Cat Lady

        Around the same time that a person running for national office made comments about people without children, it was also reported that he made a derogatory remark about childless cat ladies. I'm not going to write about the childless part, I addressed that last week. I am going to take issue with the use of cat lady as an insult.

        I know two other women who are cat ladies. Neither one of them is miserable. In fact both of them are happy and content with their lives. They love the felines that live with them and take care of them. Besides cats, both of them are avid gardeners and enjoy surrounding themselves with plants and flowers. One of them is a talented photographer who takes pictures of landscapes. wild animals and of course her beautiful cat.

        I did a quick search of the internet asking if pets make people happier. Most of what I saw was yes, although there were a few articles from sources that seem legitimate that did not come to this conclusion. There is evidence that animal can help lower blood pressure and provide companionship. The presence of service dogs and the rising popularity of emotional support animals leads me to believe that animals do help people in many ways.

        Those who read this column may know that I bough my first house so that I could have cats. Where I lived no apartments would allow animals. As a single woman who worked a lot of hours, I wanted something else in my life beside my job. My cats were good company for me and kept me from being lonely. Even when things were stressful at work, it was good to come home to my cats. They kept me from feeling completely isolated.

        I also think that animals are good judges of character. I had a friend who met a guy that she wanted to date. She invited him to her house. Her black lab was laying on the couch, He roughly pushed the dog off the couch and then kicked the dog in the side. When she told me this, I was concerned. My experience had been that someone who mistreats an animal will eventually mistreat you. While he was never physically violent, he was verbally abusive and stole her checkbook (back in the days when we used such things.) They eventually broke up.

        I had an experience with animals letting me know what they thought of people in my life. My cats showed a aversion the a guy I dated before I got married. They would kick the phone off the hook if he left a voice mail message. I think they knew he was allergic to them because they would jump on the back of the couch and wave their tails in his face. He turned out to be emotionally abusive. After I broke up with him I apologized to the cats for not paying attention to them.

         It was a different story when I met C. The shy cat that I had loved to listen to him play. When he curled up for a nap in C's guitar case, I knew that C was someone I could have in my life. 

        I'm sure there may be some cat or dog ladies who are miserable. However I believe that the vast majority of us are happy and don't fit the stereotype this political figure and his wife are so certain about. He'll have to find another group to insult.