In all the years of having pets, I notice that you either love cats or hate them. You are either a dog person or a cat person. Few of us admit that we love both deeply.
While people say that it is the dog who is man’s best friend and close companion, I find that it is my cats that provide me with the most affection. I know, how odd!
Between my daughters and myself, we have had a plethora of pets from guinea pigs to parakeets to finches to quail to hamsters – you get the picture,many of which were buried in the back yards of our houses. Yet it was cats that united us.
I started with a dog, Raggs, a Toto dog, a Cairn terrier to be exact. He was a great little guy who knew exactly where the property line was at our house. He trooped from one edge to the other on the sidewalk out front. If he chased a squirrel, it was to the back line of the yard and no further.How did he know?
All in all, I would love to say he was my dog, but it would be a lie. He was my grandmother’s dog, primarily because she was home all day. She trained and disciplined him as well as loved him unconditionally. When she moved to a nursing home (no assisted living at the time), he saddened and died.
Because at that time there was no one home all day, my mom and I got a Siamese cat, Kismet. She won my dog loving dad over by falling asleep in the crook of his arm the first night. My dad never looked back. At Christmas, she decided that the boughs of our silver Christmas tree were toys. She took them out of the tree trunk and dragged them to my parent’s bedroom laying them between their beds. She did that every night during the holiday and never broke an ornament. Needless to say, we got a different tree the next year.
We had added a litter mate, Fu Man Chu to the family. He loved to chase wadded up tin foil wrappers from HoHo’s, just like a dog. My dad was so happy! From there it got crazy.
My parents ended up with three cats – Chu, Tao, and Syn by the time they retired. My dad would sit on the coach watch television with a footstool for his legs. The three cats would line up from ankle to hip and sleep until his legs went numb. He would gently dump them off; they would stretch and nonchalantly stroll away or sit down and take a full on bath.
When my dad started to hook a rug, he worked on a TV tray. This was a type of hooking that really sewed in the yarn rather than latch hooking it. The cats loved it. They would sleep at the front edge of the tray until my dad stabbed them with the hooking needle. They always looked a bit incensed that he would dare to disturb them in such a way.
These three were definitely not your typical aloof cats. While cats have been described as aloof and independent, I have not had that experience with my cats. I have found them to be involved with my family life whatever that might be, loving, curious,intelligent and funny. To be honest, they have been more affectionate than my dogs.
What has been your experience? I would love to know.
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