Pets and People 01/17/2010
 
Last night, I watched a show about a canine hero who, in the traditional “Lassie” fashion, sought out and brought help to his desperate human companion.  The woman had fallen down a ledge in the middle of the Utah wilderness, had broken her pelvis, and had been unable to get to help herself.  The dog was able to lead the search and rescue crew to her after three days of enduring dehydration and freezing temperatures.  This made me wonder:  How many attributes, such as high levels of compassion and intelligence, do people wrongly attribute to be typically “human,” but “unusual” or “amazing” in their pets?
Picture
Kitty (door) and Kadie (in pearls)
I have two cats, Kitty and Kadie.  They once warned me of an attempted home invasion in the middle of the night, when my then-fiancé was out of town.  The apartment above me had flooded, and my complex had hired a man to vacuum my bedroom carpet and leave a dehumidifier.  He had closed the sliding glass door behind him when he had left—leaving it unlocked.  Of course, I had gone right behind him and locked it after he was gone, but it is clear that he had not counted on that (and that he had also counted on my leaving the loud dehumidifier on all night, which was keeping me awake and, luckily, I had opted to turn off so I could sleep).  I woke to the sound of the sliding door being tugged on—with Kadie standing suddenly, fluffing up, and growling angrily and Kitty rushing across the apartment, to the sliding door.  He crashed into the blinds, and a moment later my would-be intruder crashed over my patio ledge and ran off into the night.  The next day, the same man tried to let himself into my apartment: that morning, he had taken my apartment key from the management office and went to my apartment.  Already on high alert, I was able to stop him before he got in, send him away, and notify the management of his actions.  Management apologized profusely for letting such an oversight occur; they had no idea that he had taken my key.

Were Kitty and Kadie just reacting to an outside noise, or were they defending me and our property?  Given that Kitty ran to the sliding glass door and Kadie stayed right at my side, growling until the man had gone, I tend to believe that the latter is the case.

Do you have any neat and/or “amazing” stories about your furred, feathered, or scaled friends?  I’d love to hear about it.
 


Comments

Shelley

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:39:26

I think animals are a lot smarter than most people think. I've had dogs and cats my whole life, and they never cease to amaze me.

 



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