Are cats and dogs nicer than humans?

Cats and Lions both kill for sport, but at least cats get rid of vermin. Lions are just bastards for the hell of it.

Aside from opposable thumbs and fire, I think what made humans so lethal is speech. — that is, our propensity to lie.

I'm a skeptical squirrel

"A deadly game of cat and mouse" is often a very real situation; cats not taught to hunt properly by their mothers often appear to clumsily toy with their prey before killing it, and even veteran mousers will play with their quarry before killing and consuming them, in order to avoid being bitten, since the saying is correct that "even a cornered mouse will snap at a cat" (but only when the mouse is ''aware'' of the cat; meanwhile a cat that ''ambushes'' a mouse by surprise, will kill it instantly, which is why cats are experts at hunting by stealth and secrecy).

Neither dogs nor cats are mean or nice. They are animals and behave like animals.

Cats are a dedicated predator species more so then dogs. Dogs have some limited tolerance for plant matter but are still in the end run carnivores.

How domesticated dogs behave depends on their environment and their training. People forget the dogs family structure is a pack and they expect certain actions and behaviors. Some modification of your own behaviors is necessary to properly train a dog. Cats are mostly solitary predators hence their very individual natures but it is not unheard for them to work together to bring down hard to catch prey.

Killing other animals is what dogs and cats do. It is hard coded into them to a point. You can breed down things like prey drive but it will still exist. When they kill those cute fluffy critters it is not be cause they are mean or cruel but because it is literally the nature of the beast.

edited 4th Mar '11 5:28:21 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

What part of that precludes them from being nice or mean? Animals have personalities just like people do.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Even so, like with people one must study animals on an individual level to gain any information about their personality.

There's no justice in the world and there never was~

That's completely true. Individual animals, just like individual people (we ARE animals) respond to stuff differently and have different quirks and habits.

For example: There's no way to tell how an individual dog will respond to a vacuum cleaner. Some will panic at the thing, and others will be merely annoyed or curious.

edited 8th Mar '11 7:16:48 AM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Or, in the case of my late dog, try to herd it.