Yes world, my pets ARE precious snowflakes

July 8, 2009 -

I frequently walk into a room only to notice Fat Louie sitting in very weird places and gazing intently at nothing. I woke up early this morning to find him having a stare down with an ottoman.

More and more it seems like otherwise rational people are coming to believe their pets’ quirks make them truly unique, distinctive, totally different from the rest of the world’s pack. After all, try to count the millions of ways your animals stand out from the crowd and I’d bet you’ll run out of fingers and toes pretty quickly. Everyone’s pet is someone.

So fascinated am I by this phenomenon, no matter how ludicrous or far-fetched to the non-pet obsessed, that I’ve started to notice how endearing my pets’ oddities are as well. It’s likely that only I’ve noticed that Ollie has one eye adorned with glistening white eyelashes (really, glistening), the other with brown ones. Honey Pie is missing one tiny tooth on her lower jaw. And then yes, there’s Lou and his pointless staring. These are the things I believe make my pets special. To name just a few.

My niece pointed out to me this weekend, in a very animated and touching display of show and tell, that her Jack Russell Terrier’s brown spots are significantly softer than her white patches. It was true too. I felt each dark patch myself. Even a 9 year gets it.

What’s my point? I don’t really have one. Except that the level of intimacy we form with pets is just another reason I love having 'em around. Only Ollie would put up with me, sans makeup, hair in all its just-woke-up glory, pre-toothpaste getting close enough to notice something like the color of his eyelashes. And that’s fine by me. No one knows my pets better than I do. And that’s just the way I like it.