There are days that I come home that I feel torn between crying and hitting something. Sitting down with one of our cat family for ten minutes generally causes a startling shift in my attitude.

If I were to characterize how our cats treat us… it is more akin to being part of their family. A dog on the other hand, in my experience, generally thinks of me as a God, or a mighty King, or a Prophet. Neither dogs nor cats are automatons, though, and the personalities vary tremendously.

Rommel, for example, was like a partially reformed former juvenile delinquent. He would be all thuggish one moment, intimidating people and generally playing the “heavy”. Then the next minute he’d desperately want love: he’d launch himself into my arms, purring and drooling. He had a certain amount of respect for me as well- I just had to look at him and change the tone of my voice, and he’d back down: but that respect was earned, after “rescuing” him from a number of unpleasant situations. He had similar respectful relationships with some of our elder cats like Bilbo and Susu. But new humans (visitors) and new cats generally were greeted by the thuggish personae.

Interestingly, Iris (the last cat we added to our household before Rommel’s untimely death) could get away with murder when dealing with him. I was amazed to see her regularly push underneath his head while he was face-planted in the food bowl, and Rommel actually let her: well, he did put his paw on her head and push her into the bowl…