Yet the other day, when I come home with the flu and went immediately to bed, Mr. Bond was even more distressed. He kept poking at me, pawing me, and demanding I get up. I wound up in the recliner, with a blanket over me, and Mr. Bond watching over me, reassured that I wasn’t that sick.
Normally Mr. Bond is happy to join me in bed. But Mr WereBear has been sleeping a lot during the day lately, and it seems that worrying about both of us is overloading Mr. Bond’s worry circuit. I’m slowly feeling better, and Mr. Bond has reverted to his normal behavior.
These actions illustrate just how much thought and effort cats put into their feelings when they have an environment that allows them to express it. To me, the evidence has always been simple, clear, and undeniable.
Cats care.
more cat pictures
They care about us. We might not always recognize the ways they express it. Cats don’t have the same abilities we do to show they care. They can’t make me a cup of tea or pull the blanket over me. They don’t have the physical ability to take actions. They would if they could.
In October of 2003, Mr WereBear and I saw the news report about Roy, of the magic act Seigfried and Roy, who had been attacked, onstage, by his own tiger. My reaction was blunt, and immediate. “I don’t believe it went down that way. I’ve seen them with their cats. They live with them in their home like pets. The tiger was trying to protect him, somehow. I bet he had Roy by the neck, trying to drag him away from danger, like a kitten. They misinterpreted it.”
As the story unfolded, that was the way it turned out. Roy had a stroke onstage. The tiger, previously distressed by some rowdy audience members, must have concluded that the audience was somehow responsible for Roy’s collapse. So he grabbed him, like a kitten, to take him away from the danger.
Roy knew it, too. His last words before losing consciousness was, “Don’t blame the tiger.”
But the rest of the world didn’t get it. All the news reports, even after Roy recovered and explained, couldn’t get away from the “unpredictable and vicious” attack. Which didn’t happen. This is how pervasive myths can be, and how difficult to eradicate.
So when we are feeling down and the cat seems to be “bothering us,” they aren’t doing it to be annoying or asking for attention. They are trying, the only way they know, to share our distress and soothe our feelings.
It’s a myth that cats are indifferent and uncaring. It’s probably the most pervasive myth many people have about cats.
People who have felt that cat-human bond know just how untrue this myth is.
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There’s more ways to get our cat to be affectionate in The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my CAT AFFECTION posts.
I don’t know if I’ve told this story here. My cat saved my life.
We think of “life saving” as being like a dog that drags her master out of a river or a cat that wakes up her owner when there’s a house fire, but there are other ways.
I’m bipolar II and was undiagnosed until last year, when I had a very bad mixed state, complete with terrifying panic attacks, insomnia, and, for the first time ever, strong suicidal ideation. Worst thing I’ve ever had to live through, and I almost didn’t live through it.
Tazendra took care of me. Human contact was often too much to bear, but she was always there, never demanding more than I could give. When the insomnia got really bad, she would urge me to bed; I kept getting up, though, because I couldn’t sleep for worry. She started laying on top of me and falling asleep ON me. I didn’t have the heart to move her, so I’d lay there, too, and eventually also fall asleep. Then she would leave me once I was asleep, and if I woke in the night and went back to bed, she would come lay beside me, ready to take up her position on me if I became restless.
This is not something she had ever done before, not in 12 years, and I don’t know if it was deliberate or not, I don’t know if that was calculated or accidental. Whatever it was, it saved my life.
It sounds silly saying that my cat tucking me into bed at night was responsible for saving me, but insomnia and the instability that comes with it is one of the most dangerous triggers when one is suicidal, and had she not hit upon the one damn thing that would keep me in bed, I might have missed the wrong two nights of sleep and attempted to harm myself.
I am doing way better now, with good drugs and good therapy, and I will be okay. I definitely consider Tazendra one of my best doctors!
Another cat of mine always comes in when I am crying and lays with me or kisses my fingers or butts me with her head. Sometimes if it’s very bad, and I am almost totally convinced this is on purpose, she will try to make me laugh. It always works, too.
My husband’s cat would not leave his side when he was sick with the ‘flu except to eat and tend to her own needs and occasionally check on me, too.
Cats are incredibly perceptive beings, and they return our love in very visible and meaningful ways, if we just stop and think about what we are seeing.
I’m so glad you have Mr. Bond, and glad you’re feeling better.