Emotional Support Animal
Aug. 17th, 2016 07:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyspriteEver since we brought our current pair of cats home as kittens three years ago, they made it clear that they had strong preferences in their people. Harlequin - the long-haired black fluffball - is daddy's little girl, running around the house peeping at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
umbran to be picked up or to have a toy thrown, and climbing on his chest whenever he holds still; Harrison - the lanky orange male - is mine, climbing into my lap whenever I'm working and making sure I never need to climb the stairs without an escort.
We didn't plan this or try to sway them this way; it just happened. Each of them will tolerate the other human if their person of choice isn't around, but it's pretty clear from their demeanor in those cases that they're settling.
Except....
For the past couple of weeks I've been having an even worse time sleeping than usual. In particular, I've been waking up in the middle of the night sick and panicked and generally miserable. And each and every night, every time I wake up, Harley has been by my pillow in less than a minute. And she curls up inches away from me, and purrs as loud as she can, and stays there until I fall asleep again (at which point she presumably returns to her preferred position, balanced precariously on my husband's side).
I don't know what pushed her to start doing this, or why she's suddenly deigned to grace me with her love and support, or how she even knows that this helps. But anyone who says that animals don't have or understand emotions, or that cats don't care about people like dogs do, can tell that to my fluffy little protector....
umbran to be picked up or to have a toy thrown, and climbing on his chest whenever he holds still; Harrison - the lanky orange male - is mine, climbing into my lap whenever I'm working and making sure I never need to climb the stairs without an escort. We didn't plan this or try to sway them this way; it just happened. Each of them will tolerate the other human if their person of choice isn't around, but it's pretty clear from their demeanor in those cases that they're settling.
Except....
For the past couple of weeks I've been having an even worse time sleeping than usual. In particular, I've been waking up in the middle of the night sick and panicked and generally miserable. And each and every night, every time I wake up, Harley has been by my pillow in less than a minute. And she curls up inches away from me, and purrs as loud as she can, and stays there until I fall asleep again (at which point she presumably returns to her preferred position, balanced precariously on my husband's side).
I don't know what pushed her to start doing this, or why she's suddenly deigned to grace me with her love and support, or how she even knows that this helps. But anyone who says that animals don't have or understand emotions, or that cats don't care about people like dogs do, can tell that to my fluffy little protector....
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Date: 2016-08-17 05:17 pm (UTC)Our cats are also paired up (Minerva is mine, Leela is SD's), and they can definitely tell when one of us is upset or not feeling well. If one of us is sick, "our" cat will be by our side the entire time. And they're also very sensitive to how H is feeling (they seem to know that he's our kitten). Leela in particular will come running if H starts crying - but only if he's really hurt. If he's fake-crying to get attention, she'll ignore him. This has been really useful at times. ("We know you're not really hurt because Leela isn't here" will get him to stop crying almost immediately.)