This is a story about cats and dogs, the deliciousness of loving a pet, and the pandemic.
My friend Susie, back at work in Manhattan, adopted a Mini French Poodle two weeks ago. Susie, who’s married to a Frenchman, says, “Dijon est trés intelligent. At twelve weeks he sleeps all night, he’s so smart!” Susie lost Romeo—also a Mini French Poodle—three and a half years ago. “This was the perfect time for us to adopt a new puppy. One of my college-age daughters is living at home. Three adults to train a puppy is good.”
NBC News reports that “people forced to wait out coronavirus at home are adopting and fostering dogs and cats to keep them company. The shelters are thrilled.”
D and I got our first cat in our second year of marriage. Fred was tiny and black and wiry and he could slide open the kitchen door with his paw. That was in California. He got a sister, Lolita, when we moved back to New York. Then came Joey and another Fred then another and another—for a lifetime total of eight cats. Signs I think of a long (and good) marriage.
When our sons married, they picked women who came into the relationship with cats. One wife + two cats + two children (but that came later). So we are a little bit in shock. The dog thing just now happened, and some of it is owed to the pandemic.
With #2 son it began nine months ago. My daughter-in-law Emi’s long-lived lady cat had passed away. The children began to beg for a pet. Kittens? Or--break the mold—a puppy? It was just before Christmas with lots of kids looking for pets. You had to make a decision lickety split.
“This dog was super cute,” says Emi, “jumpy like on springs. And we just made the leap. The boys and Ed fell in love with him immediately. It took me two weeks after we brought him home to fall in love. I was still grieving for my cats. The pain still feels raw.”
D and I watched jumpy “Eli” on FaceTime. Eli on the shoulder of one grandson while he reads. Or carried like a football everywhere. We saw that #2 son’s family had lit up with happiness.
Sheldon, 3 months
Family of #1 son was watching too. Everyone was home because of Covid, lucky to be working from home, trying to make sense of things. It seemed everyone in the neighborhood was getting a puppy. Kids watched families bring home a new dog on You Tube Kids. “It was like watching a toy commercial,” my daughter-in-law Kelly says. “The girls began clamoring for a puppy.” She describes what happened when they picked up “Sheldon” from the animal rescue group, alongside 25 other families:
“We arrived at a parking lot. A very nice white van had the crates; everyone knew to queue up six feet apart. We gave the man the name of our pet. He’d call it out. His daughter would look for the crate, gather the papers, walk across the lot, and put a cute pet in your arms. Our puppy was shaking when she gave him to me. He’d been in the van for nineteen hours…started licking my face. I sobbed.”
I watch my grand-puppies on Zoom while our orange tabby cat, Gringo, parks himself in front of the screen. We watch Eli hide then dig for toys in the corner folds of the couch. We learn that for 3-month-old Sheldon play is essential, gentle training, imperative. As with human babies, the labor in caring is what grows the love. Ah! the expenses--for bed, crate, toys, harness, chew foods, chew ropes, etcetera..
As D and I settle into our neighborhood-bound lives, we are loving our cats even more. There’s the older, sensitive, scaredy cat. We have a flower of a cat—slender as a stalk—with a tiny gray face ending in whisps of white. Then there’s Gringo, the frisky orange tabby with a long white coat over his torso. He knows he’s a person and is underfoot every moment of our lives.
Quick—Cat? or Dog? Why?
If you have a pet (name?) has your relationship changed during this pandemic?
SPANISH WORDS OF THE DAY:
Las MASCOTAS - pets
REFUGIO DE ANIMALES - animal shelter
el GATO (miau) - cat (meow)
el PERRO (guau) - dog (woof)
la TORTUGA - turtle