Pets and politics

I've been spending a lot of time around the apartment lately, and I can't resist picking up my cat Yusuke (rhymes with brewski) once in a while for a cuddle. She used to not mind this when I was living alone, but now that I've got a roommate with two cats of his own, she starts crying pretty much as soon as I pick her up. I adopted Yusuke from a shelter, and she was very skittish and shy for several months after I brought her home, but she eventually warmed up to me and started behaving like a normal cat, walking around with her tail in the air and announcing her presence with a meow every once in a while. She's never had too strong of a voice though, so she has to be pretty riled up to get out more than a strangled whisper.

I think the presence of the other cats has brought back her feelings of suspicion, but they're slowly subsiding the longer they're around. Still, whenever she sees them across a room, she hunkers down to a crawl and sneaks forward to get a better view, preferably around the corner of a piece of furniture, and every once in a while she practices her spring. The funny thing is, the other cats don't always run away, so she has to pull up short to avoid running into them, and sometimes they go for her. I'm not sure even they know if they're just playing when they go tearing back and forth from one room to another, up and down the couch, or through the kitchen with their tails all fluffed up and arching their backs. Once in a while, one of them will bat at the other, but they rarely make contact, and that usually signals the end of the run.

Thinking about them has made me realize that we humans generally treat our pets (dogs, cats, birds) on a continuum from toys to children. We want them to amuse or entertain us, but we also want to give them affection, and receive it in return. This is quite a change from the original reasons for domesticating them: food in hard times, tools the rest. It's a measure of our advanced civilization that we no longer have to contemplate eating them, but we found a reason to keep them around anyway. However, stripped of their purpose (be it hunting pests or game, pulling sleds, or guarding our interests), I think many of us have actually lost our respect for these animals over time. Or maybe it's more accurate to say we've come to value their superficial qualities at the expense of their talents. They wouldn't be the only victims of that way of thinking.