Always dogs.

I had a great pig, and a few goats, so they get mentions. Goats are extremely good for the soul.

You must be a bad person to choose any animal over dogs.

Dogs are the best.

When you die, a dog will stand guard over your body until the two of you are separated. A cat will wait a few hours, and then proceed to eat your eyeballs.

As admirable as survivalism can be, there just isn't enough unconditional love and devotion in the world right now.

Dogs all the way.

All animals are cool but there's no closer human/animal bond (evolutionarily speaking) than with dogs.

Nothing but capybaras for me, thank you.

This is a close one for me.

My favorite pet ever is a very dog-like male cat who is now 19-1/2 years old and going into the final weeks of his life. I love him dearly. He loves to snuggle, spoon, have his belly rubbed, follow us around the house, and beg for people-food. In his prime health, he probably spent a good 5-6 hours a day awake and interacting with us or at least keeping close by. There was once a time where he'd even play 'fetch' a bit.

That aside, my most rewarding pet relationships have always been with dogs. Once Frank has moved on to the next world, we'll be getting a dog, and as much as I'll miss him, I do look forward to having an excitable fool we can take places with us, including hiking and backpacking.

Dogs, by a hair.

jason from volo wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 2:57 pm Are they kept inside or outside? How challenging is it to take care of them?

I remember looking into this a while back. They need a fair amount of space, as well as lots of water. They need a pond or big pool that they can spend most of the day in - similar to hippos. They eat a lot of grass and roughage, so that will need to be in ample supply. And, IIRC they can do quite a bit of damage to ground cover and ornamentals if left to roam freely. Otherwise, they're mostly docile, get along well with other critters and because they're rodents, need plenty of wood and/or cellulose things to chew on to keep their incisors under control - as well as having the potential to cause some severe tissue damage if you happen to scare or piss one off enough to get bitten.

It's cats for me.

I grew up loving Cats but at this point I am a Dog person. We have a Border Collie and I can't imagine having any other kind of pet at this point.

re: capybara