Do you ever feel as though your pets own your house, your life, your livelihood? Don’t get me wrong – I like animals. I just never knew how much care and attention they would take. Or how dramatically they would take over my household. As you can see in the picture to the left, Ranger (my 95 lb Labrador)  is on the huge radiator in my living room, and Nick, another big old Lab is on his bed right nearby.

When I was a kid, my parents didn’t allow us to have any pets. That was quite understandable. There were five children in my family, we lived in the city, and both of my parents worked. They didn’t really need more mouths to feed, or any more bodies to take care of. Plus, my mom’s father was a veternarian during the Depression – he was often paid with “the pick of the litter.” Which meant they always had a surplus of dogs around their house. My mother had no interest in repeating her mother’s experience.

When I first met my husband, he had a cat. I’d never known any cats before, and Pookie was a sweetie, not to mention a novelty to me. She was cute and friendly, and so when a pretty gray stray kitten approached me on the street one day and asked me to take him in, I had no objection to adopting him. The rest is history. Now, I have four lugs – two cats and two dogs – who have me trained to do their bidding. We need a walk. OK! What time?? Can we have some treats? Yes, siree!! I’ve got them right here! Anything else…?

I’m pretty sure that if we had been allowed to have pets, they would never have dared to snooze on the furniture. (That’s Ranger on the couch with Bob right beside him).  And what do I have to say about it? I do my talking later, with the vacuum. I’m sure the Dog Whisperer would have plenty to say about my disciplinary technique.

When we have company (the human kind) I always have to move somebody. Take Kokomo, for example – my 13 year old cat who loves to be in the midst of things, even if he is halfway comatose. If it were summer, he would be on our front porch, keeping track of the birds and squirrels that cross his territory, and making sure that Bob doesn’t come near. Bob would then have to go and sit on our next-door neighbor’s porch. Because Kokomo is in charge, and he doesn’t really like Bob that much. He tolerates the dogs, but the other cat? Not so much.

Bob likes to sit on my lap when I’m trying to use my laptop (which doesn’t work out very well, as you can imagine), and Nick is a hustler, always playing some angle or other. A walk, a snack, a good scratch behind the ears … he’s usually after something, and he drags Ranger along, just so that he doesn’t appear to be the only mercenary one. Ranger is a little bit shy, and he has a few weird habits, himself. For example, the toaster is a problem for him. It once set off the smoke alarm, and ever since then, when I take the toaster out of the cupboard, Ranger heads for the basement where he can hide. He does the same with the vacuum, but he doesn’t mind the lawn mower or the snow blower. Go figure.

I may be completely wrong, but I have a feeling that we treat our pets much more like family than people did years ago. Is that true? What do you think? While you’re considering that question, I’m going to go and feed the fish, who have been yelling at me for the past 20 minutes to feed them!