Three days to fill in Jan. It is Dec 2nd and I have just spent my first night -ever- sleeping with a pet. My postal worker son and a couple friends have been planning a week-long trip to Hawaii for quite some time. I agreed to take care of his pet for the week. I have had reasonable success caring for pets considering I have never had one of my own and we did not have them when I was growing up. With the horrible weather, I also thought it might be easier to just stay at his house on days that the weather was wretched.
My first experience with a dog was a golden retriever who came up behind me, and jumped up and put his paws on my shoulders. I was 6 or 7 and it scared the livin' daylights out of me. It wasn't until college that I met a dog that was friendly and restored my willingness to be friends with a dog. Same thing with cats. At an early age, the first cat I met bit me. The owner just plopped it in my lap - and it bit me. Most likely, it was a friendly *hello - you look like a darling little girl* but, I had no way of knowing that. In my 30s I met a cat who restored my willingness to make friends with cats.
I know there are dog-people and cat-people - and then there are no-pet-people, like me. We know that we seem cold and heartless. But here's the thing. Watching people love their pets, often times more than they love other people has made me very aware of how amazing it is to have a relationship with a pet.
And then the pet dies.
Why do people put themselves through that? I have never understood.
This is getting too long. The rest of the story comes up tomorrow. Feel free to explain to me why you willingly set yourselves up to experience the loss of beloved pets.
****
There was a post up yesterday for a few hours - Finnbadger alerted me that it might not be a legitimate website - hopefully everyone ignored it. Thank you Finnbadger.
Boy, Jean, I’m with you on pets! When I was 3, I was at the city park on the river, where Canada geese congregated. I was terrified as they came after us, with our bread, and my dad set me up on a large boulder, out of their way. But staring down into those gawping mouths must have gotten to me; I was afraid of any animal “with a mouth” for years. I would only play with worms! (My dad had a worm pit; fisherman, you know.) The family got worried, and at 7 we got a collie who turned out to be the best dog ever. Yes I got over my worm thing, but like you, no more pets because the grief when they die, or even the grief as they’re living, is just too much for my system.
ReplyDelete