Do Americans like dogs or cats best? No contest: Spot marks the X. But cats win dislike vote!

In the war of dogs vs. cats, clear winner: dogs

LOS ANGELES — An Associated Press-Petside.com poll shows that Americans like dogs better than cats. And it wasn’t even close. Across the country, 1,967 adults were questioned and 74 percent said they preferred dogs a lot while 41 percent said they liked cats a lot.

When it comes to which pet was disliked the most, cats won handily. Fifteen percent said they disliked cats a lot while only 2 percent said they disliked dogs a lot.

The poll was conducted Oct. 1 to Oct. 5 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.

Those most likely to dislike cats were blacks, Hispanics and married men. Men were a bit more likely than women to say they disliked cats.