Last weekend, I hosted the annual Cat Haven Quiz Night — something I’ve done for a few years now. And every time I do it, someone inevitably says to me “I thought you were a dog person!” I have to prove my cat-loving credentials in order to preserve my credibility with this overwhelmingly pro-cat crowd.

Well, I’m here to officially tell you that I swing both ways. I’m living proof that it is possible to be both a cat and a dog person even though it appears to go against nature. I know. I’m an anomaly.

Admittedly, on the surface, my dog predilection is more apparent.

My dog is on my phone’s lock screen. Practically every story I relate starts with “Yesterday at the dog park . . .”. I’m a member of a Facebook group for fellow bearded collie owners in Perth. When I go to Esperance to visit my family, I usually choose to drive for eight hours rather than fly so that my dog can come with me. I hire teenagers to keep him company in the mornings when I leave early for work.

Basically, my life revolves around attending to his every need.

But then, there’s the cat. Some people have fancy cats like a British fold or a Burmese.

I have what can only be described as a Gosnells gutter cat. As long as I feed her whenever she demands it, I don’t have to do too much. She hates the car, so I’m not in any danger of having to drive her anywhere. If I need to take the dog away for the weekend, I can get away with asking my neighbour to feed her a couple of times and that’s it. Talk about low maintenance.

But my cat is also a real snuggler. When people visit my house, they are most taken aback when my cat immediately flops herself into their lap and starts purring. “I don’t normally like cats” they often say, while my cat stares into their eyes adoringly. She has converted many a non-cat person into something of a cat-tolerator.

Of course, at any moment, and for no apparent reason, she can turn on you and start biting you with a fervour that is borderline psychopathic. If we’re intent on comparing, my dog has never done that.

He has caused me a lot of angst though. Mainly because he loved to go on unsupervised adventures, having escaped a number of times, including the time he crossed Canning Highway (with a minimum of road sense and a lot of luck) and the time he bolted from a dog walker and ended up in the Fremantle pound while I was on holidays in Istanbul. The cat has never done that.

Both of them are old now: my cat is somewhere north of 16 and the dog just turned 13, so my house resembles an old people’s home for animals. They want their dinner at 4.30pm. There is a lot of coughing and hacking. And mostly they just lay asleep in a sunny spot.

But both of them spring into action from time to time. The mere suggestion of the dog park transforms my dog into an exuberant puppy for roughly 17 seconds until he remembers that he needs assistance to get into the car.

The cat meanwhile, chooses 3am in the morning to tear up and down the hallway like she’s a crazed leopard trying to chase down a small impala. I’d be happier if her feline instincts kicked in at a slightly more agreeable hour. During daylight hours, she peers at me with the derision of the dowager in Downton Abbey while her discarded fur affixes itself to everything I own. When she decided that the ironing board, which I had temporarily erected in the lounge room, was the perfect spot for lounging, I just let her do it. Then I had to strip huge amounts of cat hair off it before I could iron anything again. This is the rod I have made for my own back.

So, if I HAD to declare my true allegiance, what would it to be? Am I a cat person or a dog person? The answer is neither and both.

Dogs love you with embarrassing sincerity and a devotion that is abjectly pure. Cats love you like it’s a carefully negotiated treaty. Maybe they need a collective bargaining agreement to get on the same page. But as they get older, it’s like they’ve both become oddly human. They’re stubborn, funny weirdos and impossible not to adore.