpse into six pieces and pile it all together.

Sol: Would someone mind telling me, who are you?

Brick Top: And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it's no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to cows. You got to starve the cows for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a pisshead. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of Bessie's digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don't want to go sievin' through cow sh*t, now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen views to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a cow farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single cow can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, "as greedy as a bull".

Murderous cows and sheep slaughtering the insects on the grass they chew to death isn't quite the same degree of carnage as Rambo the cat though, are they?

Cows are actually omnivores.

It’s not just insect collateral damage: cows will chase and eat small birds, eat eggs of ground-laying birds, and will eat mice and rats in their feed if they happen on one that is immobile. It’s not particularly unusual.

(Deer also do this)

> You realise ...

Yes. I grew up on a cattle station, practiced exploration geophysics globally for a few decades, now live in a rural area with land, grain, and livestock.

You realise the question was, is comparing the accidental occasional deaths of animals in feed by cows or sheep comparable to the deliberate hunting and killing of cats?

Sorry about the “You realise”.

I decided to edit that out in the time while you were replying. Gone 3AM here and that tone was unreasonably grumpy; sorry again.

That's pretty speciesist.

I apologise for suggesting that sheep and cows are murderous.

As for the carnage of cats: https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/felixer,-the-grooming-trap,-...

I'll take the bilbies and birds over introduced ferals every time.

"The automated device sprays a measured dose of poison onto the fur of cats when they pass within 4m, which the cats then ingest when they lick themselves during grooming"

Does this hurt the cat?

It explicitly is intended to cause death, so yes, it does hurt them. Probably quite a lot.

All predators*

It's not possible to live without killing. Plants are alive.

I believe the parasitic zombification of the host has something to do with it.

Context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#%22Crazy_cat-lad...

Toxoplasma gondii is not a causative factor of much of anything other than possibly toxoplasmosis.

But you’d need to basically be eating cat feces for that.

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is you said “they” but, like the comment from borski, we have multiple rescue felines and a rescue canine, only one cat shows _any_ interest in hunting (bugs generally but wants lizards too), whereas the others are like wtf. And the dog and cats snuggle, play, have bery distinct personalities and are very smart in sometimes very individual ways. So “they” is the same logical error made by those who describe members of a group as all like a particular member of the group.

> Cats murder birds and other creatures for no purpose other than personal satisfaction.

They do this in large part because we've intentionally bred them this way. Domesticated cats exist primarily for pest control so they are incentivized to always kill substantially more than they consume. When kept as working animals, their primary purpose is to hunt as many rodents and other pests (which when the job involves protecting grain, this often includes birds) as possible.

> except in net when in confined spaces with their owners

> Sorry, I've always been a dog person.

The same in large part applies to dogs as well. The difference is that while a cat may be kept outside entirely and kept free running, dogs tend to be more tethered to their owners.

This is especially true when you don't live on a giant property spanning acres. In these cases your dog generally is confined to your property and often comes inside for the night. And when leaving the property they are kept on a leash. Cats can be the same way as long as you either (a) select for temperament or (b) raise them from kittens.

Our cats stay inside but we go out with them on a leash from time to time for them to walk around and enjoy the wide open world. It's a decent bit of work to train them to do this but in all fairness the same applies to dogs with the exception that we already expect this of them so we go through the process of leash training them more or less by default.

TLDR: Cats and dogs more or less have the same sets of appeal. Cats have their own dedicated roles as work animals but as general pets their appeal is largely the same. IMHO the main difference is that cats tend to have clearer boundaries than dogs and at least when neutered they tend to keep up hygiene a bit better and smell less in general. Also cat biscuits and purring are weirdly cathartic.

> They do this in large part because we've intentionally bred them this way. Domesticated cats exist primarily for pest

My understanding is different. That cats haven't really changed that much (in terms of behavior) while dogs have. That is to say, it's a cats choosing that they hang out with humans, it is a matter of convenience for them rather than being instinctively compelled (like dogs). The fact they naturally hunt rodents, means humans have welcomed cats aboard ships, farms, & in cities big & small.

Some interesting background reading [1]:

- "Did you know that not even a century ago, few cats lived entirely indoors at all?"

- "Cats formed a mutually beneficial relationship with people, and some scientists argue that cats domesticated themselves. Especially prized as mousers on ships, cats traveled with people around the globe"

- "Even though these changes to our modern lifestyle make keeping cats inside possible, biologically, cats are the same as they were thousands of years ago. Their role in our society has evolved and broadened over the last hundred years, but their basic behaviors and needs haven't changed."

- "In the thousands of years that cats have lived alongside people, indoor-only cats have only become common in the last 60 or 70 years—a negligible amount of time on an evolutionary scale."

[1] https://www.alleycat.org/resources/the-natural-history-of-th...

Ah, a cat leasher, I've met a few but never seen a cat that was content with the situation :D lol, cheers and keep up the good work.

Such is the nature of pets. Between 30 and 80 people are killed every year by dogs. And yet they aren't outlawed. There is a threshold below which we accept risk.

> Sorry, I've always been a dog person.

Presumably not dachshunds who will happily crack the necks of any bunnies they come across.

(Or any of the the other myriad of hunting breeds!)

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