Dogs Or Cats?

Are you a dog person or a cat person?

Clear The Air came across Dr. Mercola’s article about the differences between dogs and cats and we would like to share it with our readers:

• Dogs can be trained quickly, some in a matter of minutes, to obey basic commands like ‘come’ and ‘sit.’
• Most cats are difficult if not impossible to train to respond to directives.
• Cats can be house-trained in an instant as long as they have access to a litter box. There’s really no training to it, in fact. It’s instinct.
• Most dogs take considerably longer to housebreak, and some just never get all the way there. Unlike with Fluffy, housebreaking a pup is usually a hands-on, time intensive project.
• Dogs are social beings. They want to be with their pack, wherever their pack may be.
• Cats are solitary by comparison and their primary attachment (when forced to choose) is to their territory rather than other two or four-legged animals.
• Dogs have 42 teeth.
• Cats have 30.
• Cats can jump and climb, giving them more options when they need to hunt for food, or when they feel threatened.
• Dogs are earthbound, so they need their pack to hunt effectively. And when a threat triggers their fight-or-flight response, they are more likely to react with aggression because their ability to flee from a predator is limited.
• Dogs are scavenging carnivores, which means although they are primarily meat-eaters, if necessary they can survive on plant material alone (remember, surviving is different than thriving).
• Cats are obligate or strict carnivores. Kitties cannot sustain life without eating meat in some form.
• Dogs in the wild catch their prey by running it down. They are long distance runners, not sprinters.
• Cats creep up on their prey and catch it by surprise. They are sprinters, not distance runners.
• Cats cannot be fasted and should not be dieted down too quickly. Kitties don’t efficiently burn fat reserves as an energy source. Instead, without food, their bodies break down non-fatty tissues for energy. This can lead to a life-threatening liver condition called hepatic lipidosis.
• Dogs are much better at using their fat reserves and can tolerate a lack of food for much longer than cats.
• Cats have retractable claws that stay sharp because they are protected inside the toes.
• Dogs claws are always extended and become blunt from constant contact with the ground when they walk.
• A dog’s memory is only about five minutes long.
• Kitties can remember up to 16 hours.

Read entire article about dog and cat differences from Dr. Mercola here.