My Very Good, Very Bad Cat by Amy Newmark

Author:Amy Newmark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicken Soup for the Soul

The Truth about Cats and Dogs

Fun fact: A person who loves cats is called an ailurophile. The Greek historian Herodotus called cats “ailuroi,” which means “tail wavers.”

All of my friends are dog people. They own Corgis and Shepherds and Puggles, shuttle their dogs between each other’s apartments, and even take them away on vacation, only leaving their canines home alone when absolutely necessary. I’ve always liked animals, but I never understood this obsession. Why can’t you just leave your dog at home when you run to the grocery store or go have coffee with a friend? Don’t you want to at least take a trip without having to worry about feeding and walking and picking up your pup’s poop from the sidewalk?

I guess you could say that I just wasn’t a dog person, and because of this, I didn’t always fit in. There were many conversations I couldn’t join and Dog Dates I couldn’t attend, so when I decided to adopt my cat Cleo from a local shelter, I thought it would certainly alienate me further from the group. Little did I know that the opposite was true.

Within a few days of adopting Cleo, I began noticing that she had a number of traits unusual for a cat. She wasn’t quiet or disinterested, and she didn’t ignore me for most of the day the way my previous cats often had, happy just to bathe in the sun and nap. She wanted attention. She wanted to steal the food off my plate and chew on my shoes. She waited at the door, meowing fervently when she heard me walking up. She followed me around from room to room, staring at me with big, sad eyes until I got out her feather toy and played with her. At night, I would often wake up with her body curled in the curve of my knees, peacefully snoozing, her belly exposed and ready to be scratched.

Because she was so dependent on me, I started to feel bad when I left her alone for long periods of time. Though I didn’t need to rush home from work to make sure she didn’t have an accident on my beautiful white shag rug (thank goodness for litter boxes), I knew that she missed me and would be watching the door, waiting for the sound of my key in the lock. A few times, I even turned down the offer of happy-hour drinks with my co-workers to go home and check on my cat. For a while, nothing about this seemed strange.

Then one day it struck me.

Oh my God, I thought, watching my cat chase her tail in a circle. My cat is just like a dog. I am just like a dog person.

My friends didn’t understand. “What do you mean, your cat’s like a dog?” they asked. But when I tried to explain, they just scoffed. All the cats they knew were prissy, aloof and, from their perspective, utterly unlikeable.

“No offense,” my friend Jane said. “I’m just not a cat person.

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