Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Of cats and dogs.


Have I told you before that I am not a cat or dog lover? I was bitten by a dog once when I was a kid, which had me going for a butt injection for like 9 days which I hated so much because of my fear with needles.

My bad experience with animals, led me to lose my affection for any animal I came in contact with. I detested them and didn’t want to have anything to do with them. I wouldn’t touch one unless forced to do so. I thought they were gross and they stink. Their existence was absolutely unimportant to me.

Whenever my friends spoke about their pets, I listened but never really understood why they cared so much about them. But as we all know, God finds a way to make a person grow a heart.

Moving forward, I am married now with kids and just moved into a new subdivision: My driver gave me a puppy whom we called Bonita. I thought, sure I need a dog to guard our house. But Bonita's brood grew in number till I have five dogs at one time because I always want to hold on to a puppy every time she gave birth to five or six. Today I don't have a dog, but I have 4 cats.

I never expected I would become a devoted pet owner and grow to love and forgive my pets for their mischievous deeds. In fact I learn anecdotes and lesson through my pets. I hurt when they hurt. I always think I have the cutest cat in the world, and I never ran out of funny stories to tell about my pet.

I have also become a firm believer in not caging animals unless it is for educational or conservation purposes. My heart bleeds silently whenever I see a dog tied to a short chain fastened with a tight collar or locked inside a very small cage where he can barely move. I feel like lashing at their owners and wish that what they are doing to their pets would be done to them. The rule is: Never do unto your pet what you don’t want done unto you.

Through my kitties, I have come to understand the meaning of unconditional love. Why, they don’t give a paw what political or social views I have or if my clothes match or not. I can feel that they are happiest whenever we sit beside each other or when it is time to give them their nightly tummy rubs. They have changed my views about life without saying a single word.

And they don’t need to.

10 comments:

ADMIN said...

That is exactl how I feel about my dogs!

Odette Bautista Mikolai said...

mimi,
how many do you have? kids just love having pets around..and vice versa!
did you buy the lottery ticket yet? hahaha!

Sid Brechin said...

As Odette knows my dog is now blind and so I am a seeing eye human and I also have a cat despite being allergic to them. I sometimes have this mental picture that we get to heaven and there beside us are all our former pets. The Lord turns to the pets and says "Okay, how did he behave himself. "

Fi from Four Paws and Whiskers said...

Glad they managed to get back into your life and that you let them in:)

MEDICALBOOBOOS said...

My animals keep me sane, when I'm feeling down watching them act like a pack of morons and it always cheers me up:)
Cats are so clean too, I have smelled humans that have smelt far worse than any animal I have come across, we don't spend the majority of the day constantly cleaning our bodies..I I do prefer cats to dogs. I'm glad you love them also.xoxo

Odette Bautista Mikolai said...

Tracey,
you hate cats???

Tracey said...

I am allergic to cats also!

It's 2.15 am, I am sitting here with Lottie and Stitch, waiting in case theres any news about Billy, Lottie is coughing and sneezing and cannot sleep! I will let you know how Billy is......later. x x x x x x x

Tracey said...

Billy home. Just took Lottie back too. x x x

Angry American said...

I've had cats for about 8 years or more. I thought I knew a lot about them. I even plucked fleas off two of my cats by hand the day we brought them home and they were covered head to tail. I'm pretty good at it now.

Now that I've worked with cats at an animal shelter for almost two years, I found out I didn't know jack squat. I've learned more important things working at the shelter than I had from books and magazines I've read.

The thing I have the most experience with is their behavior. Cats that are trapped in cages for most of the day can become more agitated than dogs in the same situation. They can also become more anti social as time goes by.

Many of the things I found out about cats in shelters as opposed to cats living with a family I found out the hard way. lol

Tons of scratches, many bites and plenty of blood. If you've never been bitten by a pissed off cat, let me tell you; they can tear you up almost as bad, and cause as much pain as the average dog.

The crazy thing is, I used to be a dog person. I hated cats but, as with most people, it's because I had no exposure to them except being scratched. Now I know better.

There's something that I've noticed about violent and/or overly shy cats. They're either wild and haven't had much, if any, human contact. Or, they seem to react like they've been abused. They want to be pet but, they quickly change their mind and attack. Almost as if you're attacking them even if you didn't move.

The cats who react this way were almost all former pets. Some cats are just like that. But, most of the cats I've seen who react violently, or to become so shy they hide when you look at them were conditioned to be that way. No animal on earth has ever done anything to deseve that.

Whoever did this to these cats, man, woman or child, needs to be beaten into a bloody pulp with a baseball bat. Even young kids know better than that. They chose to do it cause it's "fun". If their parents refuse to stop them, or get their kids psychological help, they need to be beaten twice as hard.

There's no excuse for abusing any animal.

Odette Bautista Mikolai said...

AA,
cats are more vulnerable to neglect than dogs. i see more abandoned cat as many cat owners simply throw them away when their cat give birth to litters.
i wish we have shelters here like what you have there...
but yes, seeing their fangs, i know that they can cut and hurt real good.
hey do cats often get into a fight with other cats? they seem to be sociable and not prone to quarrel unlike dogs, or am i just as ignorant , as usual? hahaha!

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin