Fur Person

Americans love their pets, sometimes more than their children. A recent study said over 45% of pet owners bought Christmas gifts for their pets. I have been guilty as charged. Pets become a part of the family, and we want them to share the joy we experience, even if they have no clue why they got a special bone or catnip toy at Christmas.

We may have gone over the edge with our giddiness toward animals according to some cultures that believe our massive pet expenditures might well be better spent to help starving children worldwide.

While traveling this year at Thanksgiving, I was amazed at how many older women had small dogs in carry purse/kennels on our flights. The women took them out to hold and love as soon as they were seated on the airplane. Some dogs shivered, some lapped up the affection with their scarlet painted toenails proudly on display, and all of the owners of these pups were quick to tell their seatmates the life history of their babies. I smiled and said to my husband, “Don’t leave home without it,” our catchphrase when we see huge RV’s towing cars and everything else behind them that they might possibly need for their vacation pleasure.

We lost our nineteen-year-old and our approximately eight-year-old cats (vets have to guess with a stray) to coyotes in September. We’d heard wild coyotes two years ago, but our dogs were still alive to defend our home territory. The coyotes had disappeared when Ed shot our boat cannon (10 gauge blanks=LOUD NOISE & SMOKE, but won’t hurt a fly). When the coyotes returned this year, I heard them once, and the old cat was gone. We tried to keep the adoptee inside, but as a hunter he could not stand being cooped up indoors. We opened the cat door, thinking he would stay inside at night. Two days later, he was gone.

My father’s mother died when I was five, after many eight-hour weekend drives to see her through her cancer struggle. In her will, she left me her Siamese. We took the cat home, and two days later she gave birth to two gray striped cats, Agua and Caliente (Spanish for water and fire, since one had a slight orange flash on his forehead.) Mom found homes for the kittens, and I fell in love with the mama cat. Six months later, when the cat again went into heat, my mother decided to have her spayed. Having had too many litters, she bled to death. I was inconsolable.

Enter Sing Pong, my fabulous Siamese kitten who climbed the curtains his first ten minutes in the house. I’d picked him out at birth, and anxiously awaited his arrival after being weaned. Dad nicknamed him Silly, which he was. He babysat our fourteen-year-old cocker and would cuddle with her to keep her warm at night. He kept our family entertained for seven years, until my other grandmother left a door open. He was poisoned by a neighbor. A male and female Siamese took his place, and got me through my teenage years.

When I met Ed, he owned two male Siamese, Kimba and Niko. In our forty years together, we have had ten cats. The only time we were cat-less was when we lived in a rental upon moving to Western North Carolina. We had Barnacle Bill, our parrot, and a guinea pig for critter company those nine months. Once we bought a home, we added bunnies, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks and swans to the menagerie.

Barnacle Bill sings and talks, but he certainly doesn’t cuddle. He has held a grudge against me since I had Lyric twenty-seven years ago.

I realized that a cat or dog is love incarnate. They put up with our bad moods, our unhappiness, and our self-centeredness. They are there for us when we need them. They don’t judge. They forgive. They cuddle. They entertain. They make us aware of our shortcomings by always loving us no matter what.

Once we were home from our travels in November, we got a year-old Siamese from the pound and a nine-week-old rescue kitten. We feel as if we are a family again. Sitting by a winter’s fire with a sweet, warm, purring kitten on your lap is a slice of heaven.

We are all one, a part of the divine dance of the Universe. Our fur people help remind us of that connection with all life. People who have little chance to be outside in nature can, through their pets, feel that interconnectedness.

I will still support charities, trying to help where I can. I won’t divest so much of my happiness in my pet that it becomes my child. But, I will enjoy these cats for the love we share as long as they are here to be a part of my world.

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