Depends if you like animals to be loyal to you. I mean, my kitten lives her own life as well as come into my family's. She's more independant then a dog would be as they have more free will to do whatever they like as they are not loyal. But that doesn't mean cats won't like you, I mean the one way to get to a cat is with food. Once you feed them, they won't go into a garbage bin or anything like that looking for food, they will come to you.

Hope that made sense...:p

Although, yes I remember about your dog AL. Very said that some sick person did that and just sped off. There are cruel, cruel people in this world.