When pets die people post pictures of them on their social networks of choice containing pious testimonials about the love and joy the little animals had brought to them and their families. All true. We love our two cats, Rascal and Leon, and will be very sad when they are gone.
That said, the process of caretaking their later years is less rosy-tinted. We have been covering our couches in blankets and towels for what seems like years now to protect them against various cat emissions. We have limited the cats to the public part of the house, barring entry to the bedrooms, after a couple of poops in rapid succession on a rug in Graham's room. The rug in our rec room came up months ago after a couple of incidents. And now the one in our dining room is next. Mary had said we should take it up a couple of days ago but I resisted. Then I woke up today with not one but two little gifts left for us on the rug. Mary was not happy with me and my resistence, to say the least, and the terrible part of it is that she was (sigh) right.
This will likely provide Mary with another excuse to not have guests over.
Earlier in life I had thought about how having pets and needing to feed them, walk them, clean up poop, come home early, prepared young people for parenthood. Now I am seeing that having them later in life trains us to take care of our spouses as we move towards the exit.
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