My friends relentlessly make fun of me for having a cat as a guy (did I just assume my own gender?). Whatever, they can fuck off. Having a cat is awesome. My very first apartment out of college was a an old house owned by a bunch of drunk Polish immigrants who did the bare minimum of maintenance work to not be condemned. I had rodents now and then, so I bought a cat. Lomax is the shit. I can leave him alone for a long weekend and not have to board him. He kills shit and presents his kill to me. He hangs out when I'm just flopping around the house. Focus: Guys with cats and how awesome pets are in general. Alt-Focus: What are stupid pets to have besides snakes? Anti-Focus: If push came to shove, could you eat your pet if you were starving?
I don't get the whole hate-on for cats... they're like any animal... they have personalities, and some are good, and some are bad. My sister has a cat that is a waste of skin, if you ask me... it's got anxiety, and she gives it a quarter pill of Xanax every day, and it doesn't socialize with anyone... it will hiss at you and run away and hide. It's nick name is "Sir Hiss A Lot". It's a fucking useless cat, but she loves it, so whatever. My cat, on the other hand, is insanely social. He's independent, but when guests come over, he flops down on the floor beside them and looks at them, and generally wants to be around whatever is going on. On my drive across the country he was great. I blew a tire on the trailer, and after my jack blew a seal I had to wait for roadside assistance to show up and help. The cat was out of the truck and was exploring in the 2' of snow, and when the roadside guy showed up he was freaked out... "there's a cat!" "Yep, it's mine..." And with that, Canso (the cat) jumped back up into the truck and sat on the centre console to watch us change the tire. A few days ago he was up running along the top of the fence in the back yard, and met a squirrel coming in the opposite direction. He'd never seen a squirrel before, and didn't know what to do. He swiped at it, and the squirrel ran away, and the cat chased him... up on the roof of my neighbour's shed, around the back yard, 20' up a tree, until finally the squirrel jumped from tree to tree and got away... but it was hilarious to watch. He's a fun cat, for sure.
Interestingly enough the high school friend of mine who was a cat guy instead of a dog guy, acted JUST like a cat. You could never get ahold of him to hang out, he had to be the one to initiate hanging out. He wasn't unsocialable just oddly picky on when he wanted to hang out. He also turned into one of those guys early on who wanted to get married straight out of college and would be hanging out with his latest long term girlfriend/hopeful wife most of the time anyway. He's a smart guy and does real well for himself just has that odd cat side of his personality. He's had a string of pure bred cats that he is strongly attached to. alt focus- I never saw much reason to have animals that weren't domesticable. I had a snake for a few years and it was kind of weird having him/her(?) just focused on escaping at all times. Goes with all sorts of animals, rabbits, frogs, lizards, mice, friggin RATS, etc
Focus: I'm both a cat and a dog person though I've only personally ever owned cats. I live alone and would feel bad having to leave a dog alone all day while I was at work, but since cats are solitary it's no big deal. I never really understood where the whole cats-girls / dogs-guys thing came from either; every reasonable person I've ever known has had either cats or dogs or both depending on their lifestyle. Alt-Focus:Anything that isn't advanced enough to have a personality and as such usually has to be kept in some kind of enclosure isn't a pet; It's a decoration. This includes fish, reptiles, rodents, and any other weird creature. Birds are the exception because they're so destructive that they have to be kept in a cage/enclosure, but parrots related species definitely have personality, so I understand why people like them.
Focus: In the past I wasn't so fond of cats but could go for a shop kitty now. My grandparents have had some bad ass cats on their farm that hung out with us and were tough as nails too. Right now they have this one female in particular that I'd welcome into my house because she is very outgoing but can't because she has the most adorable habit of curling up with newborn calves. How could I stop that? Was nearly impossible to get a photo of her in the act because she would jump up and run to me the moment I was detected. Spoiler: I'm serious, prepare yourself Alt-Focus: What Trakiel said. Anti-Focus: No, because my dog hunts for me and could help feed us both.
I love both cats and dogs, but lean more towards dogs. However, my life style doesn't let me have the kind of dog that I want, so I got a cat. Why deprive myself of companionship? My cat turned out to be even more awesome than I expected, too. I have spiders, because every grown man needs something that makes him scream like a little girl, right? Over the last year my cat has started eating all the spiders he finds. The furry little shit is finally earning his rent.
Cats are a big nature vs nuture case study if you ask me. If you leave a cat to its nature, they are independent, anti social, very singular. But if you condition them from a young age, they are pretty great. My family has had 2 cats over the last 15 years. The first wasn't great with strangers, but he was an amazing cat with us. Always around, super funny and quirky, just an overall great cat, and he was just from a litter of farm cats. Our current cat came from the Humane Society as a kitten. He's basically a dog. He begs for food, eats scraps, sits in the middle of the family room when we're all in there, and has mild separation anxiety if he's been left alone in the house for awhile. But still gets REALLY loopy around midnight-1AM. My sister's cat is basically the same, but it plays fetch. Literally you throw a ball or tow and she retrieves it. And it has the most mellow temperament EVER. You can basically carry her around like a stuffed animal, yet she's a maniac when at play. TL/DR. Cats are awesome provided you don't go in with the mentality that they are going to be antisocial assholes.
Alt-Focus: Stupid pets, ferrets, small dogs, hamsters. I am kind of weary of guys who say they are cat guys. I'll catch flak for this but they are always a bit odd, a bit different. And Yes Net, that implies you too I guess.
I don't own pets, so I can't be labeled as a dog or cat guy. And lets be clear, no one here considers me normal.
Alt-Focus: I knew someone who had a ferret. Talk about a dumb pet. It was mean and too scrawny to cuddle with. All it did was eat, shit and run around the house. I don't think it played at all. Maybe someone, somewhere is finding joy from a ferret, but I doubt it.
My buddy growing up had a ferret named Oscar. The thing smelled like shit and would bite at random, even when you were petting it. One day Oscar got out of the house somehow and my buddy found him dead on the neighbor's back patio. The neighbor bashed Oscar's head with a shovel because he thought it was a rat and it was hissing at him and shit. Ferrets are stupid.
In defence of ferrets, they make excellent barn pets. That shitty smell is actually nature's rat warning system. If you have a ferret in the barn, you won't have rats. They're put off by the smell and if for some reason they're nose blind...well, the ferret will kill them. Now, why you'd want that as a house pet is beyond me. To each their own.
Speaking of nature vs. nurture, my two cats turned out the opposite what you would expect. I got Rosie from the Humane Society when she was about 1 and it was clear from her behavior that she was socialized when she was a kitten. She's also the greatest mouser I've ever had and I swear part snake; I remember one time she was acting weird in the kitchen and when I opened a cupboard she lunged like a snake and recoiled with a mouse in her mouth. She'd also eat mice whole. Polly on the other hand, despite being a feral, doesn't seem to have any hunting instincts at all. She's never exhibited any interest in chasing any of the critters in my yard, which frankly kind of annoys me because I have rabbits and I hate rabbits.
We had a great cat when we were kids, a Silver Persian. Christ, he lived to be almost 20 and was such a part of the family we had to have my uncle come help bury him. My Dad just couldn't put him in the ground. When I moved out on my own I wanted a pet but my work schedule made having a dog impossible. I ended up getting a cat who was a real sonofabitch. He had a particular chair he liked to sit in and woe unto the houseguest who decided they would sit in it. He'd growl, get up on it and bat at them until they moved. He wasn't the most loving cat, certainly not like the other I mentioned above but he was very patient with our son when he was an infant. After him though, no more cats. I don't want any animals that shit in a box in the house.
Growing up, my neighbors across the street were both doctors. And we very matter of fact and straight forward as people, as well as parents. Well their kids were pestering for a ferret for awhile cause the pet store in my hometown had them in this open air enclosure thing in the very front of the story where you could pet them. Well he let them know that when he was a kid, his family had a pair of ferrets. After about 6 months, they gnawed into the walls and got in, never to be seen again...just occasional pattering...and then the smell when they inevitably starved and died not long after. BRUTAL. I never cared for Persians or long haired cats, probably cause of the evil ass cat in Babe when I was a kid. But a friend of mine in HS had a pair and they were super chill and lazy, to a hilarious extent. Then my first gf in Chicago lived with her sister and each had a Persian which they would shave in the summer. They looked like little lions which was AMAZING when they SUPER lazily plodded around the apartment.
Arachnids. People are like "Ohhhhh check out my spider Harry! He loooooves to snuggle with me..." No. No he doesn't. Shut the fuck up and hand me the Raid.
Hey. I have a tortoise and he totally has a personality. (At least when he's not in hibernation mode.) He and my cat play together. But, before I got him I didn't really get the appeal of having a tortoise as a pet. I randomly came into being a tortoise owner and it wasn't until afterward that I learned how cute they can be. Now I miss him when he burrows under for winter. I always like a guy better when he has a cat. Since there is that silly stigma, it always comes off to me as "Yeah, I'm confident enough in my masculinity to snug with this wee lil kitten." (I also always like a guy better when he has a dog, because then I get to play with a dog.)