When I was rather young we had a cat called brandy that used to bring dead field mice to the door, my mum said she was trying to pay her rent.

The trouble with cats is that you can't train them not to do it by getting cross with them or batting them gently across the nose with a rolled up copy of the Guardian as you could with a dog. They just think (or so I am assured by people who know about these things): "Oh dear! Chief God Cat is annoyed because my gift of a dead vole was feeble and inadequate. I must bring something bigger to placate Chief God Cat!" Hence the next morning's gift of two voles, a great tit and half a mallard*. And so it goes on.

I must say that, on the question of the great divide, I am very definitely a dog person. Look into a cat's eyes and you have absolutely no idea at all what is going on in there. Dogs are at least human. 

(Note*: Not to be confused wiv Arfur Mullard.)  

When I was about 14, our Siamese cat dragged in a huge, very angry and rabid-looking rabbit, still very much alive. Once in the house the rabbit made a break for it and ended up in a small room where the boiler and coats hung out...

My mother and elder sister, normally quite laid back, went into this sort of screaming girly fit and pushed me into this room where I came face to face with this poor thing which was really quite demented, but as I say frighteningly big. I think it must have had myxomatosis which was very much in vogue in the rabbit-world at the time.

When I bent down to pick it up (with heavy duty gloves on) it seemed resigned to whatever its fate might be and limply allowed me to carry it outside, and once I put it on the ground it shot off like an arrow. It was at least 1 1/2 times as heavy as the cat though, I don't know how she dragged it all that way. I never really liked this cat much, apart from anything else she had a really irritating miaow and frequently messed up attempts to record my piano playing.

Weird thing is that years later my mother, for the one and only time, left this cat with me in my flat while she jetted off somewhere. The cat chose that weekend to very suddenly become very ill, and I became (also very suddenly) very emotionally bound up with it. She didn't survive the weekend. I was devastated. I suppose I found her more easy to like when she was vulnerable.

I still prefer dogs though. They're just so much more woofy. 

I'm a cat person. I like their independence, and the fact that they are affectionate but not dependent. I love birds too, and somehow have always had lots of both birds and cats in the garden without much murder. Dogs often make me feel guilty. They always seem to be saying, "Play with me, take me for a walk, don't whatever you do ignore me".  And I don't like the smell of dogs (nor of unneutered tomcats, but most cats are neutered/castrated/spayed these days).

I prefer people who have minds of their own and can occupy themselves too, too.

I've always had cats, so I suppose I accepted from an early age that nature was nasty. Many a shrew, mouse or frog lay dead in the garden when I was a child, and birds sometimes too. The frogs and birds ate things as well - that's nature. Dogs would if they got the chance. Animals have no moral sense - watch Springwatch!

People should know better than to kill things, but most of them don't. I don't think cats often kill other cats, at least.

"Dogs have masters, cats have servants."

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with owning another living thing...
That's probably why I like cats.
As far as the dangers of cats are concerned (and I like the idea that the cats are bringing home flies and earwigs for their owners - they just must not be very impressed with them), it's no real wonder that they hang around with the mammals that are the biggest danger to the diversity of our wildlife.

Cats are manipulating, controlling buglers. As anyone who is daft enough to think they `own`one or several will know. I have a brace of them. But mass murderers? Come on, they`re animals!

Blimey Mart! You mean your beast takes note of the decreasing level of alcohol in your glass and tops it up! You are indeed a wealthy man!

On the matter of matter of paper (various) I believe, if funding could be obtained, this would be a worthwhile and enormously educational project to undertake, with untold benefits for humankind.