How to Survive Pets

Pets are a lot of fun and they bring a lot of joy and laughter into your life. But they also take hard work, dedication, patience and training. You know what else takes all of those things when you have pets? Your mother in law.

We have three types of pets in our household. The first ones we got were of pair of parakeets that belong to my son. Literally. He saved up his money and bought them all by himself. The second is a long haired chihuahua that belongs to me. And don't start ragging me about chihuahuas. Sancho is the coolest dog you'll ever meet. He's just a lovable lap dog; not yappy at all. The third is my daughter's cat, Pepper. Same drill as my son's, it is her pet that she picked out.

One day we noticed that the dog had a habit of following my mother in law (MIL) into her bedroom when she went in there with a snack and sitting right next to her at the dinner table (which is strictly verboten). Turns out, he was training her to give him snackies while she was eating and she, being unable to resist his puppy eyes, politely obliged. He was being fed all sorts of tasty human food like cheese, lunch meat, crackers, nuts, chips, bread and the list goes on. So we had to re-train the dog not to go in grandma's room while she's eating and we had to train my MIL not to feed the dog people food. It'll still come up in polite conversation from time to time how much Sancho used to love Limon chips or how much Sancho loved his ham lunch meat.

The cat... Now the cat is an entirely different issue. Pepper is an inside kitty. Preferably. Here the problem lies in the turtle-like reflexes of my MIL compared to the, well, the cat-like reflexes of the cat. My MIL smokes. In order to smoke you have to exit my domicile. The cat has learned that my MIL is slower than molasses in December and has learned to dart out the front door while she takes her five minutes opening and closing it behind her. This is nothing new, yet it seems to surprise my MIL every single time. And she yells after Pepper like the cat is going to suddenly listen and be like, "Oh, shit, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that." I even placed a spray bottle full of water by the front door for my MIL to threaten the cat with in order to get out safely and without fear of losing one of our animals. But I suppose she forgets it's there. Every single time. I told my husband I'm going to tie it around my MIL's waist pretty soon because I'm tired of crawling under the car and dragging the cat out.

The birds? Well there's not much to the birds really, except that she feels the need to do my son's job for him. My MIL will feed and water the birds on occasion. I am not one of those parents who allows my children to have pets and then does all the pet chores for them. Oh, no! My kids are responsible for their own animals. So when my MIL feels the need to fill the cat's dish three times a day and gives the birds fresh food every night, it's not just because she's over feeding them, it's also because it does nothing to teach my kids to responsible for another living thing.

At least she's doing a pretty good job of keeping the critters alive. Now if only I could tell the difference of when she's talking to the dog and when she's talking to me? We'd be golden. Because it's pretty embarrassing to be answering questions meant for a dog...