Pets and the Neurotic

I don't know if pets are only a mirror to their 'masters' or if owning a pet makes you crazy, but I know that sanity is usually in short supply during the work week, and the cat and dog mirror my sentiments. Usually, since the dog goes with me to work, she comes home and crashes and the cat... well, he's usually crashed. But lately, both cat and dog have been acting out.

The dog has decided that she wants to sleep on the bed. This is commonplace for many well meaning, otherwise sane people I know, but this is gross to me. I see what she rolls around in, and I know what she thinks is perfume - I don't want that in the same place I go into deep REM. This is compounded with the problem that there is no room. My cat has always slept with me and the hubby, which has never been a huge problem (hey, he doesn't roll around in his litter-box,) but now that my daughter has come into the picture, our little bed is really crowded. We do not need another animal in the bed, furry or not.

But she does not see it this way. She has been convinced that she is a little lap dog since she was a puppy, and now that she is 60 pounds, she still is not aware of her girth. She just sees the baby, the cat, my husband and me enjoying a night of nursing while she gets the rug. But my dog is not a pacifist. Oh no. Passive-aggressive, maybe, but she is not going to just roll over and play dead on this issue. Now, any time she gets a chance, she goes and sneaks a nap on the bed, making my OCD husband paranoid.

Now, if this was it, I think we would be okay but no. The cat has now developed a penchant for baby socks. Yes, baby socks. I go through all this trouble to pair and ball up my infant daughter's socks, and the cat goes through an equal amount of trouble to stalk them down and bat them onto the floor. I did have them in a convenient basket until I woke up one morning to find the basket half empty and socks everywhere. I tried covering the basket up to no avail. I tried putting them into the drawer, and in walks the cat with Snoopy Socks in his mouth like he just killed them.

Maybe a person is already crazy if they get an animal, expecting it to be loyal and loving and sit on your lap only when it is convenient to you and greet you at the door. I will admit, as long as you are willing to accept compromises, you can get an animal to do most of those things, but forget it being convenient to you. It is a wonderful thing; however, just as there is never such thing as a completely sane human, we can never have a completely sane/normal/predictable cat/dog/pet.

(And we thought the shedding would be the most of our worries.)