Animal compassion towards their people question. Compared to dogs I'm convinced cats really don't give a frak or at the very least, meh.

I didn’t know you had back problems. Sorry to hear that. I hope you are feeling better tonight. I love cats and dogs. I guess if I had to pick one over the other it would be a cat. I think your cat was trying to communicate telepathically to you and possible heal you but you just aren’t enlightened enough yet.

Couldn’t agree with you more. Our dogs love us to bits. Can’t wait for us to come home. Follow us around. Sleep at my feet when I work from home. Sit and look at us as if we are treasured friends.

The cat deigns us with his attention when hungry, cold, in need of a hug. He has been known to bring us gifts of questionable taste, but the thought was there though. He does stick around though. I think that is his way of saying “you’re okay!”

Hope your back is feeling a little better at least.

Cats are certainly more independent. I think that dogs just understand people better. Cats are like introverts, and dogs are more extroverted. If you want “I’m right here, loving on you” then you want a dog. My cat is an incredible snot when I am even a little bit sad or tired. He will bite me if I don’t give him attention.

Affection does not imply subserviance. Dogs and cats express affection differently, just as people do. Cats aren’t as demostrative as dogs, but they are definitely affectionate.

I’ve owned many dogs and cats in my life, and I have to say you are correct for the most part. Dogs are more loyal to their owners than cats are. As much as I love cats, they are more “for themselves”. They are basically creatures of comfort, and will always seek comfort for themselves first. But this is not to say cats are devoid of feelings for their owners. On the contrary. A lot of cats are very affectionate, and I had one cat named Nikki who used to “wait patiently” for me outside my washroom door as I was washing up to get ready for bed. She would mew and whine until I opened the door, and I’d find her sitting there pining for me to go to bed so she could join me.

Other times we’d be outside, and if I ventured too far from the house, say from my porch to across the street, she’d follow me, stop before crossing the street and mew loudly, trying to call me back. She was worried that I was straying too far from my house, and wanted me to come back. I thought that was unusual, coming from a cat. But that shows you cats can be loyal too, though they’re still not as loyal as dogs, pack animals with a strong bond to their “group”. Cats can be very affectionate, but they are only at most slightly loyal. They can be very jealous of their owners, however. If a strange cat or human baby entered the picture, they can get very jealous. Is this loyalty? Perhaps.

Well to the credit of this one cat, he is my personal favorite and he’s the coolest of them all here but I suppose right then was maybe a bad time to scratch. He bit me beforehand more like a nip to get my attention. He was ready for some affection and I just wasn’t in a place to reciprocate at that time.

@woodcutter, affection or put your head against mine; I’m trying to tell you something? ;)

@woodcutter: I am happy that your dog is being a nurturing pet, but what are you doing about your back? Rest, ice, heat, aspirin, stretches, doctor?

Maybe the cat is trying, nicely, to tell you something. Back pain is nasty, I know, and I have suffered on and off for decades. Take care of yourself, please.

Anyone who is able to really experience a relationship with a cat, where each individual meets each other on their own terms, understands how truly loving and affectionate these creatures can be.

Everything you said about your dogs is all about you. Notice that. My cats and I (one cat in particular) are able to meet each others’s needs.

When you have a relationship with a cat, it is about symbiosis not doting obsequiousness.

@bkcunningham That’s this boy’s M.O. he comes up to us and head butts us and we’ve figured out that’s when he wants to visit. After a quick scratch he’s on his way. When I’m really having a crisis with pain sometimes I may not be as receptive to the obvious. I get what this cat was up to but with the others it’s usually food related when they butter me up.

I have had the provledge to know a number of dirrefernt cats who liked me well enough to live with me. Only a couple stand out as being real lovers. I had a cat many years ago when I lived in Venice Beach, Californai. Our apartment was about a half block from the beach, and I had to park in the big public parking lot right at the boardwalk. That cat could hear the T Bird I drove in those days and would always come down and wait on the brick wall of the parking lot to walk me home and then come in for the evening. It mattered not whenther I got home early, or had to work late. She was always there waithing.

And Spoony THE Cat is as loving as any dog will ever be. She shows her affectin in hundreds of ways. She is by far the most loving cat I have ever known. And she definitely knows that my wife and I return that love.

The thing is dogs are by nature pack animals. The strongest, smartest dog establishes himself as leader of the pack, and all the ther dogs are obsequious to the leader by nature. Your dog can see that you’re bigger and smarter and can get food, so you are the leader of the pack. Not so with cats. If you want a cat’s true devotion, you have to win it.

I look at cats and dogs like couples in a relationship. You have the nurturer and you have the provider. Let a cat out and in the morning he’ll probably bring you back a dead rat. My mother in law always got a rat by her door in the morning when she let her cat in.
So basically he was saying, you take care of me and I’ll take care of you.
Dogs are usually more in tune and hope to make things better.
Can’t say what either is thinking. For all anyone knows, the dog may be trying to make you feel better because he knows you as the pack leader and you provide all the meals.
The cat may just figure he can always go out and get the dinner till your better.

That is why cats are smarter than dogs, they know when to be lackeys and when to be bosses. But cats are quite affectionate in their own way. I have a cat that at times cares to be too close, she wants to nap right her on the keyboard as I am using it. I have cats that follow me no matter what room I go to, but like humans sometimes they want their space and I don’t see them all day. At times I can’t even fool them home with the rattle of the food bag. I don’t see cats as less loyal, just wiser in how they meter it out.

I have two cats. One is an absolute love sponge and the other goes though moods but from what my mother has told me he definitely misses me if I leave the house, becoming restless and meowing a lot.

The breeder told us this breed of dog are pleasers. All dogs are different but I think the breed can have general likenesses unique to them. It was odd for me to be moving about the house that time of day and she tailed me right into the room to see what was up.
Noises wake me and then I feel the pain and it’s over. No way am i going to be able to go back to sleep. It really raises hell with my day- night rhythm and for a reason I can’t figure out it’s getting worse and summer is usually the easiest time for me in that regard because of high temps and really low humidity. It wasn’t this bad all last winter.
Usually when I’m having an episode I prefer to be alone and in the dark. Although I don’t know why that would help but it does. And I appreciated the company this time.

My grandson’s cat is loyal to him, over anyone else in the household. It sits on his lap, or computer, sleeps on his bed, and runs meowing to him when he comes home from work. It completely ignores everyone else, except me, and it will come when I call, sometimes.

@gailcalled Hi. It’s one of those back conditions that some people get so I’m told. Not from over use or anything that happened in the past. Spinal stenosis, a fancy name for arthritis where the soft tissue between the bones don’t like to bend or twist. I think when my ladder went out from under me about 6 years ago and I landed on my back on a patio deck couldn’t have helped it much.
So I get anti inflammatory / codine pills/ Valium for pain and muscle relaxer but it’s starting to not be enough really. So Doc wants to up the meds to a different class of pain mgmt. but they are really hot and I want to delay that move for as long as I can. Also I dislike the way they make me feel when I use them. There’s a street value to these that I don’t understand but I’m told they are big on the black market. Another thing is the stigma attached to all this I don’t approve of but what you gonna do? Here I am spilling it here.
Aspirin is really a pretty good temporary fix when I want to switch up. It takes the edge off mostly but its better than nothing.. Once I get moving and stretch out some and get to the job its not bad really. When I start to feel it crank on me I roll up and go home usually after about 5 or 6 hrs… another benefit of being self employed. An 8 or 10 hr day is a battle royal sometimes but staying on a couple more hrs usually is better than having to come back the next day just to set up and do a little bit more. The killer is being sedentary like sleeping or driving a hour or more or watching TV and then getting moving after that. It’s also over use that tires it out so If I can find a balance between moving some and stopping from time to time i get better performance from myself but sometimes that combination is hit or miss if not optimistic at best.
I’m going to try to not sleep tonight to avoid what happened this morning and make up the down time with cat naps tomorrow, see if that helps.
This answer sort of went off the reservation about dogs and cats. but what the heck

@woodcutter: Thanks for the detailed reply. My cat, Milo, found it interesting also and suggested the following before upping the pain meds.

Physical therapy; some heat, a short massage, a zap of ultra sound and then instructions for stretches and how to gradually increase them.

Wearing a serious elastic support with stays on the job to protect your back while lifting and bending.

Using a rolled up towel or magazine or foam pillow in the car, chairs, sofa. (I bring mine to the movies and to most restaurants.)

Drive for 55 minutes. Stop, stretch, run around the car for several minutes and only then, get back behind the wheel.

Delegate the brute labor to the younger members of your team. You’re the boss, remember.

Finding the best mattress for your condition

Sleeping with a pillow between your legs.

If possible, bend the knees and lift rather than bending over from the waist. Remember the laws of physics.

Like Milo, enjoy cat naps, some moist heat (before and after nap), moderate diet (then a post-prandial nap ), and short spurts of vigorous exercise (followed by a nap.)

I never owned a dog before, but I wouldn’t feel that my cat is less compassionate if I was in your situation, I just feel that all animals have different ways of expressing thier love to us, and cats are less attentive and aren’t as aware as dogs of certain things.

@woodcutter My sincere sympathies. I’ve got the same thing in my upper back and neck from a horrific auto accident years ago. An LA bus was following me and the driver looked behind him to pass just as the light in front of me went yellow. I stopped. He didn’t. The bus totaled my car and thrwe it all the way through the intersection into a light pole on the opposite side. So far, I haven’t had to step up from oxucodone 5/325 and diazepam. The pain isn’t constant. It comes and goes, and I never have been able to figure out whether it’s something I do wrong that triggers it or just a cycle my body decides on. But I have a great deal of sympathy for what you’re going through.

And to bring this back to topic, get a loving cat. THey’re incredibly sensitive to how you feel, and will do their best to make it better. Next best thing to a momma’s kiss for a hurting kid who just got a boo boo. :-)

We have a dog & just recently acquired a cat, for my daughter you understand.
I’d take my dawg over the pussy every single time, coz dog’s rule, end of!

Yeah, cats suck. I mean just look at Garfield and that black cat from Get Fuzzy!

@gailcalled thanks. Without health insurance now so I’m on my own with what I can do. I got all the pre work stretches down, and I’m working alone so I can only delegate things down just so far. I’m only the boss of me. I take my time and go at my own pace. I’m pretty sure there aren’t any companies that would be patient enough to allow that schedule. Some days I don’t even go to work if it feels like it will be bad. And it just decides to be bad at any time it chooses with no warning. What gets me are the times when the sciatica flares up. That is a for sure stay home day. It’s just old man crap, I manage.

@ETpro I’ve not heard of that med before, oxucodone. What I get is hydrocodone so I don’t know which is more hot. My rule of thumb is try, try, try to not go up to a hotter med. It’s like getting in deeper which could be problematic if there is a sudden interruption of supply because of whatever. That and new side effects to get used to.
Yes there are times I feel like I was thrown off a building some days and for the life of me, I don’t have a clue why because I know I didn’t do anything unusual to bring it on. Those are just called “down days” for lack of a better name.

@woodcutter My doc switched me from hydrocodone to oxycodone because he said it’s a bit stronger in its pain killing effects. I looked it up on the Google and found pretty much the same conclusion. So you might discuss with your doc giving it a try. But it may not be available in high dosages. The common variety is 5/325 whereas vicodin is available in 7.5/325 and 10/325 I believe. Oxycontin and Oxycodone are the same form of synthetic codine, but doctors are very reluctant to prescribe oxycontin now because there is no acetomenophen in it, so abusers can safely gobble up many pills at a time without damaging their liver.

And to steer back on topic, don’t give any human painkillers to cats or dogs. Some are deadly poisons to them. See a vet for meds for our furry friends.

@ETpro, just to add levity to your serious situation, I thought I’d tell you that when I read your last post, I thought you said your “dog” switched you from hydrocodone. I seriously did a double take. lol

@bkcunningham I don’t have a dog right now. But the last one I had, Arwin (who we renamed R1 because that was when Star Wars first came out, ant the toddlers in the neighborhood couldn’t manage Arwin) well anyway, R1 was such a smart Belgian Shepherd that if she had told me to switch meds, I would darn sure have listened to her. She understood so much English it was frightening. When she wanted to go for a walk, she’d bring me her leash. If it was put away where she couldn’t get to it, she’d gently take my hand in her mouth and lead me to where she could smell it was stored. She didn’t have to see it put away. She knew exactly where it was. She was a fun loving, snow boarding workign dog. She always wanted to be up to something. Go to the Venice beach. Drive up into the California mountains to the snow line and play. And the English she understood, she would obey.

Spoony THE Cat knows as much English as R1 did. Maybe more. I know she does, because when I ask her to do things, if she thinks it’s not a bad idea, she complies. But she does NOT obey. It has to be her decision. Getting along with her is much more like getting along with another human. Getting along with a dog is more like getting along with an obedient robot. R1 was just a really smart robot, like R2D2 but without laser weapons.

@ETpro My doc didn’t mention any of those as my only next upgrade. He suggested methadone. Just the name alone put me off. or is it a lesser power than the 2 you mentioned? He tells me that methadone does a number on testosterone levels so that would mean another drug to offset that side effect. It just gets worse the more drugs you take. I’m going to really hope and try to not need any hotter than what I currently use. It can only mean my situation will have gotten worse.
So far I haven’t needed to offer any meds to our pets for pain though I am always careful when handling mine so I don’t lose any on the floor they might find.

Methadone is a synthetic drug that binds with brain cells in a similar way to heroine, but is less addictive. It’s a VERY effective analgesic, but is addictive. However getting off it if your pain goes away is far easier than kicking heroin. You don’t get the severe withdrawal reaction—which can sometimes be life threatening—that stopping heroin cold turkey produces. And properly managed, methadone can keep you relatively pain free and still able to function at some level. It’s likely to make you feel like what’s the point, just as heroine does.

I’ve never had it. The closet I’ve experienced is Pethidine (Demerol) after surgery for a perforated appendix and the flushing out to avoid peritonitis. When they gave me the shot, I could feel the pain disappear through my body as it moved through the veins, then a feeling of euphoria when it hit the brain. It’s more addictive than Methadone due to the euphoria it generates. They don’t use it much anymore. This was 50 years ago.

If what the doc is giving you isn’t cutting it, Methadone might be a viable choice. It’s safe and very long acting. If you will yourself to work, you will be pain free and perfectly able to do so. But yeah, make sure the little critters don’t find an occasional pill on the floor. This stuff is strong medicine in 200 pound humans. Lord knows what it would do to a small pet.

Demerol felt to me like laying on a beach right at the water’s edge and a warm, slow wave slowly washes over you. I’ve had it several times in my life due to recurring kidneystones.

@woodcutter:This article on the benefits of massage vs. pain meds just appeared in a reputable Senior Newsletter that I subscribe to. Research itself written up in the July 5 issue of The Annals of Internal Medicine.

My cat suggests you read it.

@gailcalled

Massage is indeed a pain reliever. Also, it’s possible to lower your blood pressure through meditation.

@CaptainHarley I can’t deny it did feel REAL good. Especially when moments before, you were in excruciating pain. It felt so good that in all my drug experimentation back in the 60s and 70s, I never once tried heroin. It was around at parties I attended. I could have had a fix for free. But I always said no thanks, even when I was whacked out on Quaaludes—which I dearly loved.

LOL! Went through it, didn’t ya? : )

@CaptainHarley If there was something stupid to be done, I probably did it.