Dogs or cats?

When I was in junior high, around thirteen or fourteen years old, I had a little cat.

A friend’s cat had a litter of kittens, and I chose the quietest one to bring home.

Small and curled up, it would nestle on my belly and sleep.

Every day when I came home, I looked forward to seeing it, feeling like I had my very own little companion.

One afternoon, the kitten slipped outside to play.

I heard it making sounds outside, interacting with the big dog next door.

At first, I thought they were just playing, like animals often chase and tussle with each other.

But they weren’t.

Right before my eyes, the dog suddenly pounced and bit it.

It happened in seconds. The kitten struggled a bit, then went still.

I rushed over to try to take it back, but it was already too late.

In that moment, I was empty.

Not crying loudly, but stunned, trembling, and not knowing what to do.

I held its body and sat there, my mind a mess.

That night, I sat alone on the floor of my room with no lights on,

only remembering how the little body in my hands grew colder and colder.

The dog’s owner came out later to apologize, apparently when I wasn’t home.

He said he had scolded the dog, but I heard him say one thing:

“How could it bully someone’s cat!”

At the time, I couldn’t understand.

That wasn’t “bullying”—that was killing, the end of a life.

For a while, I felt angry and sad because of that sentence.

I thought he was downplaying how serious it was, denying the pain I felt losing it.

But now I understand.

It’s not that he didn’t care about life, it’s just a human instinct when someone close messes up—

to soften the words, to save face and leave room to retreat.

It’s not a clear-cut matter of right or wrong, but human nature.

This world is never perfect, but some feelings can be slowly mended.

It’s not the dog’s fault. It’s the fault of that dog and its owner.

I have never hated dogs because of this.

I still love dogs, and I love cats too.

Just as people come in many forms, so do cats and dogs.

What matters is not sorting them into categories, but how we understand each unique being.

Many years later, I gradually let go.

I began to understand—they are not bad, just unaware of boundaries, unaware of what they took away.

So now when someone asks me, “Are you a dog person or a cat person?”

I always smile and say, “I like both.”

Because it’s no longer about choosing sides,

but whether after being hurt, you can still choose to understand and love.