Rivenrock Critters-Cogito, ergo sum

   People have been companions with animals for about ten thousand years now.

   Sometimes when I look at our animals, it occurs to me that if the lineage of the human/animal interface could be traced we’d go back in time, seeing the generations of people taking care of the ancestors of our own animals.

   Life is so precious, every little animal and human is a little spark of the Creator… a part of the history of the world. Yet sadly, we are all frail mortal beings…. and we humans may be the only ones who have foreknowledge of our demise…. but do we really know what the animals know?

   We’ve been lucky in that we’ve known the ancestors of most of our cats going back some five generations or so. They mostly came from a wild/feral cat that took advantage of the brush that grew in our (dry) pond during a dry summer… then we got several hard rains that made the underground spring pour water into the basin of the pond.  I went out to watch the life-giving and necessary water fill the pond.. but from the middle of the pond I could hear the tiny little kittens mewing as they tried to climb the brush to escape the waters as their mother paced restlessly at the edge of the rising waters.  I waded into the knee-deep water, through the thick tangle of brush and plucked the feisty kittens (they all growled at me) from the branches.  I took the kittens into the house and we raised them. They took to solid food quickly, and within days were happy and content to sit on our laps.  We gave several away, and got the ones we kept ‘fixed’ except for one female… who had a litter the next year. Each year we kept one female ‘unfixed’ until we realized.. we had plenty enough cats now.  We’ve not had a new litter of kittens for probably ten years now, or more. And now we are down to six cats… and they mostly all stay outside.  But they are a good breed of cat. They are sweet and like to be petted and spoken to, but they are also tough, vigorous and good mousers.

   Yes, we’ve been pretty lucky with pets, we’ve got good ones for sure.