If anything, they are more like the dwarves you mention, plain speaking, and either accept you as an equal or not at all. They are never subservient, which might be the biggest difference between them and dogs in how both interact with us. They are friends (by their own choosing), not dependents.
Cats are the only "domesticated" animal that can without exception pack up and return to the wild at a moment's notice. I can't help but wonder if they retain that ability after having been treated so cruelly by humans in western civilisation, especially Continental Catholics, feared as witch's familiars, thought to be evil magic themselves, at least anti-christian and associates with Satan.
In many ways, they suffered the same fate as the fey in your stories, and its really a wonder they associate with us at all, and no wonder its initially on a highly suspicious basis until they carefully choose to become friends with humans on a case-by-case basis.
Dogs have been in man's orbit for a far far longer period in their evolution than cats, and the latter have not found that association remotely pleasant from the time humans founded the Roman Church until very recently.
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