Tag Archives: Dogs

Can a Dog Person Learn to Love a Cat?

I gained what I thought was going to be temporary custody of a cat last August, when my older son, Sam, left Minneapolis for film school in London. I’m allergic to cats, and after the first of two painful sinus surgeries when I was 33, an ENT specialist told me to get rid of the cat I had and never own another one. But here we are.

The plan was for Q.D. — Quaid Douglas (my son’s riff on the Arnold Schwarzenegger character, Douglas Quaid, in the 1990 version of “Total Recall“) — to stay at our house through the fall, and then my husband, David, would fly the cat to London in early December, when Sam was on break from school.

Months later, after learning how difficult English authorities make it to bring a pet into their country, Q.D. is part of the household. He has navigated a relationship with our two run-the-show dogs, all the more remarkable because Q.D. was born a tripod, with only a flipper for his right front leg. He’s quit running away from David, and now that I have newly prescribed medication for my allergies, I am happy to have him hang with me wherever I am working, cooking, reading or doing yoga (he likes to lick my feet).

Still, as easygoing as Q.D. (sounds like “cutie”) seems to be, I steadfastly remain a dog person. I happily walk Mia and Gabby every morning, whatever the weather. I am comforted when Mia sleeps with me or when either dog shows affection. I find dogs more interesting than cats.

So, when J.D. Vance’s past remarks about “weird” and “miserable” childless cat ladies resurfaced during the last presidential cycle — inspiring an amusing New Yorker cover and accusations of “sexist tropes” — I started wondering: What do people, women especially, see in cats?

The articulate, effusive responses I got to that question revealed a side of friends and colleagues I had never seen. As one woman said: “Cat people do not get asked enough to talk about their cats.”

Cats know their own minds

This theme came up several times, starting with my childhood friend Janey, who recently has had to put down two elderly cats. “They choose you as the owner,” she told me, and I wasn’t sure what that meant until Q.D. started waking me at 5 a.m. to feed him or showing up when I was sitting in the basement to watch TV.

Once he got over losing Sam, Q.D. recognized which member of the household was more likely to feed him, rub his tummy and comb out his Ragdoll fur, and he attached himself to me.

“I admire cats for their independence,” said my sister Debbie, who has four cats, including a former feral cat named Oscar Wild. “I think they see us as living with them, not the other way around, and although they can be affectionate and loyal, their goal is to get me to do what they want.”

That struck me as hyperbole until I realized, some days later, that I had begun to stop every week at an Aldi on my way back from Meals on Wheels because the store carries affordable cans of tuna that the cat will eat. Q.D. likes to go outside early in the morning, and so even if I have work or other chores to do, I now station myself at the table by the back door so I can hear his meow when he wants to come back in.

“You can’t train a cat,” says Alisa from my weekly women’s group, “but you can adjust your lifestyle so that the cat is happy enough that you improve each other’s lives.”

Cats are different from dogs

Though I didn’t request comparisons to dogs, I got a lot of them when I asked folks about why they like cats. Forget Democrats and Republicans, or urban and rural. Society tries to divide us between cat people and dog people, though I carry the traits of both, according to a recent Web MD survey.

“I heard somewhere that the difference between dogs and cats is that dogs are trainable,” Alisa wrote in an elegant ode to her cats. “Dogs are food motivated, they have empathy — they’ll adjust themselves to please you. Adopting a cat is like inviting a wild animal to your home. The correct perspective for this endeavor is to not have expectations.”

My longtime friend Elizabeth is staunchly pro-cat and still grieving the loss of her beloved Lily to cancer. What I perceive to be exuberance in dogs, she finds gross and and over-eager. “Unlike dogs, cats don’t slobber or sniff your crotch or knock you over, behaviors I have never gotten used to in dogs, apologies to dog lovers,” she wrote.

Peggy, a former journalism colleague, has had eight cats — “a long line of cats” — and initially chose them over dogs because they better accommodated her erratic schedule as a young reporter. “My soul cat was Rascal, two cats back,” she explained. “This can happen with cats or dogs — that one pet you link souls with in some not understandable way. He was the kind of cat of whom people say, ‘He’s like a dog.’ Which offers a window into how cats and dogs are stereotyped.”

Like all of the cat lovers I queried, Elizabeth is fascinated by these “regal beasts” and their “lion-ish” qualities to a degree that eludes me, perhaps because Q.D. is a skittish, shy loner. “When people say cats are aloof, I say, yes, they can be,” she said. “But like any pet, they all have their personalities, and the joy of having them as family members is discovering who they are. Dog lovers are correct: Cats are in charge. The only way to bond with them is to respond to them as they wish to be treated.”

Mosley and Lily, my friend Elizabeth’s late cats.

I don’t want to work that hard for an animal’s attention. Dogs are blessedly simplistic, which suits my already hectic life. Creatures of habit, they are satisfied with the daily pleasures of evening meals and morning walks. They come to me, rather than requiring me to analyze how we should interact.

Not so with cats. “Being a cat roommate or caregiver honestly feels like a better title than just owner,” says Stina, my colleague at Streets.mn, “and I’m definitely not a cat parent. We are roommates, but she doesn’t clean or pay rent.”

Cats get you through

I didn’t think to ask people why they have pets, but the stories they told me point toward an answer: We enjoy the companionship and loyalty, be it the unconditional love of a dog or the more complicated affections of a cat. Several people described how cats had gotten them through difficult life stages.

Stina, 32, talked about the compromised cat, Stevie, she adopted during her 20s. “I had lost my sense of purpose,” she said. “I was partying a lot and working entirely too much, and I decided to adopt a senior cat to force myself to be home more and slow down. Stevie was missing half her teeth, had some cognitive delays and a gravelly meow. She got me out of my depressive episodes, because I knew that Stevie needed me. My role was to give her the best end-of-life care she could get.”

She has since rescued Cali, a calico cat, whose temper — “hissing, spitting, biting, snarling” — had discouraged potential adopters for four months. Once Stevie, the senior cat, died, Stina decided to take a chance on Cali. It took months, but the cat who initially refused to meet her gaze eventually slept on Stina’s pillow and nestled on her shoulder.

“Maybe it was a trauma bond, maybe we just needed time,” Stina mused. “But in being trusted by her, I learned to trust myself. She taught me that I can be both fiercely independent and soft and cuddly.”

Amity, whom I know from social media, promises on Instagram: “You will see cat pics. Maybe social justice. Or public transit. Mostly cat.” Her cat, jokingly renamed Chad “for my asshole co-worker” during the COVID lockdown, is getting her through a rough patch in her marriage.

“My husband and I are separated, and Chad is here for me all the time now,” Amity said. “I come home from work and my place doesn’t feel empty, because there’s a 12-pound beast at the front door meowing for food. I can’t really explain it; my apartment would feel less like a home without him.”

And then with cats, there’s the matter of convenience. “I’m a dog person from childhood. But with a busy lifestyle, and preferring animals that can largely take care of themselves, I am also a cat person,” wrote Melissa, a committed community activist.

Maybe I don’t have to choose between my dogs and the cat, the animals I know and the one I am still learning. Instead of picking a favorite type of pet, I could allow all three to help me navigate some exciting but scary changes in the year ahead.

“You turn around one day, and you’re old,” I told a colleague, a man barely half my age, as we discussed my difficult decision to leave a part-time job that I have really enjoyed during my post-career period of semi-retirement.

“Your peers are retiring,” I said, “and family obligations — whether an aging husband or a coming grandchild — continue to reshape what will be expected of you.”

My younger son’s baby is due on July 31, and I’ll be leaving the job in August. What a summer it will be! On those days when I feel incompetent, when I’ve forgotten how to calm a screaming infant or can’t differentiate a perennial from a weed in the neglected garden, I can turn to the beings who make me feel needed and loved.

And who maybe will teach me how to play again. To take life (and myself) just a little less seriously.

All Is Calm . . . Now That It’s All Over

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It’s early Christmas morning. The only other being awake in a house now occupied by more animals than people is Q.D., the three-legged cat that my older son left behind when he went off to graduate school in London. My dog is still asleep in the large bedroom down the hall, and my husband’s dog, Gabby, is on a couch in the basement.

She’ll stop by soon and start angling for a walk: nudging my hand, doing down-dog on the wooden floor.

Meanwhile, my coffee mug warms my arthritic left hand. No workaday traffic desecrates the dark silence outside. As I balance the checkbook at my computer, a daily habit I learned from my mother, I notice how much money I have spent at grocery stores the past few days, preparing to host a dinner on Christmas Eve and a lunch today, making my deliciously caloric “soccer mom bars” as treats for my neighbors and the beleaguered postal carrier.

Even though I lead the holiday preparations in our household, I’ve never wanted my sons to assume that the annual traditions are necessarily women’s work. That was the norm during my childhood — women in the kitchen, men watching football on TV — and it has soured me on Thanksgiving, especially, for years (not that I care a whit about watching football).

“Cooking is a gift to people,” I like to tell my sons, hoping they will recognize (and one day emulate) the effort as an expression of love, a service to friends and family.

In fact, my favorite presents this holiday season have been consumables: the hearty loaf of zucchini bread that my friend brought over for Christmas Eve dinner, the tray of delicate Scandinavian cookies that my neighbor bakes each year, the bag of coffee beans with oversized mugs from the friendly folks next door.

Despite the undeniable magic of the day itself, barely a week ago I was feeling burdened by Christmas — weighed down with the expectations that come from marketing and media illusions of what the holiday should be, feeling wistful about the many extended family members who are gone. Wondering why my husband and I — neither of whom count ourselves as Christians — continue to put ourselves through this year after year.

We are often referred to not as citizens but consumers. So it’s really important to put the brakes on consumption through practices like gratitude and reciprocity.

Author and scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer

One morning in early December I recycled a pile of year-end appeals from homegrown organizations that all do good work. Every last one is worth supporting:

Gillette Children’s in St. Paul, which offers “specialized care to help children with cerebral palsy live fuller lives.” My uncle was chief medical officer there for years.
Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library, which helps to “ensure strong public investment in our Library.” There’s a branch three blocks from my house, and I routinely check out books on Libby, the digital app.
History Theatre, where I’ve seen numerous education-focused plays staged by local actors with regional topics, often with discussion and “reflection” sessions afterward.
Minneapolis Institute of Art, where I enjoy the monthly book-inspired public art tours and appreciate the mission to “make art available to all.”

“It’s giving season!” the MIA postcard declares. Indeed. Two days after Christmas, a plethora of emails continues, wringing the most from tax-related year-end appeals.

Although the health of the U.S. economy is measured against growth — how much we produce and consume in a capitalist society — “giving,” I have come to realize, doesn’t have to equal shopping. Three years ago, I started a tradition among my siblings, asking that we forego the exchange of material gifts in favor of contributing to one another’s chosen nonprofit organizations.

Mine was my local Animal Humane Society this year. AHS has provided me with three loving dogs over the past decades, and I value the organization’s efforts to educate current and potential pet owners.

My sister in Maryland chose Laurel Cats, which rescues and rehabilitates abandoned felines. “As the ongoing housing crisis continues in our community, families are facing eviction, and pets continue to be left behind in record numbers,” the newsletter declares, describing a pregnant cat abandoned before a snowstorm.
My dog-loving sister in suburban Denver again chose the Colorado Pet Pantry, which donates pet food to shelters and food shelves so people in financial stress can keep their beloved dogs and cats.
My stepsister in my hometown of Mankato, Minnesota, each year selects Vine: Faith in Action, a community center that “offers a one-stop shop for aging adults.” She knows older people who have moved to Mankato “primarily because of what we have to offer them.”
This year, my brother chose the Trustees in Boston, an environmental organization that protects “exceptional and special places” throughout Massachusetts, where he and his wife raised their sons.

One sibling chose not to donate to my nonprofit this year, and that’s OK. I love to buy people presents — the floor of my office closet is filled with gifts I buy throughout the year, waiting for just the right occasion to bestow them. But to spend money for the sake of it, when you don’t feel inspired to do so, contradicts my growing belief that Christmas should be more about choice than obligation.

One of the great gifts you can give another person is the gift of seeing them, the gift of paying attention.
New York Times columnist David Brooks

In the unhurried hush between Christmas and New Year’s, when the flurry of cooking and cleaning and wrapping presents is over but deadlines and other to-dos remain around the corner, I am thinking about what went right this holiday season.

It was doing the unexpected: foregoing a church service on Christmas Eve in favor of seeing a preview of the new Bob Dylan film, A Complete Unknown, and then discussing that and so many other topics over dinner with my husband and a friend. It was texting loved ones on Christmas morning rather than mailing holiday cards that would have gotten clogged up in the postal system anyway. It was staying out of cheaper suburban big-box stores and patronizing local shops that lend character to my urban neighborhood.

I’ve also been analyzing what didn’t work, like insisting that my younger son and his partner spend time with us on Christmas Day when they’d already had two gatherings with her extended family the day before. Next year, I plan to suggest that we celebrate instead on Sunday, December 28, the day after her birthday.

In mid-December a favorite podcast of mine, “The Opinions,” asked listeners to submit “what brought you joy in 2024.” It was the big things, to be sure: the elevation of Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate for president, her choice of my state’s ebullient, unpolished governor as her running mate. But in the dark of December, it’s been appreciating what I have, not what I long for — whether that’s better relationships with certain family members or the impossible belief that I should have vanquished all my insecurities by this age.

I restarted the gratitude practice this week that I learned when I first got sober, ticking off five things I am thankful for during my morning dog walk.

Today it’s these:

A warm, comfortable home in a cold, four-season state with a growing population of unsheltered people.
A sister who helped me recognize how holiday traditions and expectations change once adult children have families of their own.
The anticipation of a walk-and-talk this afternoon with a dear friend, who lately is witness to her husband’s failing health.
Physical mobility, even with an aging, sometimes aching body.
The determination, next year, to craft a meaningful Christmas that leans less into what is supposed to be than what feels right, what evolves — and, yes, what brings joy, to me and others.

Weather or Not: The Rituals of Daily Dog Walks

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How many health habits — physical, spiritual, emotional — have I promised myself I would stick to every day? Pushups and neck stretching, journal writing and meditation: They feel good when you do them, but time gets away from me, and then I forget until the next good intention comes along.

Not so with dog walks. Ever since my family rescued our first dog (the late, great Skip) in 2000, followed by sweet Lucy in 2003, I have dog walked every morning — sick or healthy — without fail, unless I am out of town. When people ask how often I walk my household’s current dogs, Mia and Gabby, I can honestly tell them: “Every day, any weather.”

A recent article in the Washington Post, reprinted in my local newspaper, urged readers not to “skip your dog’s walk” or assume that letting them out in a fenced backyard would suffice. The reasoning shows the human benefits of dog walks, too.

Dogs need exercise and don’t pursue it on their own.
They need the mental stimulation of seeing — and smelling, always smelling — new things.
And they need “human interaction,” which I would reframe as bonding. You develop a relationship with your dogs when you’re outside together every day.

Though I don’t always want to leave my house early in the morning, I am always glad I did once I get out there. Putting my feet on the street and my face in fresh air is as good for my mental health as it is for theirs. Once Gabby does her down-dog stretches, or I see light softening the sky, we suit up and show up. It’s time to go.

Mia (left), Animal Humane Society, born in 2014; and Gabby, Standing Rock Indian Reservation, born in 2018.

The walks go better when I stay calm.

I like to stride when I walk: head up, glutes pumping, spine long and straight. At 66, I am grateful to be able to move so fluidly. Striding uninterrupted rarely works with leashed dogs, however. “Guardians need to take the animals’ lead,” says the dog-walking article, rather than dragging our pets along on our fast-paced walks or runs or on a bike ride — I shudder whenever I see it — with a leashed dog straining to keep pace.

“If your dog wants to sniff every blade of grass, then that’s what they want to do on their walk,” says a dog-training advocate quoted in the Washington Post piece, which, tellingly, never uses the term dog “owner.” My morning dog walks are for Mia and Gabby, not for me. If I want pure exercise, I can schedule that for another time.

Sometimes I imagine the dog walks as a metaphor for life. When the girls pull on their expandable leashes or go off in different directions, forcing me to pirouette in the middle of the sidewalk to keep us all from getting tangled, I liken the aggravation to the pressures I navigate each day. Whether it’s a project that has hit a roadblock, or an imagined slight from a friend, or my perpetually overbooked calendar — it will all smooth out eventually if I respond more than react.

So it is with my willful, unruly dogs. Praise and positive reinforcement, as well as a few consistent commands (“too icy” during the winter, when an unplowed alley looks unsafe), go much further than yelling at them or letting myself get exasperated. I can breathe deeply and watch the sunrise, or admire an artful garden, or look in a shop window while the dogs scratch and sniff. That makes the walk more interesting for them and much more pleasant for me.

My husband loves the New Yorker cartoon that shows a mid-sized dog on a leash with a thought bubble: “Always good dog, never great dog.” Our dogs are great. It’s hard to overstate how much they mean to me. If I praise Mia for listening rather than yelling at her for stopping at every tree, if I kneel and stroke Gabby’s chest while she squirms at a long red light, if I let them visit their regular haunts in our neighborhood — the yard with food scraps outside the fence, the husky with the blue eyes who never barks — then I am allowing them some agency, acknowledging their intelligence.

It isn’t always my agenda; that practice serves me in relationships with humans, too.

Sometimes, the dogs see a cat.

Our neighbor, Tim, walks his cat around the block once a day on a thin nylon rope, and Gabby, especially, goes manic behind the fence that surrounds our backyard. Installed by the previous homeowners, the wrought-iron fence allows her to see who is walking along the side street of our corner property — which, in my view (not to mention the dog’s), is critical.

I feel for the dogs behind those tall, wooden privacy fences who can hear and smell other animals but can’t see them. They paw frantically at the ground, and stick their snouts beneath the gate, baring their teeth but mainly wanting to engage. Which is what I long to tell the owners when they open the back door to yell at the dog for being just that. A dog.

We see the occasional roaming cat on our morning walks. Mia and Gabby bark and lunge while the cat hisses and arches its back, calling to mind the phrase “fighting like cats and dogs.” Rabbits are prey, not to taunt but to kill. Gabby goes into hunting pose, keenly alert, her tail straight up in the air, when she sees a rabbit freeze in self-defense. Her jaw opens and closes as if preparing to chomp down fast. It’s pure instinct on display.

Drawing by Anna Frodesiak (Creative Commons)

A rez dog whose relatives still hunt for most meals, Gabby has killed rabbits in our backyard. She’s even ferreted out a few bunnies in alley bushes on our morning walks, carrying the poor things home squirming or flopped dead between those warmed-up jaws.

We saw a coyote one summer morning, standing in the middle of the street. At first, I thought it was a long-legged, shaggy dog without a leash. But it looked too wary and thin to be domesticated, and the coyote lost interest in making a meal out of my smaller dog, Mia, once it saw me. Instead, it turned and trotted toward the river while I calculated how many busy roads it had to cross.

The beauty and rhythms of nature remain evident, even in the city, if you take the time to notice — contemplating the outsized impact we humans have had on the planet, as though we owned it, holding back leashed dogs that yearn to run.

The Middle Stages: Between Midlife and Old Age

By Amy Gage

Tag Archives: Dogs