Dogs and Cats, Death and Truth

An old man once told me that the only truth in this world was in the behaviours of animals. However, having spent the last few months working in a house full of cats, I beg to differ. Duplicitous little fuckers, they feign affection on the off-chance of some scraps of food and then when you don’t give them any, they wait until you are looking the other way before sticking needle type claws into your legs.

Actually, I am getting to like cats, because they look nice, they are quite soft and you have to admire the cheek of them really. Still, I vastly prefer dogs, which though pretty much imbecilic by nature are dependent are enough on you that it makes you feel like you are needed. Popped over to the parentals’ house the other day to be greeted as ever like a long lost celebrity by my dog. Despite his advanced years, the little bugger insisted on raising his heart/breathing rate by tearing around the house with a number of soft and squeaky toys, urging me to wrestle him for them before throwing them into another room, to cue a mad scramble towards recapturing them again.

These are pretty simple pleasures really, but I admire my dog’s refusal to acknowledge that he is anything other than a puppy. Despite rheumatism, greying coat, confused mind etc he seems unfazed and very much determined to go on generally acting the goat, biting postmen and sleeping in the one patch of sunlight that hits the lounge carpet in the mornings. I have been preparing myself for the inevitable for some time, but I truly think that when he goes it will be a pretty dark day and may lead to much whisky drinking, crying into my sleeve and smashing up of Estate Agents cars.

A mature reaction to grief has never seemed right to me, as despite the inevitability of all things coming to an end, it still seems deeply unfair. A good friend of mine, recently lost a close relative far too early and all I could think was “what a gyp”. What a colossal rinseout of everything right and decent. I started to envisage God as some semi-illiterate pikey, stealing lives from their rightful owners so that he could trade them in for a wide screen television for his caravan. I haven’t thought of a better vision than this, so I’m prepared to stand by it. Truth, beauty, epiphany, these are all noble words and powerful sensations, but then so is taking ecstasy and that can kill you as well, along with sex, going out, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. Spending time with your pets seems pretty wholesome on that basis (unless of course you are some kind of animal fiddler), so maybe the old man was right after all.