Spoiled Rotten : Fur Flies in Feline-Versus-Canine Fight

The battle of the species, like the battle of the sexes, shows no signs of letting up.

“You can’t jog with a cat,” pants Phoebe Herst of Rancho Park, running beside her beloved Labrador retriever, Boots.

“Yes, but dogs are too needy. Cats take care of themselves,” counters Carol Booth, who ministers to five adored felines in Pasadena.

Meow.

Dogs versus cats. Cats versus dogs. The controversy is as old as the critters themselves. Cat owners say they experience a deeper, more meaningful bond with their purry friends than dog owners ever could. Dog owners, of course, disagree.

“I’ve seen people come to blows over whether dogs or cats make the best domestic pets,” says Warren Eckstein, host of a radio talk show on animals. “It’s the greatest debate since Douglas versus Lincoln.”

And neither side can win this battle, which seems to be about relationships, misunderstandings and PR.

“It’s just like any prejudice,” says Burbank veterinarian Sheldon Altman, who has watched the cat-dog battle rage for 30 years.

“Confirmed cat-haters are people who’ve never really known a cat, so of course they’re positive they can’t stand them,” Altman says.

“When a cat-hater happens to find and fall in love with a cat, he won’t ever admit it’s a typical cat. He’ll say he loves it because ‘it acts just like a dog.’ ”

Dog-haters are just as intolerant, Altman says. They fall in love with a pooch, proclaim it unusually catlike, and continue to believe that all dogs--except theirs--are no good.

Eckstein, who owns a Staffordshire terrier named Tige and two cats named Mowdy and Sam, says, “Cats and dogs are equally intelligent, equally loving and loyal. Cats may be a tad smarter,” he jokes, “based on the fact that they’ve convinced people they can’t be trained, so they get left alone.”

With 63.2 million domesticated cats in the United States and 54.5 million domesticated dogs, the common perception is that poochy types such as Lassie and Rin Tin Tin are faithful, workhorse heroes, that on the downside slobber, bark, require undivided attention and chew legs off furniture. Meanwhile, the Garfields and Felixes of the world have reputations as brainy, cuddly balls of fur that unfortunately slink around, carve their initials in the piano and often take the word aloof to new heights.

“In terms of loyalty to humans, I see no difference between cats and dogs,” says Sandy Wirth of Calabasas, who trains both species “for films and real life.” Wirth recalls the day one of her four cats awakened her by hitting her with his paws; then he leaped onto the windowsill and uttered a series of “unearthly, loud, fierce sounds.” By the time Wirth reached the window, she saw the back of the would-be intruder, who was running away.

After 15 years as Sherlock Bones, tracer of lost pets, John Keane says he is still extraordinarily moved by the bond between humans and their furry friends.

Keane says he has twice helped “a very, very famous Hollywood producer” whose cat can’t bear it when the man leaves for work--and once tried to go with him.

“We figured that the cat climbed into the infrastructure of the guy’s Mercedes and rode all the way to the studio,” Keane says. “But he got lost after leaving the studio parking lot. It took him two weeks to reach the office of his owner, who was going berserk with grief until he saw his beloved friend patter out from behind the Xerox machine.”

There is really no difference in the quality of love shown by dogs and cats, say those who ought to know. Despite physiological differences, the species are equally capable of the kind of affection non-pet owners usually find slobberingly silly.

“In fact,” veterinarian Altman says, “there’s no basic difference in the behavior of people devoted to pet cats and dogs. The real difference is between pet people and non-pet people,” he says. “There’s a real wide gap between those two groups. People who’ve never had an animal would have a hard time relating to any of this.”

Especially to Warren Eckstein’s pig.

The animal expert says his domestic triangle (man, cats, dog) became a quartet with the addition of Spotty, a now-1,200-pound porker that “exhibits the entire range of human emotions.” Eckstein seems to tear up as he describes the genuine joy Spotty shows when Eckstein comes home from a long trip; the fun they have walking down a country lane together (with Spotty in harness and leash); the “digs” they go on in the yard (Spotty actually unearthed some valuable 19th-Century pottery).

When Spotty tipped the scales at 900 pounds, Eckstein moved him from his house to a barn--complete with pictures on the wall and piped-in music. “He’s into country and Western,” Eckstein confides. “If I play anything else, he’ll rip the place apart.”