Why Pets Don’t Pay Rent

cat wearing glasses

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If you know me at all, you know I have pets: two adorable, very fluffy, Persian baby cats, and because of that, it’s pretty common for me to have people ask questions like: “How are your kitties? or “What have Judah and Latte been up to lately?”

I love it when that happens because it always sparks a fun conversation about some silly thing they’ve done recently, and since I love telling stories I enjoy sharing information about them, but also because if the other person has pets, they also end up sharing funny stories about their pets as well.

People love to talk about their pets, and why shouldn’t they? Pets are awesome. Some of them are crazy funny, and they all seem to have this amazing knack for making us feel happier for having them around.  How many people can you say that about?

That’s why I think animals are way smarter than we give them credit for, and house pets – like my cats – well, they’re the Elite Force – masters of the craft.  Think about it; if your little Snooky Pie is anything like my cats, you’ve never once seen him or her reach into their fur coat and pull out a Benjamin to help you may rent.  Not once.  And yet you’re constantly doling out bread, from your own pocket, to pay for all their stuff.  Sometimes you even buy them toys – and clothes, for Pete’s sake! Apparently we’re all happy with this arrangement too, because we keep right on doing it.  Would you be happy to do that for anyone else in the world though? I don’t think so; I mean for those of us with children, we do that for them when they’re young and unable to fend for themselves, but at some point, we’re all gonna look for them to take over doing that for themselves, but for our house pets, we’ve basically signed over a blank check to them to cover all of that for their whole lives!

And that’s why I say house pets are masters of their craft.  I think they’ve got the system working like a well greased machine because they figure it out early that the key to having good things flow their way, is to give us the kinds of things we like to receive from them.

House pets  are like psychic at working ‘the system’.  We meet their every need: providing them food, shelter, and medical care when needed, and they know a good thing when they find it, so they just actively work at keeping that good thing going .  They study us: observing what we like and dislike, and focus on giving us what we like.  They greet us at the door and welcome us home after a hard days’ work, they do funny things that make us laugh, and they cuddle or snuggle with us so we truly feel adored.  And doesn’t all that work like a charm?  We’ve all heard: “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you”, but some pets are such masters of the craft, they get away with nipping at our feet and ankles and we feed them anyway!  Don’t try this at home folks – these are professionals…

House pets aren’t the only crafty creatures out there though; these next 4 creatures I’ll mention, have really got some skilz.

Ants

Ants are tiny! We step on them sometimes and never even notice it, so obviously it’s not their size they’ve got working for them.  No, what they really do that’s pretty amazing, is that they’re master of the craft at preparing for the future.  They start storing things up during the summer, when the getting is good and food is plentiful, and then in the winter they’re like, “I’m just gonna sit back and chill because I don’t need a thing.” I think they basically kick back and watch Netflix all winter long while all the other animals are out shivering their tails off trying to find food.  Ants don’t even have fur coats (and it’s probably not because they missed catching them on sale at the mall over the summer), it’s because they’ll never need one!

Rock Badgers 

These little critters look a lot guinea pigs but you’ve probably never seen one, and the reason is because they live in rocky hills and cliffs. The neighborhoods, so to speak, that are the hardest to find and get into.  Fascinating isn’t it?  Why, when it would be so much easier to find a neighborhood that had less of a ‘barrier to entry’, would they intentionally choose the harder spots to attain?  Similar to the ants, these little guys are just masters of their craft of picking the best places to live.  Not that many predators hang out in those places so their homes provide them with a lot of safety and security that other sites would not be able to provide.  Also, since a home built in the rocks and cliffs is going to be a sturdy structure, their homes will be more durable and will last longer.  In people terms, it’s sort of be like the difference between renting an apartment and buying a nice house in a good neighborhood.

Locusts

Most people are more familiar with grasshoppers than locusts, but the main difference between the two is just that locusts swarm, so if you think about it like a grasshopper, you’d realize that taken just by itself, a single locust is not much a threat.  A swarm of locusts, however, now that’s whole different story. Locusts are masters of their craft at teamwork: swarms of locusts, which can number in the millions, can become one of the world’s most destructive forces. They can break down a giant tree, and can completely dimolish whole crops in no time at all.  Nowhere else in nature is this type of behavior observed, where a group voluntarily joins together, with no leader directing their movements, to accomplish a common goal.  People could choose to do this kind of thing, and there are actually isolated examples of this we all know about, like when there has been a human tragedy or catastrophe, but wouldn’t it be amazing though, if we did it more often simply because working as a group is more effective than working alone? Locusts do it to destroy things, so I wouldn’t urge anyone to follow their exact lead, but it would be awesome to see people apply this towards accomplishing constructive goals. One can always dream…

Lizards

Lizards are amazing creatures.  Who hasn’t found one in their home, when you know for a fact that all the doors and windows were tightly locked?  How do they do that?

I don’t know either, but I do know they do it all the time – they’re masters of the craft at figuring out a way to accomplish whatever it is they’ve set out to do.

I bet you could literally tell a lizard 10,000 times, to his face, that there is absolutely no way he’s ever getting in your house again, and you know what would happen?  He’d probably just look at you.  He might not even blink.  I don’t think he’d try to debate with you about his abilities.  He certainly wouldn’t take you to court for discriminating against lizards, and he probably would continue to show you the same level of courtesy and respect as before, but I guarantee you it wouldn’t phase him or derail him from any of the plans for his life, and one of these days,  you’ll probably look up and he’ll suddenly be right there – watching you.  That’s when you might see the faintest hint of a smile – or maybe I just imagined that…

I think you’ve got to give credit where credit is due though; lizards are rock stars at figuring out a way to accomplish whatever it is they’ve set their mind to do.

Stuff like that – the way our house pets ‘work the system’, and how all those other small creatures are such masters of the craft at the things they do, make me realize I could take a few notes from their pages. How about you?

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