REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION: Will Rafuse. Visit Will at willrafuse.com.

Humorist Dave Barry has written a column in which he says, by implication, that dogs are better than cats. (HT: John at Right Wing News)

Mr. Barry is in error. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT CATS ARE SMARTER, MORE LOVELY, MORE DISCERNING, AND ULTIMATELY, MORE INTERESTING THAN DOGS.

There. I’ve said it. I’ve just angered the 52 million Americans who keep dogs as companions. Ask me if I care! It’s not my fault that 52 million of my fellow countrymen have been programmed by years of media bias to buy into the propaganda that dogs are “Man’s Best Friend.”

This debate has been raging for nearly 5,000 years. Ever since the African Wild Cat discovered that simply by looking cute and capturing a few mice, (making sure to drop the dead carcass at the feet of whichever human could be trained to feed it for doing such simple, boring work) cats have carried out the most massive hoodwinking in the natural history of the planet…and are laughing all the way to the litter box.

Defenders of dogs point out that canines do much better in laboratory studies comparing the innate intelligence of the two creatures. I, like all cat aficionados, laugh uproariously at the gullibility of both dog lovers and scientists who’d be stupid enough to try and administer ANY test to a cat. For you see, cats, like very smart children attending your average American public school, get extremely bored and frustrated if they’re not continuously challenged to expand their minds and broaden their horizons. Any test given to both dogs and cats by definition must necessarily be so insipidly moronic that dogs will inevitably do better due to the sheer and utter boredom inflicted on the cat.

In his column, Mr. Barry makes a virtue out of a dog’s single minded quest to please humans. He writes of a dog’s “special toy”“

“Finally I yank the Special Toy free and hold it triumphantly aloft. The dog watches it with laser-beam concentration, his entire body vibrating with excitement, waiting for me to throw it … waiting … waiting … until finally I cock my arm, and, with a quick motion I … fake a throw. I’m still holding the Special Toy. But WHOOOSH the dog has launched himself across the room, an unguided pursuit missile, reaching a velocity of 75 miles per hour before WHAM he slams headfirst into the wall at the far end of the room.”

I tried this trick once on my cat Ebony. For a while, she found it amusing to chase a plastic ball across the floor that was filled to the brim with catnip. Having already gotten high by gorging herself on the uncontrolled substance, she would temporarily take leave of her senses and imitate a dog by “retrieving” the ball by batting it back to me with her paw. She unerringly would bat the ball so that it came to rest directly at my feet EVERY TIME. Try having a dog even attempt something like that. Come to think of it, she was more accurate than some professional baseball players I’ve seen who play for the Cubs.

At any rate, after several successful retrievals I tried pulling the old fakearoo on her. She started off like a shot and then stopped dead in her tracks. She gave me the most scornful look of contempt she could muster, turned her back on me, and wandered off with her tail held high and swishing back and forth angrily.

She ignored me for two whole days.

I once read that “Dogs are from Mars and Cats are from Venus.” Whoever wrote that obviously has never been kept by cats. Cats aren’t from Venus…they’re extra-galactic. They’ve descended from somewhere near the outer fringes of the known universe where basic laws of physics don’t apply and intelligent life has taken on an ineffable quality unknown to man and beast alike. They are otherworldly.

Watching cats closely can be deceiving. When you see them staring off into space, you might think that they’re not thinking about anything, that they’re simply existing or perhaps waiting for their next meal. Nothing could be further from the truth. When cats stare off into space, they’re communing with their equals, the Gods.

Ordinary human chatter bores them to death. They see no reason to come when they’re called, sit, lie down, beg, or perform any of the stupid pet tricks that dogs have become famous for. Not only don’t they see any good reason to obey, but they realize that it would too revealing of their true nature if they began to behave the way that other animals do. Such a revelation would allow humans to take them for granted…something that would be utterly disastrous for a cats relationship to its slave. For if humans were to place the cat on the same plane as a dog, the beast wouldn’t be able to manipulate its charge into doing exactly what it wants when it wants it done.

T.S. Elliot’s collection of 14 poems “The Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,” (from which the Broadway musical “Cats” was derived) contains one particular poem that perfectly describes a cat’s uniqueness. Entitled, “The Naming of Cats,” the poem reflects on why cats are so special:

But I tell you a cat needs a name that’s particular
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?

Elliot, an extremely perceptive judge of catdom, points out that, in addition to the name we give our beloveds, the cat also has another name:

But above and beyond there’s still one name left over
And that is the name that you never will guess
The name that no human research can discover
But the cat himself knows and will never confess

When you notice a cat in profound meditation
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name
His ineffable, effable, effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular name

We don’t wonder if a dog has a name that it gives itself. The very concept of a dog doing anything without human approval is foreign to its nature. Not so, the cat. I wouldn’t be surprised if cats have names for US! I’m sure they would be impossible to pronounce and would be extremely unflattering. After all, cats know full well that they’re the center of our universe.

Perhaps that’s why we love them so.