This past weekend I was canning. My friends and I stayed at a house that happened to have three cats and a dog. The talk of the weekend was about which pet was better. Some people on the trip preferred the cats rather than the dog, while others liked the dog better than the cat. Two of my friends were terrified of the cats and even made someone pick it up and take it down stairs completely away from them. To be truthful, I do not like cats and only like dogs. I like small little dogs, but if I am near a big dog especially one that likes to jump then, I immediately try to hide from it. Something about the size of dogs scares me. I decided to do some research to figure out if the majority of people preferred a cat or dog as a pet.
A poll was taken which showed that the majority of people prefer a dog as a pet rather than a cat. The poll was taken by the Public Policy Polling which surveyed over 600 voters; these voters were asked questions about animals over the phone. This survey showed 52 percent of the public would rather have a dog compared to the 21 percent who chose a cat. About 6 in every 10 people that took place in the survey owned a pet themselves. The next question would be is if this poll is legit? I would say that this poll is not at all legit. First off, people were asked survey questions through the phone which means some people could have either made up the answers or answered just enough to get the surveyor to stop calling them to ask them questions. We also do not know if people volunteered to take this survey or if the surveyor went around calling random people and kept bothering them until they did the survey. This survey is not a very good one to show which animals people prefer. A better way to see what people prefer would maybe be to have a group of people ones that do not own either a dog or cat and show them multiple different pictures of cats and dogs. Then have people observe their reactions to each of the pictures to see what animal they seemed to most like.
For those of you who prefer a dog over a cat, people claim this says a lot about the owner’s personality. It was stated that dog people are “a little more outgoing.” This comment was made by someone who owns a dog. Clearly, bias is involved. A person who owns a dog cannot make that judgement because he or she does not know what it is like to own a cat. Another women stated that, “Cats are more independent and so are their owners.” Again, this person clearly favors cats because she happens to own one. The majority of the people who stated that pets say a lot about a person are completely bias. None of this could be proven because bias is involved. So, personality really has no connection to what pet you prefer.
Another study states that some people prefer a dog rather than a cat or vise versa because that is what he or she grew up with. If you had a cat when you were a little child then you may be more prone to wanting another cat when your older and the same goes for dogs. One study even goes to state that dogs feel positive emotions much like humans which could be why more people prefer a dog as a pet. Cats were shown to be more stressed out when humans petted them. Also, people who do not have a lot of free time may also prefer a cat because cats mostly take care of themselves while dogs require more work. Again, this is all based off of someone’s opinion; no one knows exactly what makes people more drawn to one than the other. So which one do you prefer?
References:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/dog-people-cat-people-pet-preference/story?id=15883844
http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/06/18/americans-prefer-dogs-but-dream-of-tigers-giraffes/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/09/cats-dogs-pet-studies/2952589/
This was really interesting to me and the whole bias thing really could cause a problem but how else would there be an answer? I feel like there isn’t really a scientific answer as to why people prefer one to the other, because there could be so many reasons. It could depend on the person and situation. I myself have both cats and a dog and would definitely consider myself a dog person. In my opinion, having lived with cats for eleven years and dogs my whole life, cats are annoying, smelly and not as fun. But some people, I’m sure, probably feel the same way about dogs. So, I agree with Mackenzie when it comes to the bias problem. It will always effect a situation like this regardless of how hard you may try to eliminate it. This article has some reasons as to why people prefer one or the other and the circumstances surrounding the preference.
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/are-you-a-cat-or-dog-person-infographic.html
I personally would prefer a dog. I feel this way because they are more like companions. They are like companions because:
1) they respond to you
2) the listen to commands
3) they make you feel better
4) they follow you around
5) they have emotions
6) they show their emotions
7) they keep you company
8) their cuter
I feel this poll can definetely be accurate because majority of the people do prefer dogs. Although, of course this can be due to chance!
I agree with Mackenzie as far as bias. Obviously, people prefer dogs and cats for many different reasons as you said but I’m not sure how any science could really be involved in something like this. I found it interesting, the idea that different personalities could lead someone to like a dog or a cat more. I know I have a bias for dogs because I grew up with them and I believe they have more personality than cats. I don’t see how any study could truly prove truthful about this because there will always be some sort of bias. I would be interested to understand what makes people like dogs or cats more, through some sort of scientific study. I did some research. Obviously, I couldn’t find any reliable studies about this, but I did come across a really funny buzzfeed article about cats and dogs. I am biased towards dogs as I said earlier so no one take offense to this!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/pictures-proving-that-dogs-are-better-than-cats
I think when you’re doing a study like this it is almost impossible to completely get rid of bias. It is such an opinion based question that doing a study on whether someone likes dogs or cats more could be quite pointless. All the points you bring up in your post are extremely legitimate reasons as to why someone prefers a cat over a dog or a dog over a cat. As far as getting a scientific answer about why people like one of the other more, I think a very extensive study would need to be done, and that may still contain bias. I have and always will be a cat person. Check out the article below and maybe I can persuade you and others as to why cats really are the best.
http://animal.discovery.com/pets/i-like-top-ten-cats-better-dogs.htm