OPINION
A Pet is For Life,
f you’ve ever met me, you know that my cats are my only personality trait. Our Instagram depicts our lives as a kind of floofy fairytale: endless kitty cuddles and cozy pics taken while we snuggle together in bed. As a result, many people have told me that they want to duplicate our lives for themselves. So, I get inundated with questions: where did I get my cats? Why are we so happy together? And this line of questioning often ends up in one very disconcerting place: ‘I want a kitten for Christmas!’ This is a common refrain from all too many people and it chills me every time. Because, as cliché as it sounds, it’s
WORDS BY ALYSSA-CAROLINE BURNETTE IMAGE BY SAYLI JADHAV TEXTURE BY EFE_MADRID VIA FREEPIK
true: a pet is for life, not just for Christmas. My cats and I didn’t get our fairy-tale life because I decided, on impulse, to buy a cute little ball of fluff. All of my cats are rescues. They are the ‘children’ I’ve chosen to have— the family to whom I’ve made a lifelong commitment. To me, their lives are precious gifts indeed; our family is the thing I treasure most in this world. But embracing the gift of family is very different from giving someone’s life as a gift, as if it holds no more significance than a new sweater. Your aunt gives you a necklace you hate? You don’t have a lifetime commitment to that necklace. You can throw it away, regift it, or donate it to a charity shop. You can let it languish in a dresser drawer for years while you forget about it. The regrettable truth is that people who give pets as gifts often maintain that same attitude toward animals. People who give pets as gifts rarely think beyond that ‘cute, fluffy fairy-tale’ ideal. Often, that’s because people have a certain vision in their heads— a concept of the ‘perfect pet’ and the adventures they want to have together. But just as you can’t control your children’s personalities, you don’t get to dictate who your pet turns out to be. For example, my Everlie is my best friend. She’s the perfect cat for me. She’s funny and cuddly and she loves to sleep on my face. We live to spend time together. Elliot, on the other hand, could not be more different. He’s cold, snarky, and indifferent; all he wants is to eat and be left alone. So, if I were designing my ‘perfect cat’, it wouldn’t be Elliot. But that doesn’t mean that his life is disposable or that he is any less a member of our family because, at the end of the day, animals have unique personalities just like humans do. When I adopted Elliot, I made a lifetime commitment to love a new, permanent member of this family— no matter who he turns out to be.
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