Monday, March 19, 2012

Are you a Cat Person or a Dog Person?

The age old question – Do you like Cats or Dogs?
Well, honestly, I’ve always been a cat person…a cat lover. 
When I was a little girl I wanted to have a pet soooo bad and my parents kept telling me NO. Finally, an opportunity arose! {A-HA!} When I was in fourth grade one of my little friends had a cat that had kittens. {YIPEE!} His parents were desperately trying to get rid of these kittens. {OPPORTUNITY KNOCK.ING!} The wheels in my little fourth grade mind really started turning. How, oh how, can I bring one of these kittens home? Luckily for me, it was in October and my parents wedding anniversary was right around the corner. Perfect! I would get my parents a kitten for their anniversary because we all know that you can’t give presents back and that way I would get a cat! {The way my mind worked back then really scares me...is it foreshadowing how my children are going to think and act?} 
I might be in some trouble!
I brought the kitten home, she was a white and orange kitten...I have no idea what kind of cat...does it really matter? She was so adorable! I just loved her so much. It was love at first sight! They just absolutely, positively had to let me keep her.
And to my surprise, they DID! We named her Kitty…I know, very creative. We had her until I was in about 8th grade, I think, those Jr. High/High School years all kind of run together for me. I had another cat after her, Toby. Toby was my partner in crime until I went to college and my parents moved to Arizona, so Toby had to find a new home. I'm still very bitter about this! I really can't talk about it much...to this day, I don't understand why he couldn't move with my parents or into the dorm with me? But he moved to a farm in northern Iowa, so I know he was happy...it took many years of therapy to be able to say that! :) JK
After marrying my husband, I found out he was a dog person. What, why did we not discuss this before the wedding? Aren't we supposed to discuss important stuff like that? What were we to do, he wanted a dog, I wanted a cat? He said, "my dad and my sister are allergic to cats so they would never be able to visit if we had them." Damn, good argument. {light bulb} Or I could just reply, "if we have a cat the In-Laws could never visit us!" {wink}
So for about 11 years I fought us getting a dog. They honestly scare me. Why is it when you don't like dogs they always come to you for a good back rub?  Or are always sniffing around your feet just waiting for you to touch them?
Fast forward to about 2 and a half years ago…On one warm, summer day, Mini-Me brought home a homeless kitten – I think it was probably just under a year old so not a new kitty. {I see history repeating itself here} She made a little bed for it on our front step, got it a little bowl of milk and some broken bread crumbs. She wanted to keep it so bad. But we stuck to our guns and said no. That night after the kids were in bed, I found my hubby on the computer searching for, yep, you guessed it….PUPPIES! Are you kidding me? Our kids are finally {kind of} taking care of themselves. You want to bring a new baby into the family? Ahhhh, but then I looked at the pictures...
Who could resist this face?
Within two weeks we were on our way to adopting our newest family member. The 3 hour car ride was filled with brainstorming ideas for her name. Butterscotch, Blueberry, Fluffy, Daisy…we decided on Daisy! I still wasn't sure about her and if I wanted her. It seemed like an awful lot of extra work to me. But when they brought her out to us, it was once again love at first sight!
  
She wasn't too sure about the car ride home, but the kids cuddled her {look at how young the kids are!}
And Mini-Me even sang her a song!
Ahhhhh, that still gets me every time! She barely weighed a pound!
My husband, who I must point out, is the one who wanted her in the first place, had a fishing trip with our son lined up that weekend after we brought Daisy home. Great! She's cute and all, but I've never had a dog before, I don't know how to take care of them! So I did what I knew best and that was how to raise babies! Oh yes, I had Daisy on a schedule. I knew when she needed to go potty...when she needed to eat...when she needed to sleep. My friends would call to come visit her and I would inform them, "oh I'm so sorry, she's taking a nap right now, you'll have to come back in an hour when she wakes up." My hubby still can't believe I did this. Well, what did you expect?
I will admit, it was a little rough at first. There were many shoe casualties. Mainly my shoes. {Good excuse to buy more} I don't know why she liked my shoes so much more than everyone elses. She ate up rugs, ate a couple holes in the walls. She just liked to basically eat anything that wasn't a toy for her!
We are in Minnesota and she really did not like that first winter. I obviously had her potty trained until that winter. We would open the door when she went to it, she would run outside, look at us like “are you crazy” run back in and in about 2 minutes find a nice spot on the carpet and do her duty! She ain't no dummy!
But really, she is a smart dog. We taught her to sit, lay down, roll over, high five and play dead dog! The kids are now trying to teach her to dance!
She fits in perfectly and now thinks she is one of the kids. If they step on her or do something she doesn't like, she comes running to me to tattle on them. When they leave for school in the morning she barks and howls at the bus as if crying, "don't take my kids, bring them back or at least take me to school with you!" She waits patiently on the bench by the front door for them to come home from school and then plays outside with them.  
She is now 2 and a half years old and very much one of the family.  
So if you asked me today if I was a dog person or cat person, I would definitely say with pride,
“I’m a DOG PERSON!”

How about you, are you a Dog Person or Cat Person?
~Amy

1 comment:

Big Sister said...

I'm a cat person! We are gone to much and for long time periods to have a dog. We have thought about it--but the time just never seemed right. We love having a doggie cousin!