Haven’t RFTF yet, mostly because I’m busy looking after my poorly cat and she needs lots of cuddles.
This post is actually a good excuse for a rant, so bear with. Or scroll past, up to you.
I prefer cats to dogs, but I do like most dogs, except slobbery ones, I just can’t deal with slobber 🤢
I work for a pet supplies company. There are 5 of us in the office and I’m the only one who doesn’t have a dog. Everyone else is obsessed with their dogs. Every day they’re showing each other photos of what their amazing fur babies did yesterday, which usually seems to be tilting their head sideways or begging for a biscuit. I don’t find this particularly impressive personally but what do I know 🤷🏻
Any time anyone comes into the shop with a dog the whole office apart from me goes off to make a huge fuss of it, which is ok, but then I’m manning all the phones on my own for however long, and when everyone comes back they’re always amazed that I didn’t want to go and look at the lovely doggy. Yes ok then, next time is one of you going to stay here to answer the phones? No I thought not.
Actually I just remembered one time when I was in the shop and a beautiful German Shepherd came in. I gave her a fuss and then went back to the office to let everyone know she was there, only to be told that German Shepherds are 10 a penny and not really worth making a fuss over! What? They are my favourite breed, they’re gorgeous!
I knew when I took the job that the office was dog-friendly and I was fine with that, occasionally one of the directors will pop in with their dog for an hour or so and that’s quite nice, they’re lovely soppy things who like a fuss. But last week a sales rep came in and brought her massive gangly 1 year-old puppy with her, a Great Dane crossed with something else big, I can’t remember what now. She stayed for 4 hours! and let the pup do whatever the heck he liked the whole time while everyone cooed at him - which would have been fine, except that he didn’t bother with anyone else in the office, he just wanted to get under my desk where the samples of dog treats are kept (god knows why but that’s where they have to live for whatever reason), so he was constantly in my way. I accidentally ran over his tail with my chair when I needed to reach to answer one of the other phones, because every fecker else was too busy admiring his massive paws, and the rep was not impressed. I think she thought it was on purpose - it really wasn’t! After they’d gone everyone spent the rest of the day marvelling about what a lovely morning we’d had, while I tried to catch up on the stuff I couldn’t get done while he was shoving my chair sideways and trampling all over my feet.
Anyway. So I don’t really get the dog-worship, but I had mostly let it go over my head. I accepted that I was obviously a bit odd, because I only had cats. Or at least I did have cats, until I had to have my lovely boy Max put to sleep just after Christmas. Now I only have 1 cat. When I told my colleagues I thought they might be sympathetic, as fellow pet owners. But it seems it wasn’t really a big deal, because after all, cats aren’t like dogs are they? Cats aren’t really family members, unlike dogs. Cats don’t really like their owners, but obviously dogs worship their mummies and daddies, so it’s much worse for the owner when a dog dies. Apparently.
Now my 1 remaining cat is poorly, with a different problem than the one Max had. I stupidly mentioned this at work today, and the general consensus was never mind, if you lose this cat as well you could always get a puppy.
I know all dog owners aren’t like this. My sister is a dog person and hates cats, and even she was sympathetic about Max. But it does seem that some dog owners consider all other animals to be inferior, and that if you own anything other than a dog you aren’t really attached to them, and they aren’t attached to you either. I really don’t understand this point of view.
It probably seems like a bit of an over-reaction, but I’m actually thinking about finding another job. I can’t believe how insensitive they’ve all been. I was in bits the whole of Christmas week, hoping that Max would get better. I cancelled a long-planned trip to see my family who I hadn’t seen for 6 months, because I needed to be at home with him. I spent more than a month’s wages trying to save him. But to them he was “only a cat” and wasn’t really important, especially since he wasn’t even a “proper breed”, he was (shock, horror!) just a moggy. I was even told I should have just had him put to sleep in the first place instead of wasting all that money on him. Although to be fair she did get side-eyed by everyone else, I think even they realised that was slightly insensitive!
Anyway, rant over - I really needed to get that off my chest!