Crazy Cat Lady?

I am starting to embrace the fact that I might be one of those crazy pet owners. You know, the kind who talks to their animals, gives them kisses and believes that their pets truly are the cream of the crop. (Well, Olivia anyway.) I have only recently come to this conclusion while I was at work a few weeks ago. There is another woman who has cats and I often ask her advice on things cat-related and we swap "cute, cat tales." One afternoon, during our lunch break, I made the mistake of divulging too much information about my love for cats. While my feline fan did not think it was strange, a few of my other friends did and though they may have tried to hide their countenance, I saw the looks on their faces . . . they thought I was nuts. This made me totally self-conscience and made me reevaluate my pet stance. Maybe I am nuts. But my question to you is, would I have gotten those same looks had I been talking about a dog? I would venture to say no.

I am certainly not going to start the debate about which animal is better, cats or dogs. I think that question is completely irrelevant considering it is solely based on an objective point of view, but I do wonder why cats had such a bad wrap. Take our cat Olivia for instance. **Side Note: I will not be using our other cat Molly in my pro-cat argument because she still has lots of annoying kitten tendencies and sometimes she drives me crazy. I will use her when I need to prove a point. Is this skewing information? Yes, but it's my blog and I can do what I wanna.** Olivia is almost like a small dog. She greets us at the door, follows us around the house, sleeps with us and generally likes to be in the same room as us. As an added bonus, she goes to the bathroom in her litter box whenever she needs to, allowing us to continue our day, uninterrupted by potty breaks. Another pro is her litter box, meaning we don't need to worry about minefields in the back yard. Yes, Troy does clean the litter box (we made a deal that he takes care of animal poop and I take care of small human poop. It's awesome because we each feel like we are getting the better end of the deal), but at least he doesn't need to go out with the pooper-scooper every day to collect the waste.

So, what is it that makes dog owners feel superior to cat owners? There is definitely a stigma. Why is it weird that I care for my cats when the next person who is a dog owner is not found strange for having the same feelings towards their pet? Cats need loving homes just like dogs do and in many ways, if you know that you can't stand up to the responsibilities that owning a dog entails, cats are a much better option. I know that I personally don't want to wake up early before work to take a dog on a walk so it can do its business. I also know that I don't want to have to try and find a dog-sitter when I want to go out of town. I don't want a dog waking me up or scratching at the door when it needs to go outside. Grooming and vet bills can be expensive and what if my dog gets fleas or ticks and brings those along with his muddy paws into my house! And until I am ready to handle those responsibilities or if Troy is dying to do them, we will be content with our cats. But people seem to overlook these responsible checklists that cat owners make.

Now, I am not that crazy of a cat owner, despite what some of my colleagues may think. I do understand why people pour so much money into their animals and I also understand how it is possible to love an animal so much. I didn't always use to be like this. When I was growing up, we couldn't have any pets. Let me rephrase that, we couldn't have any fun pets, namely a cat or a dog. We had lame pets: fish, birds and gerbils. One time I did get a tadpole to take home after we studied them in my second grade science unit, but it never reached adulthood. And another time my sister and I had two rabbits, but we had to get rid of them after two days because my dad was allergic. Because we didn't have any pets that were "fun," I never understood people who would come to school sad about their sick or dying cats and dogs. To me it just seemed like that was the circle of life. I didn't know how you could get attached to an animal. Maybe that's the problem with the people I ate lunch with. Maybe they never had the chance to get attached to a pet. That's really not all that strange considering, I never knew that until I was 25!

Anywho, the point of this blog is not to rip on dog owners. Someday, Troy and I will have dogs too, but I am just trying to make a case for all those cute kitties out there. So, I am here to say, yes, I love my cats. They make excellent snugglers, they do funny things like make themselves cozy in the washing machine or hide under rugs, they are easy to take care of and all they want is a little love.