Let's get straight to the point here: I love my furry family. Now not to be confused with someone's bearded aunt or another fellow's distant cousin with enough chest hair to carpet a Macy's, I'm referring to cats and dogs. Sure, I've liked most reptiles, birds, fish and so on, but I've always been quite attached to our house-trained family and the unconditional love they extend. This also goes for how animals on a grander scale, in turn, love each other.
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If treated right, that is. Meaning, not only if we as responsible humans treat them well, but if they treat each other well, too.
My mother taught me at a very young age not to treat animals, specifically cats and dogs for the purposes of this story, like secondary creatures or inferiors; rather, they're brothers and sisters, just of a different species. "It's like adopting a furrier child," she'd say. "You care for them, hang out with them, provide for them, and love them equally." A very nurturing view, one which I still carry with me.
My first main pet was a beautiful gray cat who lived to be nearly twenty years old while also surviving liver problems and two kinds of cancer in felines. Her name was Tasha, or Natasha from the old 'Moose and Squirrel' days. She was a warrior, that's for damn sure.
Then down the road after her passing in 2008, we adopted a dog, an animal I'd wanted to grow close to for so long. Her name is Kyra (previously Shana, and she had been wandering the streets around Cicero here in Illinois) and we scooped her up from a very caring shelter when she was only six months. She is a very loud, passionate, playful pup even at nearly nine years old now, and she is definitely my loyal, golden sister.
And then along came the constantly curious Bo... My girlfriend Nik and I, coming up on five years strong together, had always wanted to extend our little family within a family. I loved cats, especially Tasha, but was more of a dog guy. She was fine for the most part with dogs, but unquestionably clung more to cats. (They do say opposites attract.) So upon doing our months of research, we ended up at a shelter in Tinley Park when we stumbled upon formerly Harold, who is now our Bo. (Harold for a cat sounded like the oldest, grumpiest, most crotchety root-n'-tootin' name for a cat.) Bo had been rescued by NAWS from an awful, high-kill environment in southern Illinois, and even though we he was on medicines and wasn't the youngest age for a kitten that people typically look for in a new pet, we got the A-OK to administer his meds ourselves and we took him home.
And oh, what a sassy, funny-as-hell little kitty boy he is.
Now having both, we assumed things could be tricky and/or get prickly between them. After all, not every cat-dog relationship is as immediately exemplary as the photo at the top of this piece. Things can get hairy, and Bo still had/has his claws. Plus Kyra was already so alpha and territorial; not in a mean way, but just in a constant one. I mean, a leaf blows three blocks down and she barks like it's World War III: The Dog Days of Hell. And how would Bo be around a canine? Would we have to quarantine them? Declaw Bo? Would Kyra herd him in a way that made him feel threatened? Would her barking startle him too often? Would his sneaking around make her feel uncomfortable even though she was here first for over eight years? The list of worries went on.
But now, they're incredible. They're play mates, they nuzzle one another occasionally. They chill together. Granted we've had to teach them to cooperate with treats and for Bo to not follow Kyra outside, so on and so forth. But overall, we got amazingly lucky and didn't have to do nearly as much as we presumed we would. Not everyone's situations go this way, and not all pets fare well in the presence of a new "mamminal", as we jokingly say.
But you know, I'm not about to question it. They're docile around each other, and they unite us.
Never underestimate the kindness of other creatures.
Except hippos. Random, I know, but seriously they're goddamn nuts.
