I don't mean to bust any bubbles here but a lot of people don't like dogs very much and they have some valid reasons. I used to have a radioactive beagle as a pet when I was a boy. She was the product of a science experiment and I loved her very much even though I was exposed to deadly radiation by cuddling with her for fourteen years (that beagle was supposed to have been destroyed, not become a little boy's pet). As a boy too I could not relate to cats at all, had no connections with cats, but I loved Daiquiri the Radioactive Beagle.
Still as an adult, I much prefer cats. Here are some of the reasons I do not like dogs and I am sure many who don't like dogs share these reasons.
They are too intense, either too friendly or too aggressive, and the ones who are so friendly are so friendly it seems fake like they are sycophants (boot lickers), either like they are programmed to be slavishly devoted to us or they are just ret*d. Either way their affection does not seem as genuine to me as that of cats I have met.
You don't hear about cats killing people but it is in the news all the time with dogs, singly or in packs killing babies and even adult humans. Mother of three taken down by strays or loose pets while jogging in a park, that type of thing.
Dogs are loud and obnoxious. As I walk down a street dogs bark when I go by their yard, but I am no threat. Since they bark at everybody who walks by their use as an alarm is worse than useless, just annoying. It makes the world a more painful place for those like me with sensory issues. I know a lot of it is the owners fault for not training them, but some owners LIKE it that their dogs bark and growl at anyone who even passes by their property.
Dogs shed hair and bring fleas into the house. I was in a mixed pet household and we had flea problems every year. The cats are all indoors only cats. Since the dogs have gone, no more flea problem. Fleas bring even nastier problems like worms into the house. I had to deworm my cats more than once because of the fleas those dogs brought into the house.
You have to take you dog outside for it to go bathroom, and have to (or SHOULD) pick up its poop. Some people don't and that is really nasty stuff to step in.
I have met some well behaved dogs and those can be joys to be around. But for every well-behaved dog I have met I have met at least ten or maybe even a hundred that are not well behaved and are generally a-hole animals in my opinion. Of course again it comes back a lot of times to the poor dogs being raised by irresponsible or ret*d owners.
Just saying, dogs are fine, but please pick up their poop and control their barking if it is a constant annoyance to the neighborhood. I hope this helps. Not throwing a wet blanket on your party, just injecting some perspective on aspects of dogginess that many dog owners seem oblivious to. What's worse of course are the people who don't care about what their dogs do, and in those cases I fully recognize it is not the dogs' fault. There is even a famous book on this theme called No Bad Dogs.
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"When you ride over sharps, you get flats!"--The Bicycling Guitarist, May 13, 2008