Why I Love My Cats More Than People
I have two cats at home that I care for along with my fiancé. One is my little kitty from before and one is her childhood kitty. We’re a happy, combined family with mom and dad each bringing in one kid. And, as one would expect, the step siblings share wonderfully hilarious dynamic, primarily with my little girl annoying the crap out of her big brother, who would rather she do anything but hang out with him.
At this point, anyone reading this will have one of two reactions. One type will say, “Aww, he loves his cats like they’re his kids!” and the other type will say, “Ew, he loves his cats like they’re his kids.” Fair cop to either. People are entitled to their opinions.
But the fact is that I definitely love my cats much more than I love most people. Does that mean that I don’t feel humanity towards people? Of course not. Two things can be true at once. It just means that if I had twenty bucks to buy my cat’s food or buy lunch for my cousin, I’d tell my cousin we’re splitting the bill at the restaurant.
There are many reasons for this. In the first place, it’s because they are dependents, even if not classified as such for tax purposes. Domesticated cats that have been raised as indoor cats are very dependent on us humans to care for them to survive. We feed them, keep them warm and safe, and if we stop doing what we do they would only survive so long. But that’s mostly why I care for them, not why I love them. To relate that, I have two stories, one for our little girl and one for our little man, that I’d like to relate. My hope is that it’ll become clear by the end of these anecdotes.
Why I Love My Cats More Than People
Like I say, these are just two examples that demonstrate why these little menaces are more deserving of my devotion than the average person. Both give me reasons to love them daily. But these are specific examples. And because I’m not someone who likes to play, “I know a secret,” I’ll tell you the moral of these stories. The moral is that sometimes an animal is a better example of proper love and care for humans than other humans. These are stories that don’t just make me love my cats, but they’re stories about how I can learn even from a little needle-clawed terror how to be a better human. And in today’s world that emphasizes disastrous news headlines and “it’s just a prank bro!” videos, it’s no shocker that I might take more education from a pet than a person.
My Little Girl
My little girl is named Leela. She only has one eye. This is why she’s called Leela. And for those not connecting the dots, Leela is a cyclopes character from the show Futurama. She’s always had one eye since she was rescued from the streets with a horrible eye infection. I’m told they were able to save one eye, but the other was too damaged to save. So, she’s always only had one eye to me.
When I first found her at the shelter she had been there for roughly two years. She was horribly timid around people and that’s a bad trait to have when you’re a cat looking to be adopted. When people bring their kids they want that cat that’s all over them. “Oh, he chose us!” That’s what everyone says. I get it. We all like to feel special. But the reality is just that those cats are attention lovers that will go out of their way with everyone who walks in.
Leela, on the other hand, was hiding in a cat tree the entire time. The only reason I even knew she existed was because I had looked at the shelter’s website and saw her profile. It said she would prefer a quiet home without many or any other pets. As a guy living alone at the time in a small apartment I felt a certain kinship to this shy little girl. So, I sought her out and found her in that cat tree. There, I spent an hour just sitting next to her until she let me start to pet her. Then, I spent another hour petting her while she purred.
A week later I had filled out the forms and paid the bills to take her home with me. That was in August. I didn’t see her other than when she snuck out for food until Christmas that same year. The thing was that I didn’t even begrudge her. Sure, I wanted a snuggly little lap cat. But I’ve always been a pretty introverted fella who struggles in unfamiliar settings. It takes me a while to warm up to people. So, I saw her behavior and just thought, “no worries little girl, you take your time.”
But I can remember that holiday season that she gave me the best gift ever. It wasn’t on Christmas. It wasn’t that magical. I know that because I spent that Christmas with my parents, her hiding under the guest bed the entire time because I couldn’t find a sitter and had to take her with me. But closer to the new year, when we were back home, I remember the day when I was watching TV and I suddenly saw her sitting by the living room entryway, watching me. I smiled and called to her softly, not expecting much. But a minute later she walked over, hopped onto the couch, and curled up on my lap. Years later she’s the snuggliest little cat and bravely comes to greet everyone at the door, stranger or familiar.
So why does this mean that she gets more devotion from me that my grandparents largely ever did? One, I’m an adult and most of my grandparents died when I was a less mature kid and didn’t appreciate them properly. But, also, because she demonstrated a willingness to trust me. This is a cat who started life off losing an eye on the streets and then being surrounded for years by dozens of noisy cats and watching them get adopted while she was passed over because she didn’t like all the activity and hid in a corner the way I do at family reunions. Then she gets plucked out of that life and thrown into a new strange place with not another sole but this strange man ten times the size of her. She could have hid under the bed all six years I’ve had her so far and it would have been perfectly understandable.
But she trusted me and now the two of us are inseparable.
It feels good to be trusted and I take that responsibility very seriously. I know how fragile and fleeting trust can be. She showed that to me by doubting every time my hand reached towards her. But I also know that it was worth it to her because the charisma between Leela at two years old and now at eight years old is shocking.
And that’s the lesson from her. It’s scary to let yourself trust others. It’s scary to come out of your shell and ask for the affection you need. I would know. I’ve been afraid of it for my entire life. But this little hairball showed that it can be worth it. It’s something I think about a lot and it’s something I remind myself about when she steals a can of her brother’s food, eats it all in thirty seconds, and throws up all over the apartment for the next half hour. As much as she infuriates me some days, at the end of the day, she’s the biggest sweetheart and has shown more faith in me and my character than many people are willing to do for each other. That’s a valuable thing to me.
My Little Man
Andy is an older cat. He was my fiancé’s family’s little kitty while they were all growing up. He was a semi-outdoor cat but eventually retired to full indoor status where he promptly took up a habit of sleeping for 21 hours every day only to wake up for roughly three hours throughout the day to bounce between eating and napping for one-hour periods. Unfortunately for him, at some point a dog was brought into the household and that rambunctious energy left him relegated to a removed guest room to avoid the chaos. That’s why my fiancé “rescued” him once she got a place of her own and then, once we moved in together, he came into the family.
The thing about Andy is that if you don’t understand him and his ways, he can seem very standoffish. It’s not necessarily that he hates people, he just likes peace and quiet. Fair cop. So do I, buddy. And with Leela being a rambunctious little sister these days I can understand why he might be a little grumpy from time to time. Still, I worked hard to build a bond with him from day one, recognizing what was happening when we realized Leela was stealing all his food that was in an auto-timed feeder, and starting a habit of sitting with him at his mealtimes to make sure he didn’t starve. We’ve also came to have our rhythm with his medications when he was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. It was a bond that was slow but steady to be built.
Then spring of 2025 happened.
A string of horrible events befell the poor little man and it all started with an ear infection.
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Alone, an infection like that isn’t a huge deal. They happen and you get them treated. So, we made a vet appointment and it was my chore to bring him in since my job offers more freedom to take time off. We go into the office where he begins to panic because he hates the vet and then, in a wild jump off the exam table, the buddy hurts his arm, starting to limp around the office to find a way out. The little guy looked like he had been hit by a car and the best we could figure was that he had sprained his arm or something.
I felt horrible. I felt like I let him down. I was supposed to watch out for him and help him get better and here he was, worse off than before. What was worse, they sent us with main medications for him that I had to offer because my fiancé was out of town that weekend. I spent the week traumatizing the poor guy by shoving a syringe in his mouth, shooting drugs down his throat, and leaving him in a haze of drugged up aches and pains. Then, we promptly left for a family vacation that had been planned a year in advance, having a pet sitter come to try and convince the sick little guy to eat any food at all. I saw myself as a monster and I was sure that, when we got home, he would be avoiding me at all costs.
Unfortunately for me, I got sick as a dog on that trip. It’s quite possible that my immune system was weakened from so much stress, but how it happened was irrelevant. Either way, I spent vacation week hardly able to breath from so much mucous and by the time we came home it had spread into the worst sinus infection I had ever had. My head felt like here was a balloon in there slowly expanding and threatening to pop my face wide open.
That first day home, I remember bringing my suitcase upstairs to the bedroom, seeing Andy sleeping on his favorite chair in our bedroom, and then going downstairs to try and nap on the couch with a movie for background noise. While hoping that laying down would help, my sinuses slowly got worse, eventually leaving my crying from the pain on the couch.
It was then that I heard a soft little meow from the doorway. I didn’t want my head to look so I figured it was Leela begging for food or something. Then, I heard the weak, shuffling steps of our limping little man coming up to the couch. Next thing I knew, he had clambered his way onto the couch and snuggled himself up on my chest. My dear readers, though my eyes had been watering from pain, it was quickly shifted to full on tears of gratitude. The little man had limped his way all the way down a flight of stairs just to come be miserable with me.
Here’s the thing, the story of why I love Andy more than most people doesn’t even end there.
One week later my sinus infection had finally abated and Andy’s limp was largely gone. Things seemed to be going okay. Then, one night, the little man had himself a… shall we call it… dingleberry problem. Since his kidney diagnosis he had been switched to an all soft food diet and we hadn’t quite leveled it out enough to manage the ensuing diarrhea. And it cam back to bite him in… well… the butt.
So, I did my best to be gentle as I brought the little guy to the bathroom to try and wipe him down. Unfortunately for everyone in the county, Andy does NOT like water or the bathtub. The little man started screaming bloody murder and scrambling to get away as soon as I took that damp cloth to his little rump. In his panic, he made a clumsy jump off the edge of the tub.
Suddenly, the limp was back and worse than ever.
And this time I just knew that things weren’t right. I saw him trying to use that leg and could see it just wasn’t moving the way it was supposed to. My stomach sunk and I knew we needed to get him to an emergency room. After convincing my fiancé that this one shouldn’t wait, we found a 24-hour hospital, got some x-rays, and learned that the limp was because he had a bone tumor in his arm that had probably been micro-fractured at the vet the first time and was now shattered in multiple places.
The arm had to come off that night.
I was absolutely gutted. Especially because the next morning, right after picking him up, my fiancé had to leave town for a couple days again. Once again, the cycle of me traumatizing the little guy with pain meds began with no other people around for him to feel safe with. This time I was sure he would never want anything to do with me again.
Then, on day two of being a tripod, the little guy was in his gaba-stupor on the couch next to me when I saw him stir. I looked over, expecting him to simply want to try to adjust around his massive suture lines and get back to sleep. But I saw him watching me and, as soon as we made eye contact, he started to get up. He was very shaky and I was ready to catch him if he needed. But then he hobbled over, still trying to figure out only having three legs, and curled himself up against me.
I cried… hard.
This little guy had every reason to think that I was a bad luck omen at best. I had been there each time his arm had been hurt and, even though it was the fault of that stupid tumor (thank god the biopsies showed it wasn’t cancerous, just a benign growth), he would have every reason to blame me using basic kitty logic. And yet, there he was showing me that he trusted me and cared about me.
I tell you what, I get watery-eyed even just thinking of all of these stories about Andy. The fact that this cat somehow managed to have the empathy to come find me and help comfort me through his own misery is astounding. Maybe I’m anthropomorphizing too much. But the little guy constantly leaves his comfortable places where we even give him heated blankets to help with phantom limb aches to find me and snuggle up to me. He’s doing great these days as a tripod. He can’t balance on my shoulders anymore like he used to, but as we nurse him along through his chronic kidney disease, which we know will likely be what sends him along eventually, he still finds it in himself to eat his meals for me and even give me at least one purr every day. That’s a big deal because, as my fiancé puts it, he’s not a cat who makes it a habit of purring for people in general. It took months before I heard it from him at all.
The fact is, this cat shows me more trust and affection than most people do. I don’t think most people knew I was sick while we were on vacation with them, and he came down to comfort me as soon as I got home. And he still shows me every day the value of forgiving people and not letting their accidents or mistakes damage your relationships. Maybe that’s a stretch. I doubt he’s articulating that idea in a journal. But it’s the lesson I learn every day I get with the little man.
I’m A Crazy Cat Lady
I know Andy’s story has more of an emotional punch to it. But the fact is that I adore both of my kitties for their own unique reasons and both of them give me reasons to marvel at the capacity for affection that such little creatures can have. Both of them have their special lap-cuddle times with me. Andy takes his first thing in the morning when I feed him breakfast so his mom can have an extra half hour of sleep. Leela takes hers after dinner while we have family TV time before bed.
I know, to people who aren’t pet people it probably sounds weird to refer to my cats as my family. But that’s the point, isn’t it? These cats don’t judge me for my mistakes or for how I define my family. Not like my crabby aunts do when they grimace at me for turning down invites since they interfere with getting Andy his medication and we can’t find a pet sitter. That very reaction is why I love my cats more than people. Because, at the end of the day, all we want is to be loved, not judged, for who we are. And the love that my cats show me is a daily lesson in what love can be when it’s properly offered and earned.
So, am I a crazy pet owner because I take the time to clean the litter-box-schmoo from Andy’s little feet because he’s still learning how to balance and navigate the litterbox with three legs? Or for telling Leela that I love her and she’s in charge while I’m away because her brother is upstairs asleep when I leave? Probably. But those little cretins have earned that love and they’ve taught me what it feels like to be loved back. My fiancé meets the standards they set. And there are plenty of other people who meet those standards too. But there are also a lot of people who just don’t even try, let along meet the standards.
People are ugly to each other. And I get it. There are a lot of different people and we’re not always going to see eye to eye. But if I have to take a chance on whether a human is going to respect and care about me against whether my cats will do the same, I’m taking the safe bet and giving my time to my cats.
So, the moral of the story is to try to love others the same way a pet will love their owners. Offer that love without requirements or expectation. We tend to be so conditional with our care of one another. So transactional. But the creatures that make us happy are the ones who expect nothing in return. So, why not try to be those creatures ourselves? Why not try to make others happy without anything in return? Ironically, that ends up being the best deal. I mean, my cats get free room and board, free medical care, free everything. And all they have to do in return is be nice.
I don’t know. I just really love my cats. And I wish we were all better at loving each other in such simple, unconditional terms.
At any rate, recounting these stories has been a pretty heavy process. So, I’m gonna take a breather and give those little monsters some scritches.
