Rambling about cats
Cats are more successful infiltrators into human habitations than dogs. A dog knows its place in a human home. A human is always the pack leader. The dog, always eager to please its leader, will fawn and grovel and shower affection to demonstrate its undying, unquestioning loyalty. It is often called upon to do things to earn its keep. Like guard the home at night or when their human masters are out. Country dogs may have more duties, like helping their masters round up cattle or sheep. I wonder if people who like dogs enjoy the power dogs give them. Cats are different. Very different. Cats swagger about human homes on their own terms. I have never seen a grovelling cat. Even the friendliest of pussycats somehow manages to convey that it is according a privilege to the human whose lap it jumps on or whom it rubs up against. Even the hope that a cat will keep a home mouse-free is just that: a hope, not an expectation, and never a condition for being showered with food and warmth and other creature comforts. If a cat is preventing the local mouse population from taking off, you can be sure it is not being motivated by a sense of duty. If you find dead mice around the place, you’d be likely to also discover dead birds and rabbits. One of my cats liked to behead his victims. He was handsome, friendly, loveable, a regular purrer. He burrowed under my doona on winter nights. Don’t be fooled by the beautiful faces, or the beautiful natures reserved for humans. Cats are cruel animals. They have no qualms about inflicting horrific torture on smaller creatures. The only cats that don’t perpetrate such vile acts are fat, lazy ones. Cat lovers bask in the privilege that cats give them. Some say cats are incisive, accurate assessors of human nature. You feel better about yourself when a cat behaves as if it likes you, especially a cat you meet for the first time. And the opposite might be true too. If a cat shuns you, if it resists all your efforts to cuddle it, its owners (so they like to think when, in reality, they are staff and attendants) might raise their eyebrows at you. What is the cat perceiving about you? Does a dark soul lurk within you, masked from humans by your friendly façade but not fooling their feline pets for even a second? Cat lovers are different to dog lovers, even though cat and dog lovers cheerfully co-exist. Many people love both cats and dogs. Some have an overarching love of animals. I know people who see in animals nobility and honesty they don’t see in humans. Cats and dogs fulfil different human needs. Humans are for the most part easy to please. And they are riddled with emotional needs, whether or not they care to admit them. They crave both subservience and acceptance. Dogs lavish subservience all the time. Cats trickle out acceptance, if they are in the mood. Yes, I am a cat lover. I have craved their acceptance all my life.
Gerry Roberts 