When your grief means the cat becomes one with the dogs
My cat might currently be the happiest mammal on the planet. This is because he’s no longer having to do double duty as a cat and a dog.
Of course you’re now probably thinking, umm, how is that even possible? Well, it’s possible because I might have pretended my cat was a dog for about a year now.
This co-mingling of species began when my family in the span of several months lost both of our beloved dogs. Our aged beagle died very suddenly last summer. Then two months later our equally elderly Bichon passed from complications from a chronic disease.
Our whole family was devastated. I was at a loss about how to live my life. For more than 20 years our house had always had a dog. I considered my dogs my children which thank God for that because it made both of my human children leaving the nest a lot less painful. Sure, the kids were gone but I still had my two besties.
Our sadness was so intense that both my husband and I couldn’t imagine getting another dog any time soon. We were still too deep in the grieving process. For me this meant that I started treating our cat like a dog.
It was easy to do. The cat’s big. He’s 20 pounds of gray fur and I could easily scoop him and delusionally pretend he was a dog
In fact, I took to carrying around the cat a lot. I also started doing my dog baby talk to the cat. To say he was not amused would be an understatement. Our cat, a Russian Blue, is very independent, very proud and doesn’t want to be coddled and/or baby talked.
He prefers more erudite discussions like how the cat is superior to humans and that they’ll be hell to pay if I ever think about downgrading his brand of kibble.
But slowly the cat acquiesced, out of pity I’m sure, to my pleas of please let me treat you like a dog. The cat started tolerating being carried around constantly. He also began pretending to be avidly listening to me and didn’t strut away in disgust when I slipped in some baby talk.
At night he would cuddle with me. But not like a cat who lays on your chest or basically your head. Instead, he went full dog and would stretch out right next to me. The one thing he did refuse to do is go on car rides. He had a line in the sand and that was it.
Then last month my husband and I decided it was time for another dog. We are now blessed with an almost one year old beagle mix who’s never met something she doesn’t want to chew and/or destroy.
When the cat first saw the dog I sensed some instant disdain radiating off his fur for the inferior species standing before him. But I also felt like the cat was literally sighing with relief.
I imagined he was thanking some ancient feline goddess for finally freeing him from having to cosplay at being a canine.
Now our cat is back to treating us like he’s our overlord while exhibiting an extremely low tolerance for any conversation that involves sayings like, “you’re the best cutie pie, kitty, kitty, cat in the whole wide world.”
As far as how the dog and cat are getting along. Well, the cat treats the dog like she’s so far beneath him that she’s barely worthy of his notice. So, I’d say at our house all’s right with the world.
Reach Sherry Kuehl at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com, on Facebook at Snarky in the Suburbs @snarkynsuburbs, on Instagram @snarky.in.the.suburbs, and on TikTok @snarkyinthesuburbs and snarkyinthesuburbs.com.
