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Raise your hand if you’ve ever been guilty of projecting a little human personality onto your dog, cat or guinea pig. For those of you with no hands in the air, welcome to Earth; I recommend pizza, Paris at night and Stranger Things while you are visiting us.
For the rest of us this is a pretty natural reaction to our pets. We welcome them into our home and pour our time, money and hearts into the new additions to our family. We try to make it perfectly clear to our pets exactly how much they are loved and adored. For their part our furry family members usually do try to reciprocate. Some are better at it than others. For example, anyone who has ever served supper to a beagle knows exactly how excited they are about the evening’s menu. However, owners of an American shorthair (that is a cat, not a crew cut) may be left struggling to infer its inclinations more often than not. In either case the absence of words forces us to fill in some of the blanks with our own imagination.
That being said sometimes the animal world can catch us by surprise and decide to play along.
We’d already had Ace for 5 years when we decided to adopt Buster. Whereas Ace was a stoic, barrel-chested mountain of a beagle, Buster was tiny, underweight and very high octane. We often joked at the big brother-little brother dynamic that was sure to form. Well, apparently nature agreed. The older-younger sibling paradigm quickly began to manifest itself. From day one Buster insisted on sleeping curled up in the same bed as Ace. When Ace switched beds, Buster followed right behind. To his credit Ace, although startled at first, always tolerated his new bunk mate. As Buster acclimated, his personality bloomed. It soon became evident that he was what the French might call a “petit caca”. He will steal toys from Ace and Ace will move on without any fuss. When they roughhouse Buster is in it to win it, nipping and biting and basically fighting dirty. While Ace will nudge and push and generally stop just short of squashing his little brother. (This is typical of older brothers in all walks of life) However, if Buster tries to nip at mummy’s hands Ace is quick to enter the fray to voraciously defend her honour. Every day since his arrival Buster has plied his mischievous – sometime bordering on villainous – trade and Ace has been nothing but patient and gentle. Ace is also a mentor. He was the one who showed Buster where the papers where when nature called in the middle of the night and – sigh – unfortunately how to howl at random passers-by (#nomentorfilters). It’s been everything that is good, bad and great about the relationships that my wife and I have with our own siblings.
Four years on and they are still at it. Ace is now sporting more than a few distinguished looking white hairs and Buster’s mischief has slowed to a more charming pace. But the big brother-little brother dynamic is still alive and well. During the day they rassle and push each other out of the way for tummy rubs but at night Buster still tucks himself in right where he planted himself on day one, nestled safe and sound next to his big brother Ace.
