Originally posted on May 30, 2019.
Today may seem like just another ordinary day, but it’s not. Today is National Hug Your Cat Day. Seriously, I looked it up to see if it’s legit and it is, but I can’t help wondering. Do the cats know about this? I don’t have a cat (my husband is fiercely allergic) so I don’t know much about them, but it seems to me cats generally are not the hugging types. I suppose that’s why cat people need an official holiday on which to force their pets to hug them.
The world is divided into two categories of people: cat people and dog people. That’s not to say if you like cats you can’t like dogs and vice-versa, but people typically fall into one camp or the other.
Take me for example. I’m a dog person, and still, I think cats are pretty cool. They are sleek, intelligent and aloof, but the absolute best thing about cats is they are independent, which makes them low maintenance pets. I was talking to a friend (cat person) who happened to mention she’d gone out of town for a long weekend and left her cat at home alone.
“You left your cat alone? In your house? For an entire weekend?” I asked, thinking I can’t even go to the bathroom without triggering my dog’s separation anxiety and the ensuing fitful chewing and anal gland secretions.
“Sure. I do it all the time. I set out enough food and water to last as long as I’ll be gone and make sure to leave them with a clean litter box.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Nope. Now, I can’t leave them for more than about three or four days, but yeah. They’re fine on their own. Sometimes I think they prefer it when I’m not there.”
Sheesh. You can’t even leave a goldfish for more than a day without finding the little guy floating, belly up, at the top of the bowl. When I go out of town I either take my pooch with me or have a professional dog-sitter come to my house so as not to upset the dog’s routine. No joke. We used to take her to an in-home dog sitter, but she suffers from terrible separation anxiety and being away from her humans and her home proved to be more than she could handle.
Yes indeed, cats are low maintenance all right. No need to walk a cat, or bathe a cat, or entertain a cat for hours on end playing fetch, or clean up after a cat who’s unraveled an entire roll of toilet paper just for the fun of it, and certainly never a need to pry your favorite Kate Spade sandals out of a cat’s mouth. Cats are low maintenance pets, which makes owning one very appealing. In fact, it makes me wish I was a cat person…but I’m not. Unfortunately, I’m a dog person and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Pet orientation is not something you choose. It’s as much a part of a person as race or height or eye color and for me, dogs are the bomb. I’ll take a dopey, drooling, smelly, mangy dog over a dignified, fastidiously tidy cat any day of the week.
For one thing, dogs don’t snub you the way cats do. A mere glance at a dog sends him into seizures of joy. No ifs, ands, or buts…dogs flat out lovelovelove you, and they’re not ashamed to show it.
Loving a cat, on the other hand, is like harboring an unrequited crush on someone who doesn’t even know you exist. You know he’ll never notice you and yet, you never give up trying to get his attention, and when you finally do, he stares back blankly wondering who you are or worse ignores you altogether.
It seems to me cats generally are not the hugging types. I suppose that’s why cat people need a special holiday on which to force their pets to hug them. Today may be National Hug Your Cat Day, but every day is hug-your-dog-day.
