The diary of almost everything

I have always been more of an animal person than a people person, which sounds slightly antisocial until you consider the evidence. Animals are generally pleased to see you, rarely hold grudges and have never once suggested that a meeting could have been an email.

Growing up, we were very much a dog family. We had dachshunds, which means I learned early that owning a dog does not necessarily make you the person in charge. Dachshunds are wonderful little creatures with the confidence of a German shepherd, the legs of a coffee table and absolutely no interest in your management structure.

I still regularly think about getting another one, although working full time has always made that seem slightly irresponsible. Then I recently discovered that dogs are actually allowed at work, which is dangerous information to give someone who is both a dog lover and, inconveniently, the director. There is nobody particularly senior available to tell me no.

This has reopened a door that should perhaps have remained firmly closed.

I’ve considered a miniature schnauzer, before remembering that they can also be opinionated little alarm systems. A cocker spaniel seems lovely, although once I start considering dogs I inevitably end up wondering whether I should simply abandon all restraint and get something roughly the size of a small horse.

Fortunately, I already have animals to occupy this particular part of my brain.

Crinkle and Wrinkle are my two Sphynx cats and have been with me for more than ten years. They are affectionate, ridiculous, completely devoted to warmth and somehow manage to have more personality without fur than most creatures achieve with a full coat.

They are also very different.

Crinkle has spent ten years behaving as though she is still a slightly startled young deer. She is gentle, springy and would rather abandon a perfectly good sleeping spot than have an argument about it. Wrinkle, on the other hand, approaches life with the confidence of someone who has never considered the possibility that she might be wrong.

If Crinkle is sleeping somewhere Wrinkle would like to sleep, Wrinkle does not waste time negotiating. She simply sits on her.

Sometimes there is a bite involved.

This has occasionally created what I can only describe as a diplomatic incident, after which Crinkle decides that Wrinkle can no longer be trusted and I find myself running a feline reconciliation programme from a two bedroom apartment.

There are separate sleeping arrangements, supervised reunions and an extraordinary amount of attention paid to tails. Once you’ve learned that a tiny flick of a cat’s tail can mean something, you can never unknow it, and before long you’re sitting on your sofa analysing a four centimetre movement as though you’ve been recruited by the FBI.

Was that irritation?
Was that excitement?
Was that premeditated murder?

Meanwhile, both cats are probably wondering why I’ve stopped watching television.

I sometimes wonder whether other pet owners do this, or whether they simply leave the house and assume everybody will still be alive when they return. I am capable of doing that too, although if things have been slightly tense the day before, I have been known to arrange separate accommodation complete with food, water, blankets and all necessary amenities before going to the beach.

Essentially, one of my cats occasionally gets a private hotel room because her sister has been annoying.

The absurd thing is that most of the time they adore each other. They’ll sleep together, curl up beside me and behave like two elderly ladies who have shared a home for decades and couldn’t possibly imagine life apart. Then Wrinkle decides that the exact seventeen centimetres currently occupied by Crinkle are the only seventeen centimetres in the entire apartment worth having, and negotiations collapse again.

Perhaps that’s why I occasionally catch myself wondering what I’ll do one day when they are no longer here. I hate the thought of losing either of them, and with every birthday I become slightly more aware that ten years is ten years. Even routine things such as an upcoming dental cleaning suddenly feel bigger than they probably are, particularly when one of your cats considers a visit to the vet an excellent opportunity to scream loudly enough for people in the waiting room to assume an organ is being removed without anaesthetic.

And yet, somewhere among all that love, there is another thought I’m almost embarrassed to admit.
When the time eventually comes, perhaps I won’t immediately get another animal.

Maybe I’ll travel for a while without organising feeding schedules, cat sitters, medication, keys and detailed instructions explaining which naked cat prefers which blanket. Maybe I’ll enjoy the strange freedom of being responsible for nobody except myself, before inevitably seeing a dachshund somewhere and undoing the entire plan.

Because that is the annoying thing about animals. They are expensive, inconvenient, occasionally medically terrifying and capable of turning an otherwise intelligent adult into someone who spends twenty minutes interpreting a tail.

They also make a home feel inhabited in a way I would miss almost immediately. 

So I have no idea whether my future contains two years of glorious animal free freedom, another pair of cats, a miniature schnauzer or a dachshund sitting underneath my desk while I attempt to run a school. I suspect I’ll only find out when the time comes, and knowing me, any carefully planned period of freedom could quite easily end because I saw a pair of enormous brown eyes attached to four very short legs.

Until then, I have Crinkle and Wrinkle, who are ten, loved beyond reason and currently require rather more relationship counselling than I ever expected to provide for two cats.

Although, as I write this, they’re asleep together under the same blanket.
So perhaps I should stop interfering…

-Sophie Quinn