Pet Deception

I am going away for five days for a nice little vaykay – the first of this length in a loooong time. This trip will actually mark the longest time that I will have ever been away from my little dog. Normally, I relish a free day from my beautiful, barkilicious beagle – but the five days is hitting me kind of hard. So hard, in fact, that while on the phone with my mother the other day, I began to tear up – while at work, no less! – due to a story my mother was relating to me about my little cat-poop-breathed guy. She told me that while she was watching him recently, she was playing a message that I left her on speakerphone, and my intent dog stopped what he was doing and started to look around for me.

This is what made me want to sob with sentimentality. He recognized the sound of my voice. That’s it; He didn’t jump in front of a bullet. He didn’t fast until he and I could be reunited. He didn’t even leave me the carcass of some unidentifiable dead creature on my pillow. No – he just heard a very familiar sound and looked around for the source.

I guess this all just touches on a truth. The truth that most of us pet owners are neck-deep in denial. We think that somehow we are special to our animals. We spend most of our waking life, at least subconsciously, refusing to think that if someone happened to come by wearing a suit of raw meat or catnip that our little pal wouldn’t jump ship in a heartbeat.

For example, a couple of nights ago I laid in bed with my dog curled up next to me on one side and my cat on the other. I stared to drift off to sleep totally content and thrilled that my adored pets were so enamored with me that they couldn’t stand to be away from me. I did this while practically shivering because it was so cold in our apartment without the thought of how desired my body heat might be at that very moment. Ahh – denial really is a lovely state. You might want to get a furry friend and visit sometime.