My arms, burdened by my cheer bag and lunch box, push open the side door of my house after a Monday filled with a polynomial inequalities test in honors pre-calc and a unit test in chemistry. The only thing on my agenda is laying in bed feeling sorry for myself that I had to endure so much stress in one day. Then, as I enter my living room, I get the best greeting a girl can hope for: a 70 pound, one-year-old German Shepherd named Phoebe jumps on top of me with her tongue out and tail wagging. Just like that I went from thinking I’m about to tear someone’s head off to I can’t stop smiling.
I turn my face to the right to avoid Phoebe’s tongue going into my eye and see Uggs, one of my two cats, basking her giant belly in the sun. She couldn’t care less whether I was an intruder or her loving owner of nine years walking in — her lazy butt was not getting up. Phoebe trots up to Uggs, giving her a friendly sniff, only to receive a swat in the face in return.
After just five months of being a Leinbach, Phoebe is already more of a part of the family than my two cats that I’ve had since first grade, Trixie and Uggs, have ever been — our family’s iCloud photo share is full of pictures titled “Phoebe’s First Lake Trip,” “Phoebe Catching a Frisbee” or one of the countless other cute things she does. Trixie and Uggs, on the other hand, don’t do many photo-worthy things.
Anyone who sees me interact with Phoebe probably thinks I’m a madwoman — I talk to her about how her day has been as if she were a person, and sometimes even interpret her head tilt to the right as, “It’s been good, thanks for asking!” And it’s not just with Phoebe — If I’m going to a friend’s house, they should expect a five minute break in socially-acceptable behavior as I sit on the floor with their dog and tell it how cute it is. If they have cats, I spend that break in socially-acceptable behavior instead shamelessly searching their pantry.
Whenever I hear someone say that they don’t like dogs, it takes all of my self control to not start an argument. How can you not like dogs? If I’m on the verge of tears because I lost my favorite shirt, Phoebe’s right there to lay on the couch with me. If I’m jumping up and down about a 95% on a math test, Phoebe will put her front paws on my shoulders and clumsily dance around the room with me. All the while, Trixie and Uggs are most likely napping in the laundry room or plotting to murder their human counterparts (if you don’t believe me, watch an episode of “My Cat From Hell”).
I swear, cats act like they own the house. My family’s eating soon? They think the dining table looks like a nice place to lay. It’s a minute before their dinner time and they haven’t been fed yet? They sound like crying babies until they get their food.
If they didn’t bug me every day at 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. to be fed, I wouldn’t see my cats all day and wouldn’t think twice. But after seven hours at school, I can’t wait to get home and be tackled to the ground by Phoebe, and every time it happens I fall more and more in love with her slobbery kisses, and “dog person” moves up on the list of things I would use to describe myself.