I've had a few previous run-ins with cats. Most of the meetings were with cats in the neighborhood, except for two occasions, one at my mom's friend's house and another at a Humane Society. Cats have never seemed to like me much. They either stare at me suspiciously and run off if I try to approach, or they keep turning away from me to show their disinterest. In fact, my parents' friend's cat even bared its teeth (though I'd heard that he - or was it she? - didn't like people much to begin with) when I attempted to get friendly with it.

So I wasn't quite sure if I really ought to be volunteering to help out with a Town Cats event at PetCo. It was an adoption fair for cats, and I was supposed to be helping with the cleanup - dismantling the cages and that sort of thing. I figured I might as well go. Despite all of my cajoling for the past couple of years, I have still been unable to convince my mother that we ought to get a cat or dog. It's probably because of one of these reasons...

1. My mom never liked cats or dogs much. It seems that her side of our family isn't fond of animals in general, since they didn't have pets when my mom was young.

2. No one has time to take care of it. There's no one to feed lunch to a cat or dog, and if we got a dog we'd have to walk it every day. (I think that'd be good exercise, but it is time-consuming.) Cats are lower maintenance, but as my mother considers them to be rather disloyal and not as useful (for instance, dogs could guard the house while we're away), that's out of the question. I don't think my mom has ever really spent time with a cat, though, so how would she know?

3. My mom is afraid of dogs. She thinks that the big ones are scary and that they will bite her. It's ridiculous considering that she's never even been bitten. And I don't think it's good to be judging animals' temperaments by their sizes. I've told her to pet dogs, that they won't hurt her, but she always refuses.

4. I'm allergic to cats, so I can't have one. Three times I have gotten rashes after coming in contact with cats. Of course, it's not life-threatening, I could still have a cat, but it sure would be annoying suffering from allergies all the time. (And since cats don't like me, I think I'd get along better with a dog.)

5. My dad is allergic to dogs, according to the doctor. I might've mentioned this in an old post. The doctor told him that he's allergic to dogs (guess he found out by giving my dad an injection of something doggish - yeah, I know, that's not a real word - and deduced that he's allergic) but I have never seen him react to dogs. So it's probably a lie. But I don't know for sure.

Anyways, I've wanted to have a dog since about second grade, though I didn't start to nag often until middle school. But even after years and years, I have not managed to convince my mom. She half-jokingly made an offer to me many years ago, saying that if I quit going on the Internet, I could have a dog. I suspect that she only offered that to me because she didn't think I would be able to do it. I have considered quitting the computer (except for homework purposes, I suppose) so that I can have a dog, but I'm not completely sure she would hold up her end of the bargain. Besides, there are lots of things on the Internet that I still want to do - post on my blog, for one. And so I am still stuck in this dogless, catless state. I'll probably be like this until I move out (my mother is always saying I can have a dog...when I'm an adult. It's rather frustrating. She says I'm not responsible enough to take care of one anyways, since I've broken my DS and a camera, as well as lost a jacket, homework assignments, and various other things).

Labels: adoption, allergies, animals, cat, deal, dog, fair, family, internet, mother, pet, petco, reasons, town cats

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