Some call them pets, some call them family

A discussion about the profound impacts domestic animals have on our lives, and the lessons they have taught me.

Transcript

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Well, hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Amazing Journey Podcast. This is your host, Mike, back again for another exciting episode. Going to thank you right at the start for taking the time to listen. I tell you every week that the greatest gift that we can give one another is our time. And I'm tremendously grateful that you're sharing your time with me today. We've got a topic I've been wanting to talk about for a while. And it's what a lot of people call pets and what I call family. And we're going to talk about why and what the difference is. We're going to start today with some appropriate music selections, as we always do. The first um is You're My Best Friend by Queen from 1975 off the night at the opera. Sometimes our pets are our best friends, so it seemed appropriate. The second is a little ballad done by Hank Williams originally in 1947 called Move It On Over. George Thoroughgood rocked it out in 1978 off of his album of the same name, Move It On Over. Tells the story of a fella who acted the fool and ended up in the doghouse next to his best friend, the dog. And to make sure that our cats get our due, I'm recommending the Stray Cat Strut from 1981 by the Stray Cats off of their Built for Speed album. So some good music to get us in the right mindset, pulling some things out of the college of musical knowledge. And let's talk about our animals. Some call them pets. A lot of us call them family. And the question is why? I've had some time to think about this. I've been blessed to have animals in my life in some way, shape, form, or fashion for more than 40 years. And I grew up with them. When I left for the Navy and finally settled down and had a family, we had animals and continue to have animals to this day. And one of the things that jumped out at me and touched me and grabbed a hold of me like an electromagnet to a piece of steel is their unconditional love. Now, when we're talking about animals that become family members, most folks are talking about dogs and cats. And I want to take a second here to say I mean no disrespect or I do not mean to slight any bird parents, chinchilla parents, hamsters, guinea pigs. I have the most experience with dogs and cats. And so that's what I'm going to be talking about. So for those of you that have experiences with other types of animals, feel free to send me an email to the to AmazingJourney Podcast at PM.me because I'm sure this is not going to be the last time that I'm talking about my fur babies. And I'd love to share some of your experiences that you have with your pets the next time the topic comes up. So once again, it's AmazingJourney Podcast at PM.me. In addition to the unconditional love and lockstep with that is the unwavering loyalty. Whether it's a dog or whether it's a cat, they're your critter, they're your critter. And they absolutely love you. And they can't wait for you to come home. They become sad when you leave. I know when I come home every day, the dog acts like it is the greatest day of her life. Like it's been five years since she's seen me, and she's so happy. And the cats are just happy that I'm there because they're hungry and the litter box needs to be changed. And that's one of the major differences between dogs and cats. They love you unconditionally, but they love you a little bit differently. We'll touch on it shortly. The next thing that I adore about my fur babies is their predictability. They have their quirks and their idiosyncrasies and their little funny things just like human beings do. And they're going to do them today just like they're going to do them tomorrow. When I walk in my house, the dog is going to roll over on her back and expose her belly, and she wants some scratching and some petting and some loving and some rubbing. That is what she does every single time. Every morning, don't need to set an alarm clock. She's up at 10 minutes to four. She needs to go take her constitution. She comes inside, she wants to eat, the day can begin. The cats, they know once we're up and atom, once she's taken care of, they get to have their vittles and the day can begin. It's that predictability. Next on my list is the outstanding companionship. And I have hit a strange spot in my life when it comes to this companionship because I'm at a point where I enjoy the company of the dog and the cats more than I enjoy the company of most people. And when you tell the truth about that, there are a lot of folks out there that get really, really offended. But very rarely does my dog or my cats upset me. They're true to their nature. If I leave a sandwich out on the counter, as good as my dog is, if I turn my back, that sandwich is gone. Now, the caveat to that is if she has her vest on, I'm very blessed. My dog is a trained service dog. If her vest is on, she is the epitome of perfect behavior, the perfect canine you could ask for honor graduate in her class. She's doing her job, she's got her badge, she's got her vest. She's fine. If the vest is off, the sandwich is gone. But I know that. So if I know that and I leave it on the counter, well, that's kind of on me. The pets are family members, they are calm when everything else is chaotic. I go back to not that long ago when we were all knee deep in the hoopla, as they say, with the pandemic. And most of us were confined to quarters for most of the time. There was no place to go. Could go outside and get some fresh air, but that was about it. Everything was closed. The cats had no idea that there was a pandemic. The dog had no idea there was a pandemic. In fact, I had a conversation with someone one time, and he was convinced that the domestic animals got together and decided to promulgate this pandemic so that we would stay home and spend time with them. And it actually made sense to me at the time. But they're that calm when everything else is going crazy, when people are acting the fool, when when human family members have lost their minds and aren't acting right, the cat is going to be the cat, and the dog is going to be the dog. Another reason that my pets are not pets and they're my family members comes to when I am sick, hurt, or heartbroken. They don't leave me. The cats will lay right on top of me. Whether I want them to or not. Couple episodes back, I talked about falling off a ladder and really injuring myself and hurting my foot very, very badly. And my one cat would lay right on top of that foot. It was like he was trying to take the pain away. They're amazing company when you're sick, hurt, or heartbroken. And I know for the most part, you know, pound for pound, the dogs that I've had listen better the first time than my children. I don't know if that is a reflection on my parenting ability or the fact that the bond between the human and the dog, the bridge has been gapped, where very rarely do I have to tell the dog to do anything twice. She just does it. And most of them have been that way. So we'll take a second to talk about the differences between dogs and cats. And the way that I can describe it most succinctly from my observation is dogs are pack animals, each of whom has a distinct personality and tries to figure out where they fit in the pack. The cats are pride animals with different levels of attitude, trying to figure out which of them you should serve first. They always say dogs have family and cats have staff, but I think that cats kind of get a bad rap. I find them to be just as affectionate. Um, their give a damn is their meter is busted. They just they don't care. You're not going to tell a cat what to do. And if you think you have a neat, orderly, tidy, spillproof home, get a cat. They will ferret out the weakness in under 90 seconds. It is amazing. Absolutely, positively amazing. I've been blessed to have a bunch of different breeds of both dogs and cats in in my life. In the part of the country where I grew up, I found that some of the best family members that had four legs that joined us were what we called Heinz 57s. They had a little bit of everything in them. My service dog now is mostly Labrador Retriever and Pitt. She's very conflicted. The Labrador constantly wants to pre please you. The Pitt mix is extremely protective and has a very low tolerance for stupidity. So I think back over the years, my first dog was a St. Bernard Husky and German Shepherd mix. He was a big boy, very, very powerful, big baby. Absolutely adored my mother. Almost found himself uh in a new home when my dad came home from work one night and tried to get into bed, and the dog growled at him. That didn't go well. But that was how protective he was of my mom and uh and of me as a as a little boy. Saved my life. Um, I was being attacked by a Doberman, and and that big dog promptly inserted himself between uh myself and that Doberman and handled the issue. When that fellow died, he got he got old and he couldn't make it up three steps. He'd get to one step and his hips hurt so bad he cried. And we we had to take them and and we had to euthanize them. And the way that my parents explained it to me as a child, we had to have them put to sleep, right? And that's the most difficult part of pet parenting, is there's a pretty good chance that you're going to outlive them. They can't tell you when they're sick, they're hurt, they don't feel good, or they're in pain. I mean, some of their actions, if they got a great disposition and now they're getting growly and snappy and and almost mean, you can tell that they don't feel well. But when that dog passed, it had such a profound effect on my family at the time. We actually had to move out of that city, out of that house, because my parents they couldn't live there anymore without him going from room to room. It was too much. And I have had similar experiences when I've had animals pass that I just didn't want to be in that house without them anymore. It was it was too painful. We had moved, and a few years later, we had uh we'd gotten a German Shepherd, and he was he he was a funny, funny fella, too. Um I can remember when we'd first gotten him. My my mom wanted no part of him. And as the years went on, she said he listened to her better than anybody in the house, up to and including my father, her husband. So, you know, again, they just they get into your heart and then they take over your soul, and it's a really wonderful thing. You know, the the cats they come in and and they take over in a different way, like the cats do a much better job of keeping things real. Cats will show you you know what's important. Yep, you need to run the vacuum, the kitchen floor needs to be mopped, you know. You really need to work on the toilet. But the first order of business is to um give me some treats and uh perhaps fill the food dishes because it's been three hours since I've eaten and I'm starving. And if I had thumbs, I would call the ASPCA, but I don't, so you're lucky. So please see reference A and fill the bowl. Right. So so these are the things that they come into us, and if we let them, they will make us better human beings, they will make us better beings, they will make us more like them. And in a lot of ways, I believe that they have it figured out so much better than human beings do. I understand the intellectuals will say we have reasoning and imposable thumbs, and absolutely. I I get it. But I go back to the consistency and knowing what their role is and knowing where the place and the herd and the or or the pack or the pride is, and I just think that they dial it in and nail it down a lot better than we do as human beings sometimes. Well, I say it all the time, ladies and gentlemen, my friends, that time flies when we're having fun. And we're at the point in the show where we're gonna stop for just a second and do some product endorsements. The first endorsement that I'm going to give is for dehydrated sweet potato dog treats. If your dog has not had them, you're depriving them. You're a bad pet parent. So get yourself a bag from your favorite pet supply store where you buy their their food and their accoutrements. Um, you can make them yourself if you have a dehydrator or a convection oven, slice them up nice and nice and thin, about uh half inch thick, lay them on the sheet, cook them up good, dehydrate them, and your dog is going to thank you. For our feline friends, lest they be left out, forgotten, and they feel deprived. Um, frisky's temptation cat treats are a fan favorite wherever you go. Tay stations, I've I've I've yet to see a cat anywhere who will not gobble them up. They are magically delicious. And the third thing I'd like to endorse is a little bit different. Just I'd like folks to take a minute and make some time to go to their favorite library, either their city library, their county library, or their state library. There is so much knowledge there. Untapped wealth of knowledge. It's with the digital age that we're in, it's so easy to just pull things out of our phone. But it is a wonderful opportunity to go and sit among you know shelves and stacks and piles of books. Find yourself a book on your four-legged friend, your pet, your family member. Learn about the breed, learn how to take care of them properly. And you don't have it doesn't cost you a cent. Library cards are free. Take the book home with you, bring it back when you're supposed to. But please support your public libraries. Um, a lot of these places are downsizing, they're having to close because nobody's utilizing them. And it is a great resource that has benefited people with respect to wisdom and knowledge for generations. Support your local city, county, or state library. So now we're going to shift gears and go into the part of the show where we talk about lessons learned. The best part of any amazing journey is the lessons that you learn along the way. And I have learned so many lessons from my four-legged family members. Uh, we we could do five shows if I were to list list them chronologically. We're gonna hit the high points today. What have I learned from my cats? Well, take more naps. Whenever you're tired or you just feel like it and you don't have anything better to do. Sit in your favorite chair, go to bed, lay on the sofa, find a spot on the floor where the sun's coming in, close your eyes, put your head on a pillow, and just take a nap. Guaranteed you're gonna have a fur baby curl up next to you on top of you, behind you. Just be careful that they don't get underneath you. You can hurt them when you get up, right? But take more naps. Life always doesn't have to be a stress sandwich that you have to endure. Take a nap, recharge your battery. Cats also have taught me not to take my life so seriously. No matter how good of a day you've had, if it's the greatest accomplishment or it's the worst day ever, you lost your job, you lost somebody that you love in some way, shape, form, or fashion. The cat needs to eat, and there's a pretty good chance the litter box needs to be taken care of. So don't take your life so seriously. They are the most important thing in your world. Just ask them, they'll tell you all about it. What have my dogs taught me? Well, first and foremost, go outside to play whenever you can. And whenever you're feeling happy, sad, stressed, anxious, whatever, take a walk. When you're done with the walk, you're going to feel better. Here's another thing that my dogs in general and and my current dog, my service dog in particular, has taught me. If there's a problem, look in the mirror first. Because the problem is most likely not with the dog. Give you an example. In order to become a service dog, each dog has to pass a pretty vigorous, difficult test. Just some of the highlights are the dog has to be in a sitting or a lay-down position, and the examiner needs to come and be able to touch their paws without the dog growling, snapping, getting upset, trying to run away or whatever. Now I know people that can't handle their feet being touched. So you have a dog. When you take the exam, it's in a very public place. When my dog and I took the certification test, we were at an international airport, lots of noise, loudspeakers, planes taking off, jet engines, lots of commotion, lots of movement. And I have to put her in the down position. And she has to let some stranger who quite frankly was a pretty grumpy person touch her feet. And my dog doesn't like her feet touched. But she had the vest on. She knew she was working. All four feet were touched. No problem. I go back to the story I told a few minutes ago about, you know, if I make a sandwich and leave it on the counter and turn my back, the dog's going to jump up and uh she's going to take the sandwich. Well, part of the test, phase two of the test, after we're out of the airport and we have to get on and off the elevator and the escalator and a lot of things that would stress most dogs out, we have to go to a grocery store, and the person giving the test is going to take a piece of food. In this case, it was a small steak, and she drops it on the floor. And the dog is not supposed to key in on it or respond to that or go after it and try to get it. Now, a little secret about my dog, she loves a good piece of steak. But again, the vest is on and she's working. It didn't even phase her. Then there was a part where you have to put the dog in a down position for several minutes, and you walk away from her, and she has to stay in that position. She can't come to you. Well, my dog loves to be right next to me. She performed like a champ. When the test was over and she passed, I realized something. That the problems that I was having with the dog at home when we weren't communicating well or she wasn't meeting my expectations, it's not because she was a bad student. It's because in what I was trying to teach her, I wasn't the best teacher. So when you have one of your four-legged fur babies who's not making the grade, look in the mirror first. Now that's for dogs. Cats, different story. There's that funny story about animals in heaven. If you haven't heard it, I'll tell it quickly. Where a German shepherd passes and goes to heaven, and God is sitting here and he and looks at the German shepherd and says, You served your master on earth with love, loyalty, unconditional obedience. You are a protector, you are a pillar of strength. You have earned a spot at my right hand. And the German shepherd sits down at God's right hand and sits like a statue. About 20 minutes later, a Doberman pincher comes through the pearly gates and God says, You performed your duties as a guard dog protecting your master's estate flawlessly. You kept many bad people and and and wolves and coyotes away. You've performed your duties flawlessly. You can sit at my left hand, and the Doberman goes and sits down next to the left hand of God. And then a cat walks through the door, and God says, You've performed flawlessly and gives all kinds of praise and adulation. And the cat is looking at God the way that cats look at you when they're just abjectly disgusted and their table tail is flipping back and forth. And God says, Welcome into my kingdom, and the cat doesn't move. And God says, Why aren't you coming into my kingdom? And the cat says, Well, you're in my seat. So that's the difference between dogs and cats in a nutshell. But what else can they teach us? Both my my dog and my cats have taught me that sometimes in life the best course of action is just to forget the bad stuff. My two cats can fight, it sounds like a Pier Six brawl where somebody is going to lose an eye or a voice box or be disemboweled. And the next morning they're laying down next to each other like nothing happened. The dogs and the cat can have a disagreement, and there's hissing and barking and growling. The next day they're drinking out of the same water dish. They're pretty good at letting things go. And maybe we can all learn something from that. The next thing that they've taught me, the lessons that I've learned for them from them, is the ability to forgive. I had at one point in my life inherited, adopted a deaf great dame. And that great Dane, in addition to being deaf, was blind in one eye and couldn't really see well out of the other one. And when I found out about her backstory, how she had been routinely beaten because she quote unquote wouldn't listen, well, she was pure white with blue eyes, which is usually a pretty good indicator that they're deaf. So it's not that she didn't listen, she couldn't hear. But that dog, despite the awful, cruel things that were done to her, the beatings that she endured, she loved everybody. And I credit that dog with saving my life. I came back from a combat zone full of anger, full of rage, full of hate, where it was easier to kill than to solve a problem. And quite frankly, I wasn't sure I was going to make it. But I thought that if that dog can go through what she went through and still loves somebody who looks an awful lot like the people who beat her and abused her, well, what is my problem? I have to learn how to forgive. I have to learn how to get past all of this awful stuff. And I have to learn how to be decent again. And part of that was learning not only to forgive others, but to forgive myself for what I had to do to survive and get home. The second to last thing that the animals, both dogs and cats, have taught me is a recurring theme in this podcast to love unconditionally. They love me when I come home from a job and there's a couple of thousand dollars in my wallet. And they have loved me when there was a lot less than a couple of thousand dollars in my wallet. They didn't care. They love me when I'm clean, they love me when I'm dressed up in a suit. They love me when I'm in my work clothes and I stink and really need a shower. The dog will sit next to me when I stink. The cats are like the bathrooms that way. Get cleaned up and we'll talk. But regardless, they love unconditionally. And the last lesson that they've taught me is that I have to be the person that they believe me to be. They believe me to be a loving, kind, caring, compassionate, decent human being. Not a miserable son of a gun, not a backstabber, not a liar, not a cheat. So if I can live up to their expectations, I'm gonna far surpass any expectations that a two-legged human being puts on me. And I personally believe that's why God has put them into our lives. Now, the conclusion of today's show is a little bit somber, but it's the reality that all of us who have been pet parents are going to have to face at some point. I've had a dog have a heart attack and pass on right in front of me. I had a cat who jumped up on the couch when the steam radiators were on in the house and it was nice and warm, and he closed his eyes and fell asleep, and he passed in his sleep. But for the rest of them, I've outlived them. And most of us do outlive our pets. And there comes a point where we have to make a difficult and gut-wrenching decision, and that's it's time to euthanize them because they're too sick, they have no quality of life, they're in too much pain, they have a neurological disorder where they can't get up and walk, and they're they're laying in their own excrement and urine. And the most difficult part of that is the discernment of saying, Am I keeping them around for me? Or am I keeping them around because there's a chance they could get better and it's best for them? And that is a case-by-case scenario, and you're only going to know that when you're in the situation. But my advice and what I've learned is you have to give them permission to go. You have to tell them that you love them, you have to thank them for everything they've taught you and everything they've done for you. And you have to be there with them, if at all possible, when it's time. Because the last face that they want to see before they go is yours. And the last soul that they want to tie themselves to before they go is yours. So you get the alpha and the omega. For some people, they're quote unquote just pets. For me, they're my family members. And when they pass, I grieve for them as hard as I grieve for any two-legger. And I think that's the way it is for most people. I cannot believe our half hour together is done already. I'm going to thank you again for taking the time and spending the time with me listening to this podcast. If you like what you've heard, if you think there's something to it, if it resonated with you, please pass it on to the people that you love and care about. And again, if you'd like to share your own pet story with me, we're going to be doing more of them over the course of this podcast. Send what you'd like me to talk about on the air to AmazingJourneypodcast at PM.me. That's AmazingJourneypodcast at PM.me. I've had a ball, as I always do. I appreciate the fact that you've stuck with the podcast this long. Until we get together again, I ask that you be safe, that you look after yourselves and the ones that you love, especially your fur babies. Be kind, be helpful when you can. And until next time, this is Mike, and I'm signing off.