Aww, they’re just like people . . . .

For most of my life I haven’t considered myself to be an animal sort of person. Yes, when I was younger I had pets and yes, I’ve done a bit of horse-riding and things like that, but for the last 15 to 20 years, pets have been something that other people have had and generally they’ve been an annoyance.

They are smelly, they are demanding, normally they are hairy, they restrict what you can and can’t do, they cost money in so many different ways and, well, when you get right down to, what are they good for? They produce nothing of value, they pay no rent, they don’t even make you a cup of coffee in the mornings. Hell, given half a chance they’ll knock over your coffee and then steal your chair while you’re cleaning it up.

But, things have changed. Sort of.

I now live in a house surrounded by animals. There is one dog – Biscuit. We have two cats – Tetley and Kenco. And then there is the bearded dragon – Porkie. There is probably a spider or two kicking around as well and the occasional moth, but for the purposes of this conversation we won’t consider them as pets and class them as uninvited guests instead. Although don’t tell Bekae that – she has a thing about moths. She seems to believe that moths were created with the one simple purpose of trying to kill her. I’ve tried to explain that the odds are on her side in any fair fight that she may have with a moth, but she doesn’t listen. Anyway, that’s not the point.

The point is that there are a lot of animals in the house. Something that I would have run screaming from in the past, but now, for the majority of the time, I accept it and even like it. However, this is not the time to talk about the good points of the animals, this is the time to talk about how much they drive me absolutely insane and in so many different ways.

Let’s start with the dog shall we. Man’s best friend they say. Hmm, I have my doubts about that one. For one thing, the dog has a habit of following me into the bathroom when I’m shaving and then, just when I’m concentrating the most on not slicing assorted parts of my face off, she either barks or bangs into my leg. Roy screams, blood flows and the dog looks up at me with a big grin as though she doesn’t understand why I don’t appreciate the joke.

Then there’s the times when I’m sitting at this PC either writing, playing a game, watching a film, something that is taking up a lot of my attention. The dog will sidle up to me and sit beside me, dropping her had onto my lap. “What’s wrong that that?” I hear you ask, well, not really, but I can imagine that you’re saying that. And the answer is nothing, nothing wrong with that at all. But, that’s not where it ends, oh no. So, the dog is there with her head on my lap and I will, for the first couple of minutes, reach down to pet her and give her some attention. Admittedly, this does sometimes mean that I poke her in the eye with my finger or stick a thumb into her nose because I’m not looking at her, but the way I figure it is that this is her fault.

But, I tend to let my attention drift back to the computer screen pretty quickly and forgot that she’s there. This does not go down well with the dog. I should know better than this, I should know that she is the centre of the universe and when she wants attention she wants my undivided attention and she wants it now. Her next stage in this campaign, if I stop petting her, is to wait until I forget about her and, normally just as I’ve picked up a mug of coffee, the hotter the better, she barks.

As barks go, the dog has quite a quiet, almost camp bark. However, when you’re not expecting it and it comes from right beside you, it does nothing for your inner karma, your peace of mind or any clothing you may be wearing that isn’t coffee coloured. And again, the dog seems to derive huge amounts of pleasure from my screams of pain and anger and fear.

But let’s not forget about the cats. Cute, furry, placid little things that they are. At least, that’s the way they are for the majority of the time. When the mood takes them they seem to forget that I’m not actually some kind of mouse or other small furry rodent for them to stalk, attack and torture. I can be sitting there, minding my own business, nose in a Kindle, watching TV, doing whatever it is that my rock and roll lifestyle demands when suddenly, from out of the blue, a cat is clinging to my ankle and making a serious effort to eat my shoe.

Both cats have decided that the most fun they can have is playing with my shoe laces, normally while I’m trying to tie said shoes. They do this first thing in the morning, their way of wishing me the joy of the day I guess, but they will also do it ninja-style when I’m not paying attention. First thing I know about it is when I get up, stand on one lot of laces, try to step forward and end up flat on my face. Up to this point I haven’t landed on a cat during the fall, but I am determined that it’s going to happen.

Now, I spend a lot of time writing one thing or another. And this means that the keys on the keyboard making that little clicking sound a lot. And the cats have a certain fascination with this sound. Not the kind of fascination that involves them sitting there listening to it calmly and intently. Oh no, this is the sort of fascination that involves them creeping across the room, sneaking up on me, hiding behind the monitor and then leaping out to attack my fingers – the things that are obviously the source of this strange and threatening noise.

This does nothing for my typing skills and it manages to seriously confuse the spell-checker as well.

Of course, this winds the dog up and she starts barking at the cats who react by digging their claws into me. Yes, I know that this hardly seems fair and I have tried, at length, to explain to the animals that I’m am the innocent victim in all of this but they seem unable to follow my logic in this matter.

And we can’t forget the bearded dragon. It sits in a tank by my desk, basking under the sun lamp and eating crickets. How can a creature like that possibly cause you any harm. Simple. IT STARES! I don’t mean it looks at me, I mean it sits there for hours at a time, not moving, not blinking, simply staring through the glass at me and no doubt plotting my horrible demise. Sometimes, I can ignore this, forgetting that the creature is there. But there are other times when I catch it out of the corner of my eye and then our eyes lock. My amiable, warm, friendly blue eyes staring into its cold, orange, maniacal eyes. When I was a kid I used to have staring competitions with my goldfish, this was before I learned that fish don’t blink. Don’t laugh, I didn’t know! And I thought I had a decent stare, but this damn dragon is the champ. The more it stares at me the harder it is for me to think for myself. I’m being mesmerized, the Hypno-Toad has had its day – Porkie the Lizard is the new champion hypnotist on the block.

I can’t turn away, if I break the gaze first something horrible will happen, I know it. The dragon is waiting for me to look away, it’s daring me to ignore it. It wants me to feel secure because there is a thin pane of glass between us but I know better. If I turn away from this evil creature, just for a moment, all will be lost.

And then the dog barks, one cat attacks my shoes and the other goes for my fingers. As I scream I can hear the faint ghost of a chuckle coming from the lizard which is no doubt the mastermind behind this conspiracy against me. It relishes my anguish, my pain is like the finest wine to it. It is evil, pure and simple. I’ve got nothing against evil, evil is good in it’s place. But not when all the evil is being directed against me!

So, yeah. Aww, they’re just like people really . . . . yes, yes they are, People that should be locked up in padded cells and on a strict regime of medical tranquilisers. The sort of people who have reports written up about them in the papers, the ones where their neighbours say “she was such a quiet person, kept herself to herself, who would have though that she even had that many knives!”

Damn animals!

But no, I wouldn’t swap them for the world.

Advertisement