Having just been conned (by the cat) into getting another
animal, I am reminded of the differences and the challenges of both.
 |
| Bob the wonder-cat |
Cats, I now recall, cannot easily
be confined. Pretty much anything is within their reach - bench tops, tops of
fridges, windows, curtains, cupboards. They will find ways to access food (particularly
your own) that you may not have thought possible. All the ‘safeguards’ I put in
place for Bruce the wonder-dog are no match for Bob the wonder-cat.
I forgot that with Bruce (and other dogs) as
long as it was out of his jumping range, I could prepare food, eat food, have a
drink, open a cupboard, write on my laptop or use the phone or pretty much do
anything without a furry face or paw in the way. In fact with a cat, no task is sacred. I have
had to already resort to ‘Bob-free’ zones in the house when his curiosity has reached
the point of becoming more intrusive.
With Bruce, and probably dogs in
general, the challenges were different.
The noise from his feet on tiles and floorboards was annoying, but at
least you could tell where he was as opposed to Bob sneaking and jumping over
my back onto my keyboard without warning.
Dog also bark. They bark, if they are like Bruce, at nothing in
particular and usually when I was in the middle of a conversation on the phone
or working on a tricky passage in one of my books. Dogs can be contained inside or outside as
long as they are not escapologists. A
friend of mine has been cursed with three dogs that can escape under fences,
through doors and even between the most impossibly small gaps in gates. Bruce,
fortunately, was too lazy to want to escape; he knew that there was a steady
supply of food and warm places to sloth at my house to ever be inclined to run
away.
Dogs
seem also to have less delicate sensibilities than a cat; cats would not, as a
rule, relish getting wet or muddy or rolling in putridly evil smelling
substances. Felines would, however,
enjoy sharing with the family the bloodied corpses of their latest killing
spree and, if possible, to spread them in a thin and even layer across your
best piece of furniture or expensive rug for the greatest effect.
Both
cats and dogs have a knack of finding the most inappropriate, least washable
surfaces when leaving a deposit of disgusting substance that can severely
challenge the tolerance, the stomach and the housekeeping skills of their
owners/slaves. And why is it that these ‘deposits’ have to be dealt with when
you are just about to eat?
I will leave you with a quote
from a recent face book conversation with a friend when Bob decided he wanted
to use the keyboard as some sort of disco dance floor
“…see you later, danger, danger Bob has discovered the lap top!!!!
we33333333333333333333./*hg/….”
So if you are
ever having a conversation with me via email, text or face book and my response
seems to be indecipherable, you could be conversing with Bob and not me.
For more mad
animal stories see my website – www.madanimals.com.au
