I grew up with dogs. I swept several cubic metres of dog hair every spring and autumn for years. I've been on many several hour long trips in a car with a dog and no air conditioning, in the summer. (And I mean dogs, not those pocket abominations bred by people who obviously enjoy causing lifetime suffering to innocent animals.)
Yeah, if I meet a dog that hasn't been too badly trained and I have somewhere nearby to wash my hands and I don't need to keep my clothes clean and not covered in hair and drool I'll pet it, and tell it it's a good dog, and if I've got time and space I'll probably toss them a ball or a stick for them to catch for a bit.
But otherwise? Yeah, I can do without dogs. Too much work, too much brainless need for attention, too much stink, too much hair, and drool, and grease, and noise. And pain, when they go and die on you (I had the misfortune of living with a boxer for a few years; lovely animals, drool aside, but the way they suddenly explode into a ball of tumours at around five to six years old is just not right).
Cats are cleaner, smarter (sure, some dogs are smarter, but they're work dogs, and have no place in a house unless you can dedicate 150% of your time to them), much less needy (though they still do need attention, which is why I can't have one either, poor critter would spend most of its time alone, which is no life for a pet), live significantly longer, and you actually need to earn their love instead of them biologically having no choice but to love you.
Exactly.
What we did to dogs was monstrous.
Take a wolf and give it the brain of a neurotic brain damaged human toddler, biologically enslaved to us to the point of needing constant work and praise to avoid being a bad dog.
(And we didn't stop there; no, we had to keep meddling and turn them into misshapen shrunken parodies of themselves, living in constant pain and horror.)
I suppose it was somewhat fine back when we spent all day working together, but keeping that locked up all day in a small house or flat with nothing to do but bark at the occasional passerby is downright animal torture.
I don't need another reminder of humanity's hubris every time I get home. I have more than enough guilt as it is.
At least cats did it by themselves¹, on their own terms, and won't tolerate the kind of abuse most dogs routinely endure, if given an option.
1.– Except for designer breeds, of course. If cruel and unusual punishment had a place in society it'd be being applied to child abusers, people who talk or use their phone in theatres, and pet breeders.