People ask me all the time whether I like dogs or cats better. It is a common question used for elementary school surveys, essay topics and even once on a SOL. My answer is simple; dogs are better. I have been a dog lover all my life. When I was around two years old, my chocolate lab named Ben passed away and I remember sobbing for days because he was my best friend and playmate. I used to ride on his back and play fetch with him and then all of a sudden he was gone. My parents didn’t want to get another dog for a while because at that time my mom was about to have my little sister, Ava. Two toddlers and a baby is a lot to handle, especially when two years after that my other little sister, Addison, was born so my parents didn’t want to have four rambunctious kids and a new puppy running around. It wasn’t until four years ago that we persuaded our parents to get us a puppy. They said yes after much convincing and because the youngest, Addison, was five at the time, so she was old enough to handle a puppy. On June 1, 2011, my parents brought home a miniature beagle named Sammie. As soon as I saw him it reminded me how much I love dogs because they are adorable, snuggly and protective. Unlike cats however, because they bite, hiss, claw furniture, bring rodents into the house and they have litter boxes. There is nothing I hate more about cats than their litter boxes, I think it is absolutely disgusting. They poop and pee in these boxes and they just sit there filling the house with a nasty, grotesque odor. Dogs, on the other hand, do their business outside where the smell doesn’t disturb anyone.

Just this past summer us Rath kids convinced our parents to get us another puppy, this time a lab. My parents are dog people, especially when it comes to labs. They love our beagle Sammie, but they missed how a lab would fetch the ball instead of bury somewhere in our backyard and how when we go hiking they could just let a lab off the leash and it would stay right with us, unlike beagles who follow their noses wherever the scent leads them. So we drove up to Roanoke Virginia and adopted an adorable female yellow labrador puppy that we named Maggie.

Maggie and Sammie play together and snuggle together, and Maggie has even taught Sammie that you are supposed to bring the ball back when we throw it for them. Cats don’t do that. They don’t play, go on walks, go hiking or swimming, cats just sit inside and sleep all day when they aren’t destroying furniture or biting people. Dogs are more lovable and playful and dependent than cats, and in my opinion, that makes them way better than cats. I would choose dogs over cats any day.