Love Means Never Having to Say “How Much Are the Damages?”

By Gordon Hopkins One of the big unanswered questions for cat owners is this: do my cats really love me?Dogs are a different matter. Our canine friends are pretty open about their feelings. They wear their hearts on their sleeves. Or, rather, their tongues. (Most dogs don't have sleeves.)Cats are more enigmatic. Even when they do seem to be affectionate, like purring and cuddling, it can be interpreted more about staying warm or expressing appreciation for the food, as opposed genuine affection. Anyone who has ever had a cat come up and rub its face all over you in a seeming display of love, only to then see the cat do the same thing to a coffee table leg, knows what I'm talking about.It really shouldn't be that surprising, from a historical standpoint. After all, the domestication of dogs by humankind dates back, according to some scientists, more that 30,000 years. That is a long time for a relationship. Humans and dogs could be described as “emotionally symbiotic species.”The domestication of cats, on the other hand, only goes back about 10,000 years. That's barely enough time, evolutionarily speaking, for cats to figure out humans are good for opening a can of tuna and not much more.There are cat lovers everywhere who insist they know their cats love them. I certainly would not want to disabuse them and won't even point out that, if they die unattended, their cats will probably eat them.Interpreting love from a creature that cannot speak or write or buy a Hallmark card can be tricky. To me, the most convincing, perhaps even incontrovertible, evidence of love in any form from any life form is the desire to protect the object of that love.Dogs are famous for aggressively protecting their owners.We've all heard the stories of a tiny pooch charging at a bear threatening his family or a family mutt taking on a burglar while said family is snoozing in their bedrooms upstairs.Of course, dogs also go bonkers whenever the mail carrier rings the doorbell to deliver a package. While not a threat, the dog doesn't know that. The validity of the threat does not make the act of protection any less an act of love.That is how I know my cats love me.So, the other night, a moth followed me into my house. I hadn't realized it at first. The cats hadn't, either. I was laying on the sofa, watching TV, when the moth first made its presence known, flitting around the ceiling light and casting ominous shadows across the walls.The cats sprang into action (even the fat, lazy, orange one), leaping and flying all around the room. They made it very clear that they were prepared to protect me from this winged intruder, even if it meant destroying everything in my house in the process.While I appreciated the effort, I didn't really want to replace every breakable item in my home. So I prematurely ended the battle with a well-placed newspaper.So, I now know my cats love me. Or possibly really hate moths. I think I'll just assume it is the former.

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