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Jack Hollis wrote:

} Cats are wild animals who tolerate living with
} humans.

Some cats don't just "tolerate" living with humans; some cats practically cling
to humans and want to be in your company almost constantly. I know this first
hand, and I find it flattering.

} Dogs are domesticated pack animals that will
} (hopefully) accept humans as their pack leader.
} Dogs are obedient, subservient and loyal. Most
} problems with dogs result from the failure of
} the dog to accept their owner as pack leader.
}
} Unprovoked attacks by cats are rare and serious
} injuries inflicted by a cat are even rarer.
}
} On the other hand, dogs kill about 25 people a
} year in the US and about 350,000 people a year
} require emergency room treatment at a hospital
} from injuries inflicted by a dog.
}
} Let's put it this way. The number of stimuli
} that will induce an attack by a dog is a lot
} greater than for a cat and a dog is much more
} capable of inflicting serious injuries to a
} human.

To be fair, the number of people whose lives are saved by dogs each year is
probably far more than those killed by dogs each year. I don't have hard
statistics in front of me, but dogs are known to rescue people from fires, alert
people to danger, and protect people from intruders or attackers. Seeing-eye
dogs help blind people to be both safe and independent.

Of those 350,000 people a year who require emergency room treatment from dog
attacks, not all of them are innocent victims. A certain amount of them provoked
the dogs in some way, or they were attacked while trying to rob, rape or assault
a dog's owner. I'm not saying this is true in every instance, of course.

Both dogs and cats do a lot of good overall, despite the occasional exceptions
with both species.

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