A reader asks:

Is it strange to really like your pet?

Dear Readers,

Sometimes, it’s impossible not to.

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Of all the things in the world to worry about, having too much love seems like a real reach. However, some people do genuinely worry about it. They have not been given proper models of What Love Is.

A person might have been raised in an atmosphere of bigotry and xenophobia. Some religious and philosophical beliefs, taken to an extreme, can interfere with normal human attachment mechanisms. When there are strong influences that try to claim that other human beings aren’t quite human, it’s no wonder some people grow up baffled and frightened.

This is compounded when we have feelings for a being who is not human. Society veers back and forth with its messages. Our media will court a child’s love of animals with movies and books where animals play prominent, even anthropomorphic, roles. Yet most industrialized countries do not do enough when it comes to treatment of farm animals, humane concerns are often reluctantly enforced, and people who do advocate for such causes risk running a gauntlet of disparagement and scorn.

Then there’s the whole “animals have feelings” debate, which still rages across many disciplines; some scientists feel they would undermine their objective credentials by admitting animals have such things as intelligence and emotions. Yet all of biology is based on genetic evolution; these same scientists avoid explaining how humans evolved intelligence and emotions entirely from scratch.

Fortunately, this same biology keeps triumphing over superficial societal constraints, since that is a veneer imposed by conditioning. Despite the blood enmity of their families, Romeo and Juliet fell in love anyway. People from different backgrounds and countries do it all the time.

And people keep hugging and cuddling and saying silly things to their pets, whether or not they admit they love them. It’s obvious that they do.

Love can be mistaken for other things; this is why some people fear it, and worry they are doing it wrong. Perhaps it is because we sometimes use the word lightly; we adore someone’s new jacket, we are in love with a new band, and we love strawberry rhubarb pie. Real love, of any kind, can be distinguished by what happens when we bestow it.

Real love is returned.

So when we love our cats, and our cats love us back…

We’re doing it right.

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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.