My Transition To A Cat Person
Embracing change.
When I was a kid, we went through a bunch of dogs. It was traumatic primarily because my mother did not like them. My father wouldn’t (and couldn’t) train them. We loved them all and ultimately couldn’t keep them. Something happened to me starting two years ago and I came to something of a realization last week that I may not be a dog person after all.
Part of me wants to think about how it all went wrong in my life through all of my dogs and experiences with others’ dogs. That would start with an inventory that would bore you to death and plus give hackers information they shouldn’t know about me. Still, I will say that Nubbin was our best dog, Bullet was my favorite dog, April was our most beloved dog and Seiko was a goddamned mess.
I think it all comes down to one primary matter, in the end. For me, there is no such thing as a proper inside dog. Or put another way, no proper dog is an inside dog. Thus the bone of my contention has everything to do with the manner in which I believe humans best interact with dogs, which is that dogs perform a service. The very idea of a service cat, besides being ridiculous is even more absurd because I know people who need them for their emotional rescue. No. Wrong. Ick. A proper dog hunts. It is an outdoor creature. A dog is a man’s best friend because a dog is a tool. A dog has purpose and the wonderment of man’s attraction to dogs is fundamentally about the fact that a dog can be a happy, grateful, loyal tool.
April, on the other hand, was a pet. We called out her name in baby voice. Bullet was super cool precisely and only because he was a purebred black lab, and those puppies cost $50 in 1970s dollars. Nubbin was our loyal hiking dog, and would fetch. And no he didn’t think he was a raccoon, but that’s where his name came from. Seiko was an absolute mess.
What happened two Octobers ago at my sister’s place in Rhode Island was that I met her two Akitas. I forget which one was the more neurotic one, but my sister had them both trained, as in she could make a hand gesture and they knew it was time to go stay in the basement. Even when it was time to eat, they would sit patiently while she poured the kibble. Then she snapped her fingers, and they dug in. Trained. But when my cousin showed up with his InsaneODoodle and chaos ensued.
I have always wanted a trained police dog, not incidentally because all of the rowdy knuckleheads in my neighborhood growing up were deathly afraid of them. As someone who studiously watched Cesar Millan, I learned something about the things I did, and the things I did not know about dogs. What I didn’t quite understand was how much humans messed dogs up. (I had nothing to do with Seiko, that’s all on my brother Doc. I was away at college.) But even when I was using choke chains, I didn’t quite have the superior attitude necessary to command. Idiot kids in my roughneck neighborhood would feed their dogs pepper sauce and slap them in the face, both making them mean and enhancing their own hand speed. We lived in close proximity to junkyards and junkyard dogs. We lived in fear of strays. There were very few nice dogs in the ‘hood. These days I see women in their 60s walk around our suburban gated community with large dogs and large sticks. That kind of ghetto symbiosis is hard to shake. But we had the nice dogs, stupid Spaniels, mangy mutts and the kind you use baby voice with. Until I visited my sister, I thought people outgrew that.
If you don’t have kids, I guess you have an excuse to treat your dogs as part of the family, and yes there is something admirable about having them housebroken. But if you grew up on a farm, you have a slightly different excuse to speak to them on the regular. But asking them nicely not to bite the sofa? Sheeeeit. Me listening to people talk to dogs conversationally is like atheists parsing out which segments of public prayer are actually attributable to science. There must be something in there that makes sense. Or as Inigo Montoya maintains, I don’t think those words mean what you think they mean. I think Gary Larson nailed it.
Sure I let them smell my hand. I don’t freak out when their nose goes up my crotch. After all, I’m sure they can differentiate my actual scent from the Old Spice body wash. Hell, I wish I could smell like a dog. Well, actually, that was the problem last week. Once again, with family, but we’re still talking 2023 here.
My second stop was Howard County, MD. That’s where my very successful cousin tends his estate. The last time I was there, he had a Great Dane. I’m not sure that I remember its personality, but I have to say I was a bit intimidated by that horse. They put him away for the duration of my stay, which was sweet of them. This time, after the passing of that poor, huge, arthritic creature, they got another four legged meatbag. I thought Seiko was a mess. At least my cousin, having been engaged with government dark work, has a more properly manly appreciation for human-dog communication. Unfortunately for them, that dog has what I think can reasonably be called Borderline Personality Disorder. It’s needy. It’s greedy. It cannot shutup and sit still. But it does know to stay out of their sunken living room. Maybe it has something to do with that funny looking thick collar.
I never guessed that reasonable people would put up with clingy inside dogs. So now I’m in my mother’s shoes, or maybe I’m turning into a Mohammedan. By the way, when I was a kid, I allowed my dogs to lick my face. But that was when I was a kid, and I never stuck my tongue out too. Last week I think was the final straw.
Yet again, it’s family. This time my daughter and our extended family in the San Fernando Valley. We were at the house, back from a wonderful Mexican dinner. I haven’t been out there in a while, so the dogs don’t remember me. Yes. Two dogs including a WackaDoodle, who is probably two years old. The older smaller more reasonable dog was doing what I would have done if I was a dog, snap at the big idiot when he wanted to play. Silly me, I sat on the stairs to be friendly and let the brown gargantua smell me all over, like that horndog ballad by Exile from the 70s. Is it me? Is there something absolutely captivating about my right armpit?
I was informed that I was sitting in the play spot. So maybe we could move? I get up and sit at the kitchen table for coffee. This dog ought to know me by now. Nope. Crotch time. Snuffle. Run around the table. Jump on somebody else, then back to home base. Mmm! Gonads! I gotta get out of here. Can we go outside and drink our coffee in peace? Oh great idea. Of course no one thinks to keep the dogs indoors. I’m about ready to accidentally spill the hot brew on this nosy nose. But I’m politely explaining that I actually like dogs. Farm dogs. Working dogs.
What I imagine most people wouldn’t know about me is that I’ve done 20 whole hours of ranching, and I get it. That’s a bit more than two or three resort courses in scuba diving. I wouldn’t call myself a rancher or a diver, not by a longshot. But I do know how to handle myself around cattle and regulators. Don’t get me wrong. It’s pretty easy. I think most humans could do it. Similarly, I think most humans could like and respect the President, but people have their reasons why they are fundamentally and irrevocably disgusted. They could like and do like the kind that’s way different than the one you choose to not only tolerate, but adore. That’s about where I am with inside dogs.
The rest of the evening, as the slobber on my pants and shirt dried on my 65 minute drive home southbound in stop and go traffic on the 405, I could smell dog on me. I tried to tune my radio to NPR and do a nausea swap. I was even ready to play Pitbull. It was at that moment I realized that I might be transitioning to a cat person.
The coolest cats in the world sprang from the imagination of Japanese author Haruki Murakami. I couldn’t tell you much more about that because I confuse the two books of his that I’ve read with some of my weirdest dreams. It has been a while since I’ve taken tea in the morning and meditated, but I know it’s something I could do with a cat. No cat really wants to be an inside cat. I understand that’s why there’s something wrong with cat ladies. All cats have the sense to resist being herded. All dogs should be herding.
Everybody wants me to sympathize and love their dogs. I have sympathy for the people who have have been infected with the strange virus that makes them irrationally affectionate for the one domestic animal that should be purpose-driven and rational, but isn’t. Or maybe it’s not sympathy, just pity. Or maybe they have a god sized hole. I can’t put my finger on the mutuality of the Doodle dependency, but I know it’s deep and it freaks me out.
I like the fact that you can ignore cats. Simply whatever to you, stupid cat. Aside from a catbox and twin dishes, cats can be out of sight and out of mind. Or they can navigate multidimensional planes of existence. Yeah. I don’t want a cat, and I know the cats don’t care. That sits very well with me.