Dogs are better pets than cats. FACT.
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And I’m not talking those snappy little fur-balls or something that should be lying between a bun and smothered in ketchup — I’m talking something with size.
Big dogs are the best. All cats just suck.
When I go back to visit my family in Melbourne, our Labrador Saffy bounds throughout the house with so much excitement it’s like every day she won the lottery.
Cats aren’t like that. They’re needy and expect the owner to please it.
A cat is too mysterious and creates weird citizens of this wonderful society. The oddest people I know are cat lovers.
And I’m talking proper cat lovers, not people that own a cat and a dog, just multiple cat owners.
You can’t walk a cat down to the park. If you do, get your head examined.
How many cats are sniffing out bombs for our brave military servicemen and women?
Only dogs are working on the front line at airports, stopping drug mules from importing dangerous drugs onto streets that our kids are using.
Dogs are literally the pair of eyes the blind need. Dogs are taken around hospitals to make people feel better while they are suffering in pain.
Cats are probably doing good things for society as well — but who cares.
I’ll admit it, many dog lovers are just as psychopathic. The way they must post their nonsense on social media about how their dog did nothing exciting, then follow it with emojis and a dumb caption.
I don't care how cute or amazingly talented your pet dog is, if you create an Instagram account for it you're a loser.
Pets bring joy to families and individuals. They keep us company and often we talk to them only to receive a dumb expression back.
Except for the one cat we owned, I’ve loved our family pets (dogs).
All of them have had obscure names. The first two pets were named after UN secretaries-general, for some reason.Our first boxer was christened Boutros (after Boutros Boutros-Ghali) and our only cat was Kofi (Annan) — not pronounced 'coffee', which people thought it was.
For some reason our second boxer was named Mambo. Don’t ask me why.
Then we arrive at Saffy. I think we were watching an episode of Absolutely Fabulous and thought, we’ll go with a dull character rather than Patsy or Eddie.
Saffy is okay as a pet. Not as good as Mambo, who was the most carefree dog in the world.
The mutt slept 23 hours of the day and would only get up when food was available.
Kofi was an absolute bastard of a thing. There’s no other way of putting it.
He hated us and we hated it. Kofi went missing for nine months, but I’ll admit his story of survival is legitimately remarkable.
It started on a cold morning, when our car went for a service in Doncaster, Melbourne.
When Mum was talking to the mechanic a few hours later, he mentioned this cat startled him by leaping from the vehicle when he opened the bonnet.
We lived in the next suburb over in North Balwyn on the other side of the Eastern Freeway.
After spending two days searching the Doncaster area, we decided he was gone.
Our lives continued until I picked up a call from a vet in Ashburton on a Sunday afternoon, nine months later.
“Do you own a tabby cat called, um, err, it’s hard to pronounce this. Coffee spelt K-O-F-I?,” the nice lady asked.
“You’re joking? Wait are you calling from the vet near the KFC and Woolworths in Ashburton?” I replied (I knew that area well).
Most Shepparton readers won’t know Melbourne geography too well but check out the distance between Doncaster and Ashburton.
Although only a few kilometres, you must remember the cat has crossed the Eastern Freeway and survived nine months travelling across a huge urban environment.
I never wanted Kofi to die but I certainly never wanted him to return. When we picked the devil up from the vet, I swear he meowed “no”.
Thankfully, he died a few years later and we’ve never bought a cat again.
So he's pretty much why I'm a dog person.
● James Bennett is a journalist at The News. Follow him on Twitter @jwbennett93.
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