{"id":1919,"date":"2013-10-20T15:14:15","date_gmt":"2013-10-20T15:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/?p=1919"},"modified":"2016-03-16T14:55:47","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T14:55:47","slug":"no-dogs-please-were-cat-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.payneful.co.uk\/blogsplosion\/2013\/10\/20\/no-dogs-please-were-cat-people\/","title":{"rendered":"No Dogs Please, We’re Cat People"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had the pleasure of unexpectedly dog-sitting with my girlfriend this week. Consider this post to be an extended apology to the dog in question.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"My
I love cats. I love every kind of cat. I’m sorry, I’m thinking about cats again.<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n

There’s a conflicting dichotomy at work here. Regard the following:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I have always been a die-hard cat lover. I realise the odds are good that this bias is due to a brain-dwelling parasite that makes me feel an affinity towards cats that I might not have without the parasite<\/a>1<\/a><\/sup>, but I’m cool with that. Dogs are pets that I’ve always associated as being “other people’s pets”, like what friends and family would own. My family has always had cats2<\/a><\/sup> and dogs have never really been around my life much. I’ve never really liked the way they would try and mount\/eat\/hump you the minute you walk through the door. What I look for in a pet is a mutual apathy – a deep, burning indifference, if you will. I like having my own space, and cats tend to appreciate that as they don’t like you invading theirs either.<\/li>\n
  2. The dog we looked after was the exemplar of a pooch. It didn’t bark, it was always cheerful, it rarely growled and tried to keep us company as much as possible. You could not ask for a better dog to look after. If there were awards for most dogged doggy companion, this dog would take home all the blue ribbons.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Putting both of these concepts together, I’ll summarise: the dog wanted to be man’s best friend, but I didn’t want one.<\/p>\n

    For the purposes of this apology, I’ll name the dog “Gremlin” as that’s semantically close to what his real name is3<\/a><\/sup>. Gremlin is a friendly little shih tzu (pronounced “shit zoo”, it’s one of those dog breeds that looks like Dougal from The Magic Roundabout<\/em><\/a>) and all week he’s been himself – playful, loyal, full of energy. Curiously, I became an arrogant little bitch just by his presence and only realised midweek that all the problems I had with the dog were, at most, minor inconveniences and not the world-shattering issues I blew them up to be inside my head.<\/p>\n

    If this was a post breaking up with someone, this is the point where I’d put “it’s not you, Gremlin. It’s me”.<\/p>\n

    \"Gremlin\"
    Remember, don’t feed them after midnight. It’s very<\/em> important you don’t do that.<\/div><\/div>\n

    Meet the Dog<\/h2>\n

    It was a Sunday morning when we got the call asking if we could look after Gremlin for the week. There weren’t any genuine reasons to say “no”, but being an overgrown man-child I instantly had panicked visions of coming home from work and finding my glass cabinets open, their contents strewn across the floor in shreds of chewed plastic and fabric<\/a>. This was based on assumptions that the dog…<\/p>\n