Pets, vets and the end of the tail

So it did snow and the children did get a day off school but Lucy, our cat still had her tail cut off on Friday.  My son and I carried her in her basket through the snow.  She was shaking and yowling softly and I, I'm ashamed to admit, was crying.  Because it seemed such a cruel thing to do to some thing so little.  As my daughter said, " if only we could ask her what she wants."  But that is the power that is the price our pets pay for being domestic; they don't have to worry about anything- food, drink,warmth,  even clearing up their excrement ( if they are a dog )- and in return, they lose their right to decide.
The good thing about the weather was that we were the only ones who made it through the snow so Lucy had the undivided attention of everyone in the surgery. We left her.  And I trudged through the snow to work. The roads were full of teenagers having snowball fights and families making snowmen and as I got nearer to the Children's Centre, laughing children being pulled on sledges. But somehow the magic had gone. I kept thinking of little Lucy waking up after the operation in a strange place with emptiness where her tail should be.

It's strange because I have always thought of myself as quite unsentimental. Ninesh and I don't even remember what day we got married, although we think it was May. I hate Valentines Day and slushy unwanted gifts.  But as soon as I became a parent, some sentimentality hormone must have kicked in.  Because now I can't even watch Finding Nemo without crying and the thought of leaving anyone, even our  cat, confused and uncomprehending, all on their own tugs constantly on my heart strings.  Other parents have said the same thing. Perhaps it is the sense of responsibility that comes with being a parent.   You have created beings completely dependent on you. And it is for the rest of your life. And there is no turning back. And they are so vunerable and there are so many things that could trip them up or hurt them, so many potential battles that could lie ahead of them and all you want to do is hold them close and keep them safe.  And that desire to protect doesn't seem to stop with your children but is transferred to anything that crosses your path, whether it is pets or cartoon fish.

But Lucy survived.
" She probably won't eat much for a day or so," said the vet " and she will feel a bit sleepy until tomorrow so don't worry if she doesn't have much energy."
Lucy sat in the basket, plastic cone round her head to stop her from biting out the stitches in the stub of tail she has left and glared at me.
At home, I opened the basket very carefully, reaching in to help her out. She ignored my helping hand, leapt over the edge, headed straight for her food bowl, ate a whole packet of food and before I could stop her, peed angrily on our beanbag.  The strangest thing of all is that she barely seems to have noticed that she is tail-less and oddly, it is not the first thing you notice when you look at her: a feisty, little black and white cat.  And I realise it is not my strange  desire to protect her or the fact that she has made the whole family care so much about her, that has got her through this. Instead it is her innately fierce, animalistic desire to survive.  Because the truth is, however much our pets belong to us, their animal spirits are not ours to own.  And that's how it should be.
Maybe that's why we like having them around!


Lucy- no tail to tell but doing very well