I Never Thought I'd Live Long Enough to See This!

According to Mythbusters, "In 1523, an English guy named Fitzherbert penned a treatise on animal husbandry in which he advised readers that 'the dogge must lerne when he is a whelpe, or els it wyl not be; for it is harde to make an old dogge to stoupe.'"

In other words, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Here's the lie to that idiom: my brother, a lifelong confirmed canophile, a former co-owner of a kennel whose many dogs won many show ribbons and championships, who has not lived with a cat since he was a university student-sometime-occupant of our childhood home.

A resident of a major city and renter of a small apartment, he has brought into his home his first kitten!

"My new research assistant," he wrote. "And I don't have to pay her a thing. However, she likes only the numerical keys. She's not at all interested in letters."

"Watching work is more fun than doing it."

"But it can be very tiring."

"Very tiring indeed."

On her first day with him, he wrote, "She's a British Shorthair and they don't like to be held; but they do like to curl up next to you; or sit on you (their choice not yours!); and they are utterly self-reliant. I'm just delighted!"

How quickly you have learned what we ailurophiles who know: in the words of the French proverb, "The dog may be wonderful prose, but only the cat is poetry." 

Welcome, little feline niece! Nice to get to know you anew, brother B!

All photos borrowed from my brother, with permission.