For the past month, my husband and I have been in an ongoing debate over getting a new house pet. We’ve found ourselves obviously divided on two sides, me being on Team Cat, and Adam being clearly on Team Dog.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve always had at least one cat as a pet. My first memories of a family pet are of a big, soft cat named Bear. And although we also always had dogs growing up, they mostly stayed outside, which was ok with me.
When I was about five years old, we got our next cat, a Siamese kitten - Ninja. I do have a vague recollection of my dad bringing him home, and I have many clear memories of him sneakily hiding behind the kitchen island and jumping at your legs if they were bare, especially as you walked out of the nearby bathroom with only a towel around you.
Although he was a somewhat evil little animal, I can say our whole family loved that cat and I remember feeling pretty lost when he got sick and passed away. Shortly after my mom gave in to us getting a new house cat, and I took home a small black kitten, naming her Phantom.
That same summer, we found a young cat stuck in a tree behind our house. After hearing him cry for a couple days, my dad took out the ladder and rescued him. My little brother named him Buster, and I vividly remember telling him he was stupid because it was a dog’s name – my creativeness in naming a black cat Phantom was obviously superior.
Those cats stayed with our family for many years. Although he’s obviously getting older, Buster still lingers around my parents’ house. I know I have many memories of our pet dogs growing up, but I simply never felt the same connection as I did with cats.
I know a lot of people out there feel like dogs have so much more personality over cats, but I certainly beg to differ. Cats take time to get to know, and are certainly not nearly as demanding as a dog. I do support my husband’s arguments for why he wants a dog, and I have family and friends who have house dogs and love them dearly.
When Adam (my husband) and I officially moved in together while I was in college, we got our first pet, a black, fluffy cat named Precious. Soon after, we adopted a second cat, this time a tabby kitten that we named Pooky. Two cats and two adults was probably a little much for a small one-bedroom apartment, but we made it work.
When we moved back to St. Paul, we took our cats with us, and we soon found ourselves taking in yet another pet, this time a fluffy part-Siamese kitten named Tito. For anyone who says a cat has no personally, they obviously never met Tito. He was a wild cat that simply couldn’t be tamed.
Over the next couple years we did lose Tito and Precious, but Pooky stayed healthy and became one of the best housecats we could ask for. She was in-tune with my husband’s wacky medical issues, and she would often be found wide awake at the end of the bed, watching him sleep.
A couple months ago, Pooky became ill, and in less than a day we lost our “Meow,” which is what our two-year-old preferred to call her. Just a few days ago my two-year-old glanced at a bag of cat food while grocery shopping, then looked at me and sweetly asked, “Get a new meow?”
Thankfully, I know have at least one person on Team Cat with me. I’m not too sure where my six-year-old falls yet. He tends to stick with his dad no matter what the argument, but I know that if I were to bring home a new “meow” he/she would quickly become part of our family.
