the truth about a pug's face
and why your cat's psychopathy is linked to you
I will begin this post not with a trigger warning, but instead with a trigger promise. My goal here is to either trigger laughter or offense. My target: Pet parents. If this is you and you’re sensitive about this subject, I offer you three choices.
One: Turn away meow. I’m going to be as mean as I can be. If you don’t think you’re up to the task, look away.
Two: You’ve got thick skin and you know me well enough to like me despite the fact that I’m an asshole. In that case, read on, have a laugh at your own expense. I value your sense of humour and gold spirit.
Or 3? You are easily offended. You seek offense in the world and you want something to get angry about. If it wasn’t about this, you’d be sticking up for fat people or palestinians, or jewish people or vegans. If that’s the case, I hope that I can unleash your wrath such that you kick a yuppie somewhere somehow today.
With the disclaimer out of the way, let us begin…
The scent of my wife still hung flagrantly in the air, she was hardly gone an hour when the first floor poop showed up.
Having a defined shape and lacking any blood whatsoever, the culprit was clear. My intonation of Who did it? was merely rhetorical.
Rodney with both head and tail hung low skulked away to our daughters room well aware that at this time I did not consider him to be a good boy.
Some people require emotional support animals.
These folks must be pretty fucking fucked up given our experience with animals.
We have a psychotic kitten, a big bulimic male tabby with an anxiety disorder and two rescue dogs that can only be described as problematic.
Who rescued who?
When ever I see this on the back of a decade old Hyundai I wonder aloud How many ossified vomits are in their home? How overpowering is the stench of piss? When was the last time they experienced an orgasim?
Is this a cruel and unusual judgement?
Perhaps.
And perhaps it’s merely a statement about our neurotic animals.
They could never be emotional support animals. My wife is their emotional support human. Without her, everything falls apart. Since she has been gone one animal or another has discharged bodily on the floor.
Whether grassy vomits or bloody turds on the hearth, there hasn’t been a day without a floor poo, pee or puke. There’s no reason for this. The weather has been fine and they’ve had optimal opportunities to relieve themselves in the yard.
The only reason that I can come up with is REVENGE. They are angry at Laura for leaving. Sadly, their attempts to punish her with their scatological protests only fucks with my day. Sure, I complain as I clean, but Laura’s not here so she can’t hear me.
I do what I can to remind her of home. No, I don’t text pictures of the kids or the animals. Instead, I text her snaps of the dogs floor shits. I try to time their arrival for when she’s eating breakfast.
It’s only fair dear reader that the impact of the pets actions reach the intended target.
But I think that’s why we love our animals. They depend on us. Sure they show spunk and a bit of an upstart attitude from time to time, but in the end we KNOW the little fuckers would perish without us.
We’re not wanted. We’re needed.
As a pet parent we have the power of having to care for eternal infant. Total dominance.
Or maybe, dear reader, it’s even more insidious, more intimately twisted than that. You know people and their pets look alike. I mean, you’ve seen those ladies who have pugs? They have faces that look like old soccer balls - all weathered leather that’s been frequently kicked.
But what if that resemblance runs deeper than a shared haircut, a similar gait and a bad case of worms? What if what we don't readily see, or admit, is how these creatures become living, breathing, occasionally floor-shitting embodiments of our own shadowy selves?
That psycho kitty isn't just randomly unhinged. That budgie killing psychopath is merely acting out the frantic clawing anxiety that y’all expect me to suppress at a family dinner.
Rodney’s strategic floor deposits, perfectly timed for Laura’s absence? Is it his revenge, or is it a furry, four-legged manifestation of that little bit of 'well fuck you, arsehole, you leave me and I'll shit on your pillow' daemon that lives, within each and every one of us?
There’s a belligerent little prick inside us that we, "civilized" humans, mostly manage to smother with social niceties and passive-aggressive emails.
Our pets don't have these filters. Who wouldn’t want to shit on the couch? Our pets are our id, unleashed on the upholstery. They are the unfiltered, unvarnished projection of every petty grievance, every repressed tantrum, every silent "fuck you" we've swallowed. That bulimic tabby isn't just anxious; he's a walking metaphor for every creative adjustment we’ve unleashed on the world
So, when you see that "Who Rescued Who?" sticker on the back of that decade-old Hyundai, still reeking of ossified vomit and existential despair, consider this: maybe the rescue is a mutual, ongoing, and deeply fucked up. We give them a home, and they, in turn, give our darkest, most childish impulses a furry, socially (somewhat) acceptable outlet.
They aren't emotional support animals. They're more like emotional exhibit animals, putting a spotlight on our neuroses in ways we’re too chicken shit to show.
They are our distorted mirrors, reflecting back the bits of ourselves we’d rather not claim – the spite, the neediness, the sheer, glorious, floor-pooping rage. And loving them? Perhaps it’s just a strange, roundabout way of acknowledging, and maybe even learning to live with, the messy, demanding, utterly dependent little arsehole daemons that reside within us all.
And if that’s not a reason to text your wife a picture of a fresh turd in the morning, I don’t know what is.
