Hehehe... I have owned both cats and dogs. Personally I prefer cats. (don't tell my dog) The main differene as far as I'm concerned is simply size and domestication. Drop a dog off in the woods, it'll likely starve before it learns to hunt. A cat, however, hunts even if it has food nearby. Just for the fun of it. you hear a lot of stories about dogs maiming people, but you rarely hear of a 15 pound dog maiming anyone, it's always the lerger breeds, simply because they can. If cats weighed in at closer to 60 pounds, I wager we wouldn't be keeping them as pets. They're just too "wild". As far as the smell thing, the same can be said for cats. I don't care how clean the litterbox is, I can always smell them. My dog lets me know when he wants to go out, I let her out, no problem. Then again, I live in a rural area, so my yard is rather huge. (around 8 acres) I CAN say that in my life so far, I have been wounded by my cats far more than by my dogs. I still have a couple scars from my cats.

Oh, and I only have a dog now because my gf is allergic to cats. Not that I don't want a dog... oh nevermind. Actually, the only type of pet I've never owned that I wanted to was a sugar glider. Those are cool... I just don't know if I can pay it enough attention. (They are so social they will literally die of loneliness)