Cats and Dogs

As I sat down to write Cherie came in and leaned against my chair, looking up at me with puppy eyes. Puppy eyes, you ask, knowing Cherie to be a cat? Yes, it’s those eyes that look at you with complete adoration and trust and a little beseeching goes in the mix as well. So what could I do but put him up on my lap while I sat thinking about what to write.

Loyalty and animal trust.

We humans take our pets for granted much too often when what we should be doing is appreciating their trusting nature every day of their lives. The loyalty an animal can show is so incredible that it should shame us as the poor humans that we are. The character of a pet is an admonition to us when we are behaving poorly because they forgive us unconditionally when we scold them or spank them or ignore them. They will still come creeping up to you and gave a wag of the tail or a twitch of the nose to tell you you are loved by them. Even a silly chicken will show faithfulness.

So as you start your day today remember to tell you pet that you love them. They understand the sound of that word because you cannot say it without tenderness. Love, love, love. See, you can’t say it with irritability or irony. It’s a tender little word and their ears perk up and their eyes go all silly and bashful. Shucks, me? Yes, even a cat can be silly.

Yesterday morning while I was reading my book in bed Thumper was cuddled on my tummy and Cherie came in, trying to squeeze up between me and my book. Thumper let out an angry hiss, Cherie leaped backwards so that coffee cup and dish went flying about. I scolded them as I leaped out of bed, running for a cloth to wipe up the coffee. They lurked at the bedroom door, sure that I wasn’t Really mad, nothing had broken after all! I let them go out to play after that and sure enough Thumper was again tardy coming home last night. I thought for sure he hadn’t forgiven me for calling him a big lump who was mean to his brother. But he came in, twirled around my legs and looked up asking for supper. Just like a puppy.

How can you stay mad at that kind of trust?