Of Dogs and Cats

Today we're going to explore the respective merits of the two most popular household pets: dogs and cats.

There are many, many, many practical benefits from bringing a dog into your life. Over centuries, dogs have been engineered by man to be of extraordinary usefulness. Strong, clever, brave and loyal, they have served man as pack animals, body guards, guides, hunters, companions and even dinner. Bred to subservience, dogs are compelled to please their human “masters” and are never so happy as when they have done so.

Cats, on the other hand, are less concerned with garnering the approbation of the clawless, fangless, shivering naked apes they've (sometimes grudgingly) allowed to share their space. Cats are not inclined to tote and fetch for the pleasure of man, nor are they concerned with our displeasure at this disinclination. Though expert hunters, trackers, and combatants, cats don't feel compelled to use these skills for anyone's benefit other than their own. Cats improve our lives in only one way: by keeping in check rodents, human egos and similar vectors of disease.

The Yummish believe that there are no “Dog People” versus “Cat People,” but rather, like many things, it falls along a spectrum. We all need unconditional love from time to time, just as we all occasionally need our egos challenged. A person's current emotional need (coupled with their current housing situation, to be realistic), determines which is the right pet (or combination thereof) for that time of life. Some people may even find themselves sliding back and forth a bit on that spectrum over the course of their lives.

As the Yummish Council is located in the lush, green and yet highly populated San Francisco Bay Area – a prime breeding ground for both rodents and self-important pseudo-intellectual types, we have elected to bring not just one, but two cats into our temple. From our daily care and worship of them over the past two years, as well as through our nightly practice of cat yoga,* we have learned the following ego-diminishing lessons:

Optimism: Owning a cat changes your perspective. It's not just a box half full of cat poo that you have to empty. It's cat poo that's not all over the floor.

Selflessness: Putting the desires of others before your own. While you might enjoy sleeping in on a weekend morning, this selfish act would delay the cats' breakfast by as much as an hour or two, leaving them with no choice but to walk repeatedly across your torso, being sure to plant each of four paws into your full bladder and thus forcing you out of the bed anyway.

Generosity: Unattachment, giving and letting go. You may have thought it was your leather sofa or your memory foam mattress, but will soon find there is greater grace in accepting that they are now the cats' scratching posts.

Forbearance: Patience and forgiveness. There will be furballs in the corners and hairballs in your slippers.

Truthfulness: There is no point in lying to a cat. They don't care what you're saying anyway. Just get that can of food open.

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*Cat yoga: a feline-guided mental and physical discipline that involves contorting one's body into increasingly challenging positions (catsanas) in order not to disturb the cats sleeping in the center of the bed.