This may be a two-parter. Or even three-, because I have a lot of feelings and opinions on this particular subject.
Many of us grew up with a natural (or sometimes oddly excessive) affection towards animals. I adored all things furry, and Zoobook taught me to be fascinated by the ferocious and exotic. Heck, I even spread the love to the insect kingdom, collecting all matter of winged arthropods (I have a scar on my finger from where a mantis tried to eat me. No joke–ask my little brother! Ahhh, memories).
As I “grew up,” I slowly accepted the “sensible” lessons society taught: that my wonder of the ferocious should be replaced by fear, and my kinship with the furry would be more appropriately viewed as a masterdom over inferior species. While I do believe that fear of a lion is a healthy thing to have, and we as Human are a steward for Creation, there’s more to the equation than this.
Bandit has spent years showing me. ”Showing you what?” you may ask. Well, it’s hard to explain. . .
Watching Bandit is a meditation. She is a quiet creature, rarely voicing more than a warbling purr to question the availability of my lap, but her rounded features speak sharp truths. Her paws fall with the grace of snowflakes, leaving warm circles of moisture that quickly evaporate from the cool counter as she vanishes from sight without a sound. Though a bit older and somewhat plump, the only thing that gives Bandit away is the faint popping of her joints, the moan of age you can hear in great forests when the wind gusts strong. She is a beautiful and mysterious creature, and I love her unflinching acceptance of all that I say or do.
But she is a terrible huntress, too. She will spend nearly an hour hunched over a spider, batting with enough force to make a pillowy “flup” noise as her paw hits the carpet. Tail twitching, she’ll observe the spider’s futile attempts to flee, each effort slower than the last as Bandit’s casual assaults gradually disable all of the creature’s limbs. And then she’ll walk away. My beautiful kitty cat will simply wander off to a strip of sunlight and lie down for an afternoon snooze, completely unconcerned for the twitching remains of the spider. It falls to me or Hubby to dispose of the poor arachnid. She does this, not as a means of procuring food, not as a means of defending her territory, but because she is practicing what it means to be “cat.” Bandit is expressing who she innately IS as a species.
Some would say her behavior is two sides of the same coin, but I would have to disagree. Bandit’s “personality,” if you will, cannot be reduced to a binary of contradicting halves. There is no such thing as contradiction in a creature such as herself –Bandit has taught me this. She simply IS, and she accepts this, just as she accepts me; whatever I wear, whatever I eat, she considers it in line with what my nature dictates and that, she would say with a flick of her ear, is that.
To tie this all in, I can’t assume that Bandit’s reasons for doing something have anything to do with my reasons for doing something similar (if I smush a spider, it’s because it was lying in wait at the bottom of my coffee cup). I can’t define her actions with my emotions; she IS a creature motivated by very different wants and needs, and—oddly enough—those motivations are of a more selfish nature in that she doesn’t kill the spider to be mean, she likely kills the spider to practice her hunting, to see the effect of the blows she causes. When she walks on the counter, it isn’t to spitefully disobey my desires that she stay off the counter, she is simply exploring an area because she wants to satisfy her curiosity.
Hold that thought, apply it to your own pets, mayhaps; on Friday, I’ll post a follow-up.
