Chapter
1- The conversion of a non believer to a cat worshipper
(...continuing )
Nevertheless, and despite
for our purrsonal reasons for having cats, our cats today are an important part
of our lives and those of us who live with them could never consider a life
without them (although in same occasions we might have secretly considered at
times a life without our partners and even without our children or other family
members....come on, admit it at least to yourself).
And of course there are
always those, well at least some people, who for some unexplained reason they seem
not to like cats or even (the savages!!) to hate them and even to want to harm
them...Cats have, even now, in these modern and open minded times at least once again for
some, a bad reputation of being mean, independent, unpredictable, wild and even
dangerous...Of course these people seem to forget that today domesticated cats,
and especially the Homo catus species (indoor only cats in my own feline
family tree, who and over the year, have evolved to a new subspecies) have lived with
humans in cities, towns, villages, farms, etc for over thousands of years now
and therefore they can't be considered
to be wild anymore (as some cats can't even catch a toy prey let alone a living
fast moving one...) and like dogs they can be trained, they are loyal and
faithful and even better talking and listening companions...
But I don't want to dwell
for too long on why some people seem to unreasonably dislike cats (maybe there
is something in their unconscious mind, which they try to forget or ignore as
this something might remind them that cats after all are not so different from
humans, despite their small size, soft fur and tail.. cats with thumbs?)
So and to return to the
people that they do like cats, each one of us has his/her own reasons for
liking cats and also perhaps their different origins in their reasons for
liking our feline companions. Early experiences perhaps, growing and living in
homes where cats were always around or even having a sort of epiphany at some
point in their lives or even like with my own case, they had a rather strange
experience at some point in their lives, which kick-started this great relationship with those
magnificent animals.
At this point I think is
about time that I confess something...that as a young child I didn't really
like cats...I was kinda afraid of them and that I used to prefer baby chicks
and birds instead...To my defence I've come from a country where till recently (or
even now for at least some really cruel people who seem to enjoy killing cats
for their own mean reasons) cats weren't very popular, they had a bad
reputation, and they were many stray and they were serving only one purpose to catch rats
and mice and not to be kept as companion animals indoors!!!
It is true that where and
when I was growing up cats weren't the popular animals they are today and most people
seemed to prefer dogs to cats who they could serve their ‘human masters’ by
guarding and protecting them or in the case of my dad and too many other
hunters those days, when they were going hunting, so they could find and retrieve
fallen, killed or lost birds...
Those days dogs and cats
would stay outside in a sheltered place (if they were lucky that is) and they
would only eat human leftovers. Yes now and when I'm reminiscing those days I
do feel really ashamed especially when remembering how badly dogs and cats were
really treated, with cats often being poisoned to reduce the numbers down while
dogs were kept tied up, day and night, almost all year around...But I guess,
and unfortunately, I didn't know any better those days as we were living in a
world where only humans deserved to have a 'good' life and anything else, any other living organism was expendable, it lived only to serve or sustain humans and
they couldn't feel or know anything as they were mere 'dumb and stupid animals!!' So bad and
sad really...
But at least we can all be
thankful that now things have indeed changed and cats and dogs are treated in
most cases like equal family members...although and even now there are still
some exceptions to these rules and some people are still mistreating their
animal companions....Unfortunately some humans can never change or they would
openly admit that all animals have their place in this world and that they have
the right like humans to live their own lives as nature intend it...live and
let live!
But the past can't be
changed, no matter how much we might want to and sometimes there is no much
point in thinking too much how different things might have been. Instead it is
better if one can focus on the present and on the things that he/she can change
now and subsequently influence the future. So and instead I'll just carry on telling
you that part of the past that is relevant to this part of the story so I could
explain my own origins of my cathood!
 |
| Faith, who we adopted along with Ozzy about six months ago, sleeping in her favourite spot! |
(to be continued next week....)
You can always email me at kirkiecat@yahoo.co.uk if you have any comments or questions! i
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