A Victim of My Own Success

I am a dog lover who married into a family of cat lovers. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t hate cats. I’m basically an animal lover. If it’s got four legs and fur, I’m probably going to try to pet it (that has, on occasion, included a number of woodland creatures that most people are usually better off leaving alone including one bear that I was photographing one morning who got as interested in me as I was in her. Talk about encroaching on someone's personal space! But that's another story for another time). So, as I said, I don’t hate cats. I just prefer dogs.

Dogs are cool. They’re always happy to see you. They just want to hang out. They always have that goofy, “So what do you want to do today?” look on their faces. And they really don’t care what you want to do today. Whatever you want to do is fine with them just as long as they get to do it with you. There’s an old joke about that:

Want to find out who your best friend is? Lock your wife and your dog in the trunk of your car for an hour. When you open the trunk, see which one is happy to see you! Defense rests.

I don’t have a pet like that. I have two cats. So I decided that the way to make the best of this situation was to turn one of the cats into a dog. Her name is Monet and she is very smart. For a cat, she makes an excellent dog. So far I have trained her to come when she’s called and she can also sit and roll over. She doesn’t “speak,” per se. Cats aren’t big on “speak.” However, she does always answer when you talk to her. If you just say "Speak," she ignores you. But if you ask her a question, she answers – always! It’s very bizarre. Sometimes we have lengthy conversations, completely in Cat. I don’t speak Cat and I have no idea what we’re saying, but she seems to enjoy it and participates enthusiastically and that's good enough for me. But the best part about teaching my cat to be a dog, and the part that really drives my cat-loving wife nuts, is that she has learned to beg at the table. When we’re having dinner, she just appears beside you. She has several begging strategies. She usually starts with “the look.” She’ll sit beside you and just stare at you with that intense, you-feel-it-before-you-see-it look. If that doesn’t produce any table scraps, she assumes that you just didn’t notice her and she'll put her front feet on your leg and gently tug on it as if to say, “Hey! I’m down here!” And here’s the kicker. When you do offer her a tiny piece of your dinner, she sits up. Just like a dog! This really, really annoyed my wife for a while, but she’s getting used to it now and has even started feeding Monet herself occasionally. (I WIN!!!!)

So here comes the victim of my own success part. The other evening I was eating a sandwich in front of the TV in the family room. I left the room for a few minutes and when I got back, Monet was standing on the coffee table contentedly munching on my bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich and purring like mad. 

And I have no-one to blame but myself…… (sigh).