Enjoying the Pet Show

James L. Davis

My wife won’t let me feed her dog table scraps. She says that table scraps are not good for the dog and that worries me. If the table scraps are not good for the dog, should I be eating them?
She insists that we only feed her dog the food she has bought for it, which would not be so bad except that the food she buys for her dog is more expensive than the food we put on our own table for the family to eat. Not feeding the dog table scraps does keep it from begging, but I wonder if we are really helping its health in any real way.
Because being deprived of table scraps has made the dog turn to other places to find its treats. Like the cat litter box. If we aren’t quick to clean the cat litter box the dog will happily take care of whatever the cat has deposited there, which really makes me wonder just how unhealthy can table scraps be?
Being a dog owner has apparently become a very complicated matter. You have to watch their diet, you have to provide for their emotional needs, you have to bathe them and groom them and in our house you have to talk to them as if they were a small child. Dogs are a high maintenance pet, which is why I am not a dog person. I am a cat person.
The reason I have become a cat person is because my family will not allow me to be the person I want to be. The person I want to be is a person who does not own a pet. And since my family will not allow me to be a person who does not have a pet the next best thing is to be a cat person.
My family is under the mistaken opinion that when I state in no uncertain terms that I would like to donate all of our pets to medical research that I am only joking. Since I can’t convince them of my sincerity I have decided to become a cat lover.
When it comes to pets, cats are pretty much the Toyota of the pet world. They’re virtually maintenance free. Feed them once in a while, let them rub against your leg from time to time and they will keep on plugging away, just like a Toyota, only they won’t rust.
My cat is named Mr. Paws and he is larger than some dogs. My wife brought him home as a tiny kitten and we bottle fed him to keep him alive.
I call him Mr. Paws because even when he was so small he could fit in the palm of my hand he had disproportionately large paws. Basically he was and is a cat with clown feet and while he has grown into his paws somewhat they are still a little on the large side.
Watching Mr. Paws I have learned that there are fundamental differences between bottle-fed cats and normal cats. A normal cat has an air of aristocracy about them; they seem to believe they are doing humanity a favor by hanging around.
A bottle-fed cat, however, loves humans and will exhibit that love whenever and however it can. Mr. Paws does so by waiting for someone to pick him up and then drooling all over them.
Apparently, two years after being weaned from the bottle, Mr. Paws still expects somebody to bottle feed him. So whenever you pick up the cat he spins in your arms, nuzzles your neck and begins to drool down your shirt as he waits for you to give him his bottle. For this reason I do not pick up Mr. Paws.
But sometimes other people do and although I should warn them about Mr. Paws before they pick him up I don’t because to do so would mean I would miss out on some really great theater.
The last person to star in the “Picking Up Paws” show was my dad and I believe I could have sold tickets to this show, but my dad won’t pick up the cat anymore. The first and only time my dad picked up Mr. Paws we had been standing in the back yard and the cat began to weave between our legs. My dad looked down and asked if this was the cat we had bottle fed and when I said yes he commented how big and healthy the cat was. Then he reached down to pick the cat up.
For a moment I almost warned my father not to do so, but in the end I did not. My dad pulled the cat into his arms and immediately Mr. Paws flipped around to face my dad and as my dad’s eyes grew wider Mr. Paws wrapped its paws around my dad’s neck and began to drool down his shirt. By the time he had unwrapped the cat from his neck there was cat drool hanging from his chin.
Most people have learned by now that the animals in the Davis household are not normal, so they no longer attempt to pet, pick up or look directly at any of our pets, which is probably by and large safer for everyone concerned. Of course, it’s not nearly as entertaining.

Investing in children

Cardell Sackett

Have you ever heard the phrase “children are our future? We often consider our future, put our 401Ks together, save for the “Golden Years.” But what about the children?
We came together as a community and with great help and hard work created the Dino Mine Park. How many of us have ever been to the park? And not just the park, but consider the most precious of all things…Time!
When did you last help in a child’s class or take your own children to the museum? I pondered about the generations who have been in Price and many of their own children have had to go away to gain employment and provide for their families.
If our years are to be “golden” we all need to ask what can I do with my children or the neighborhood children that will invest and provide me a good return?
Consider this! (Cardell Sackett is a realtor with Bridge Realty.)