Thank you, dear readers, for writing about your cats
As a cat person who presently has puppies (I’m locating it difficult to swap my late buddies Siri — named many years right before the eponymous Apple assistant, thank you very much — and Leif Erikson), I’ve located that a single vital variation concerning guardians of the two sorts of animals is that cat mothers and fathers resign on their own to a kind of inter-species codependency and must tolerate a stage of psychological complexity located a lot less normally in canine.
So I was delighted to go through the July 13 op-ed column by Robin Abcarian about the “4-pound, furry ball of destruction” she inherited from her late father, a 22-year-old cat named Inky who will have to now cohabitate with canines lots of periods her sizing. Examining only that, any experienced cat particular person would know how this turned out for Abcarian.
I was also amused by letters from audience describing their personal encounters with their new feline roommates. There ended up tales of rearranging rooms and lives to accommodate the new companions some did this successfully, if grudgingly, although other people admitted they couldn’t just take the upheaval and uncovered new households for the cats. Individuals who created it function, so to discuss, uncovered to embrace the patterns and inconveniences in methods that would seem to be masochistic to some but totally relatable to other cat mothers and fathers (or at minimum to me).
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To the editor: I laughed and sprayed my morning paper with espresso whilst reading through Abcarian’s column. I inherited “Mommy’s” 12-yr-aged cat 8 decades in the past. Each calendar year at this time she tears out her hair in chunks, so I have hunks of black hair almost everywhere.
My three dogs adapted to her even though she took more than their territory, together with their beds. I constructed two cages outdoors with open obtain to the house so she could roam, lay in the sunshine and investigate the outside environment with out becoming carried off by a hawk or eaten by a coyote. (No, I never dwell in the mountains I are living in Long Beach front.)
I have discovered she loves her head rubbed, she’s a terrific lap hotter, what meals perform with her at any time-transforming finicky tastes, and how she constantly knew when I was on a property movie meeting phone and plopped herself on papers in view of the camera.
She’s irritating, is deaf now and meows so loudly the neighbors asked if I understood what feral cat in warmth was close to. With all this, just after these 8 years adjusting to her, I know I will pass up her drastically when she is long gone.
Jeanne Wise, Extended Beach
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To the editor: So significantly going on here.
I usually admire friends’ and neighbors’ devotion to animals and other animals, and see pet guardianship as a really excellent factor. (Animal cruelty is surely a crimson flag of an individual you really do not want in your everyday living.)
But, but, but — Abcarian’s prolonged description of her late father’s household cat, Inky, is a lesson in using one thing way much too far.
20 years ago I took on a pampered cat from a co-worker who wished to make some improvements in his daily life, but a thirty day period or two later my mother endured a stroke and I was the only family members member offered to just take in excess of handling her daily life.
My new cat’s response to this crisis? He urinated on my bed, which of system manufactured sleeping on it unthinkable.
The up coming working day I informed the cat’s former owner that I could not and would not set apart my increased obligations to determine out my new cat’s emotional wants, and he experienced to get it again or I would depart it at the nearest animal shelter. He took it back.
I examine Abcarian’s tale experience pity for her and very seriously question her late father truly envisioned her to tolerate this sort of abuse and absurd fees. She’s made acceptable initiatives to adapt to Inky, but it would seem like Inky has produced her house unlivable.
Abcarian can make her personal choices, but I would not be so accommodating. At some level even animals have to form up or ship out. When a pet owner’s goodwill is achieved with intentional scorn and disgusting conduct, a nicely-indicating adult in his or her personal household has a right to say, “Enough!”
Rob Briner, Anaheim
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To the editor: What a delightful, comforting and substantially wanted report by Abcarian. Most all the things just one reads these times in the newspapers is about war, inflation, crime or some other crisis.
Thus, looking through about Poppy the pet dog and Inky the cat created my day.
Christine Peterson, Woodland Hills
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To the editor: I grew up in England taken by my mom to cat demonstrates and studying the cat books penned by Paul Gallico. I considered for many years he was the greatest creator ever to pen the charms of cats.
But now Abcarian has matched him with a tribute to the 4-pound feline master of her property who provides no quarter, dominates her family, is unawed by a doggy 15 moments her dimensions and nonetheless comes by as irresistible.
Abcarian’s piece is the most heartwarming cat report I have read in far more than 70 a long time.
Laurence Quite, Altadena
