Familiar

 Fluffy came to live with us a little more than a year ago. He's here right now, crowding me of the keyboard in his semi-vigorous attempt to get me to pay more attention to him than what is on the screen in front of me. This is the way of cat, as I am becoming more familiar. It is a very different energy than dog. There is no frantic neediness to Fluffy's actions. He merely posits himself in my immediate vicinity when he feels that I have yet to notice him to the degree to which he believes that I should. And, sucker that I am, I often find myself drawn into the interaction which consists of my hand needing to be stroking or scratching him in a particular place or fashion. This results most often in the low rumbles from his throat, the one we call a purr. It is the siren song of cats that draws even hard cases like myself to their doom, or at least without the use of their hands for minutes at a time. 

We had a dog named Maddy. Or Maddie. We were never in full agreement of the spelling. When she came to us, here name was Missy. But we weren't having any of that. Once she was Maddy(ie), everything clicked. She was never overbearing, but she did get anxious when her pack was not around her. She preferred us all to be in the same room, and once we settled, she would hop up to be adjacent to a lap where she could hang her head. This was she could monitor our movements, in case we should start to drift apart. She was a dog, so she needed a job. Corralling us was hers. 

There was a dog up the street. His name was Scotty. Scotty was different than most of the dogs behind fences past whom I would run. He didn't feel the need to yell at me for passing in front of his yard. He was mostly interested in where I was going, and how I got to be there. Some days he would simply lay on the stairs in front of his house and give me tacit approval as I ran past. On others, he would trot down to the gate to greet me, to let me know that I was noticed and missed. Scotty was similar in size and shape to Maddy, and after she was gone, Scotty helped fill that dog-shaped void. 

Until a couple weeks ago. I had made several trips past Scotty's house without a glimpse of my puppy pal. Then my wife broke the news. Scotty had gone, as all dogs do, to heaven. And there was another big, dog-shaped hole in my life again. Returning home from my Scotty-less run, I sat at my desk and felt the loss. Not my dog, but a dog with whom I was familiar. 

About that time, Fluffy came and rubbed up against my shins. It was dinnertime, after all. And he might have sensed that I needed some sort of creature comfort. Pretty good dog, for a cat.