affectionate -- teenagers are cats. It's so easy to be a dog
owner. You feed it, train it, boss it around. It puts its head on
your knee and gazes at you as if you were a Rembrandt painting.
It bounds indoors with enthusiasm when you call it.
Then around age 13, your adoring little puppy turns into a big
old cat. When you tell it to come inside, it looks amazed, as if
wondering who died and made you emperor. Instead of dogging your
doorsteps, it disappears. You won't see it again until it gets
hungry -- then it pauses on its sprint through the kitchen long
enough to turn its nose up at whatever you're serving. When you
reach out to ruffle its head, in that old affectionate gesture,
it twists away from you, then gives you a blank stare, as if
trying to remember where it has seen you before.
You, not realizing that the dog is now a cat, think something
must be desperately wrong with it. It seems so antisocial, so
distant, sort of depressed. It won't go on family outings.
Since you're the one who raised it, taught it to fetch and stay
and sit on command, you assume that you did something wrong.
Flooded with guilt and fear, you redouble your efforts to make
your pet behave.
Only now you're dealing with a cat, so everything that worked
before now produces the opposite of the desired result. Call it,
and it runs away. Tell it to sit, and it jumps on the counter.
The more you go toward it, wringing your hands, the more it moves
away.
Instead of continuing to act like a dog owner, you can learn to
behave like a cat owner. Put a dish of food near the door, and
let it come to you. But remember that a cat needs your help and
your affection too. Sit still, and it will come, seeking that
warm, comforting lap it has not entirely forgotten. Be there to
open the door for it.
One day your grown-up child will walk into the kitchen, give you
a big kiss and say, "You've been on your feet all day. Let me get
those dishes for you."
Then you'll realize your cat is again, a dog.
