In my life, I have known some cool cats. 鈥淪ome鈥� might be an overly generous amplification. Four. I鈥檒l go with four.
Brigitte was my childhood cat, but truth be told, she was actually my brother鈥檚 cat. She was so much his cat that one time she chose his bed (upon which he was sleeping at the time) to birth her kittens. My mother 鈥� who had grown up on a farm in Iowa 鈥� was familiar with animal husbandry and did not seem put off. I grew up thinking it was perfectly normal for cats to give birth on a bed while someone was sleeping there.
Scarlet is my niece鈥檚 cat. She is the only cat I鈥檝e ever seen that can be cuddled for as long as you want. She doesn鈥檛 mind and doesn鈥檛 suddenly turn into a biting and clawing machine when she wants to get away.
My daughter has two lovely rescue cats: Gola and Phoenix. Gola is about half the size of Phoenix, who has never known a bad piece of kibble.
I mean no disrespect to cat lovers. Cats do have some traits in their favor. They cover their waste. Most of them don鈥檛 shed enough fur to construct a facsimile of themselves, unlike some dogs. They occasionally vibrate their laryngeal muscles, causing the not unpleasant sound of a purr.
They are soft and generally amenable to being stroked. I would, however, advise against petting any of the six (!) hairless breeds of cats. (I would also advise against Googling 鈥渉airless cats鈥� right before bedtime to prevent nightmares.)
The superiority of canines is also evident in the English language. One 鈥減uts on the dog鈥� when one wants to impress. One aspires to be a 鈥渢op dog.鈥�
I am not the only one who prefers dogs. The superiority of canines is also evident in the English language. One 鈥減uts on the dog鈥� when one wants to impress. One aspires to be a 鈥渢op dog.鈥� Who doesn鈥檛 enjoy a delicious hot dog from time to time? And what could be better on a 鈥渢hree-dog night鈥� than snuggling with some puppers?
Drilling down a bit further, if dogs are better than cats, then my dog, Nala, is the best one of all.
We acquired Nala from a shelter a few months after we said goodbye to Schatzi, our beloved German shepherd who had hip dysplasia and a degenerative spine condition.
Nala, a boxador (boxer and Labrador retriever mix) was sharing a kennel with a very vocal husky. She seemed submissive. Her information card indicated that her owners had surrendered her because she was rough with children. I melted, fearing that no one would adopt her with such a bad report.
When we brought her home, we understood what her owners had meant. She was bouncy and jumpy and knew no commands. She was an enthusiastic eater, which I aided and abetted because of her hungry eyes. Her frenetic activity was not caused by aggression, however, and after a little training, her friendly, goofy personality emerged.
Currently, Nala has approximately 37 rawhide bone fragments in her toy box, and who knows how many buried in the backyard. She also has the uncanny ability to detect old rawhide under heavy couches, barking at me impatiently until I retrieve her bone. Her relentlessness is part of her charm.
She has ruined my hairbrushes, two pairs of shoes and three pairs of sunglasses. Nala appears contrite when I discover her transgressions; I think a cat would pretend they never happened.
Nala has never met a stranger. Visitors to my house are viewed as potential back-scratchers and lick recipients. We take the same walking route every day, yet she stops to sniff the exact same locations from the day before. It is amusing, perhaps not playing-with-yarn amusing, but it is entertaining.
Recently, however, there has been a development that may cause me to rethink my position about dogs v. cats.
Despite Nala鈥檚 many chew toys, bones and an exorbitant amount of my personal attention throughout the day, she has begun to eat my house. I was intently hemming some pants and heard Nala chewing on a bone. A crunchy bone. Except it wasn鈥檛 a crunchy bone. Nala had somehow wrested a corner piece of molding from my living room wall. Bad dog. A very bad dog indeed.
Nala may be having her own reservations about her place in our home. Recent trips to the dog park have seen her approaching other dog鈥檚 owners, presenting her backside for a scritch. They happily oblige, and Nala follows them around the park, forgetting that her real family is waiting for her.
Eventually, though, Nala remembers that I am the almighty provider of food and comfort and comes barreling back to me at full speed.
A cat would probably just leave forever, or at least until she heard the unmistakable rattle of her cat-food box.
Camille Dolan is the communications coordinator for the 麻豆原创鈥檚 College of Health Professions and Sciences. She can be reached at camille.dolan@ucf.edu.
The 麻豆原创 Forum is a weekly series of opinion columns presented by 麻豆原创 Communications & Marketing. A new column is posted each Wednesday at /news/ and then broadcast between 7:50 and 8 a.m. Sunday on W麻豆原创-FM (89.9). The columns are the opinions of the writers, who serve on the 麻豆原创 Forum panel of faculty members, staffers and students for a year.
