There’s a theory that everyone in the world is either a dog person or a cat person. Having owned one of each in my adulthood, I can say with confidence that I am neither.
As a child I was sure that I was both a dog and cat person, also a horse person until my parents put that dream to rest. But my bedroom was papered with cute kitteh and puppeh pictures, and I dreamed of the day that I’d own my own fleet of blue-eyed Siamese cats. Even though we had an actual dog, a mutt named Sandy, it was kittens that made it onto my birthday cakes and tshirts.
It wasn’t until I was in my early twenties and living with my then-fiancé, now husband, that I finally got to give cat ownership a try. We adopted a ginger tabby and named it, and I write this with shame, Siddhartha. Maybe we thought we lived in the Republic of Pretentioustan*. At least we had the decency to nickname him Sid.
Did you know that cats are full of energy? Night energy? Every evening as we dropped off to sleep, orange Sid came alive, racing around on the hardwood floors and flying off the backs of furniture and landing with loud thuds, just as I was trying to catch some shuteye for my first big corporate job. Within two weeks I was like the walking dead from lack of sleep.
But it was Sid’s pantyhose obsession that was the final straw. Each morning as I pulled on the pantyhose that were de rigeur at the corporate job, Sid’s cat brain said, “Playtime!!!!!” He’d launch himself onto the end of the L’Eggs beige hose and start pulling in the opposite direction from me, slashing them and laughing silent kitty laughs while I ground my teeth and wondered why I’d voluntarily complicated my important little life.
Within a month, Sid was living with the family of one of my husband’s co-workers who had a little girl just begging for a kitteh. Sid was renamed something like Tiger or Puffball and everyone involved was happy. When I announced to my husband a few years later that I thought it was time we start a family, he eyed me cautiously. “You know we can’t just give a baby away if it starts to bug you, like the cat,” he said.
A dozen years later I find myself living with a dog. It’s an easier fit than the cat, for sure, but only because parenthood has worn down any pretense that my life should be free of chaos. If all this dog did was chew on my panythose tips, I’d be thrilled. He whines at the end of my bed in the morning, turns circles of glee in front of me when I’m trying to get into the bathroom, drags napkins off diners’ laps at the kitchen table to root around for scraps in the folds. He would welcome 24/7 petting if I would provide it to him, and I have lost count of the number of times he has raced out the front door, up into the street, and after the neighborhood cats and squirrels, completely oblivious of swerving traffic. 
In short, he’s a pain in the tuchus, and will definitely be the only dog we ever own since my husband feels about Achilles as I did about Sid. But I will be devastated the day he’s no longer around. I’m not a dog person, but I’m this dog’s person.
Here’s an obscure Neil Finn song on the topics of dogs and devotion and loss, written about his dog Lester. Worth sticking around to the end to find out who producer Mitchell Froom THOUGHT Neil was singing about.
This music moment is dedicated in loving memory to our friends’ faithful dog Kelly, may he now be growling at intruders in heaven.
*thank you, Mitchell from Modern Family, for the term.