My Cat Can Feel My Pain
We have a house full of cats, not that it was ever planned that way, but they are all rescued from very bad situations at a local farm. We fostered them as 8-week-old kittens, as we had to get them out of the situation they were in. In the first litter, we had five little cuties and we adopted two ourselves. That was going to be it, no more, yeah right! The next litter at the farm (the Peanuts themed names of Linus, Patty, Lucie, and Sally – which ended up being Sal, if you know what I mean) was three and we ended up failing to find them homes, so we adopted them, well to be more accurate, I personally adopted the autistic kitten (Lucie), my daughter ended up adopting her sister and their bother was a “foster fail” that my wife eventually adopted.
If you don’t know what a “Foster Fail” is, it is basically, you failed to find a foster home and you adopted it. To keep this from happening at the farm, we were sneaking the female adult cats off properly and getting them spayed at the low-cost spay/neuter clinic. This was paid for by either personal funds or donations. We were also “TNRing” the boys if we could capture them (TNR is Trap-Neuter-Return, meaning you trap the animal, have them altered, and then return to the wild or where you found them, this is a widely practiced method of attempting to keep the feral cat population down).
For the third litter, we ended up re-homing all three of them and the fourth and final litter (the named after what you look like litter – Dottie as she has a dot on her face, Emmie, as her “M” on her forehead is very pronounced, Callie as she is a calico and Lillie as she looks like my son’s cat, named Lillie) was four kittens and we tried like mad to get them homes and failed and ended up with them. Now don’t get me wrong, we love them and they are all spoiled rotten, well taken care of fully vetted, and well frankly pampered way too much. But they along with the dog and the bunny are all friends and have a great time playing all day long. All are strictly indoor critters, except for walks and some outdoor playtime on a leash. All of the cats are very happy indoors and have little to no desire to go outside actually.
One of the kittens from the last litter “adopted” me and she is my buddy. Her name is Dot (Short for Dottie) and she recently discovered that she can somehow feel my pain. I don’t know what she feels or how she feels it. But a few days ago she was laying on my lap and grabbed my hand to hold it. Something that is not out of the norm for her. She then pulled it closer to her and rested her chin on it. As we all know cats are liquid so over the new 15 minutes, she puddled more onto my hand and soon she had my right hand fully covered with her body. My right hand is the one that hurts the most and I had a very sharp pain in my hand I didn’t move, I didn’t jump, I don’t even think my hand moved, but she jumped off my hand and stared at it as though it just bit her. She finally calmed down and laid on it again, only to repeat this several more times. She would stare at me and look deep into my eyes and I swore she could feel the pain. She eventually got off my hand and laid on my lap, but continued to hold my hand for a little longer, giving me that look. After the third or fourth time, she jumped up looked at me like I was zapping her or something and jump down off the couch, and left. She refused to talk to me for 24 hours as though it was punishment for my hurting her.
Now having a pet and being able to feel my pain isn’t something new, it is however rare. Growing up, the family had a cat named “Babes” who could take my pain away, but I don’t know if she really did or if I was just a kid and wanted her to take it away in my mind, she could take the pain away.
However, as of last night, Dot is officially talking to me again and loving on me big time, she is all up in my grill so to speak. She has been going out of her way to check on me, lay with me, and keep me company. I think I have a friend for life now.
So why am I just rambling on about my cat (well one of my cats)? This is going to be the first post about pets, Emotional Support Animals (ESA), and Service Animals.
Stay tuned for more
Welcome to the Average Joe Weekly blog. This is basically my place on the web where I can help spread some of the knowledge that I have accumulated over the years. I served 10+ years in the Marine Corps on Active Duty, but that was some 25 years ago.
That is a very good post. I love my two cats, and they are great therapy animals for me. Dot looks very pretty. Enjoy her.
God Bless the two of you
M