We are what we are

For those of you grimacing lately at my tart, dark comments about dogs chewing on books, please don't think me some animal hater. There are quite a few animals I'm keen on. For instance while working on our automated check in machine just this early evening I looked out the window of my library, and there, on the far edge of our large, northern parking lot, a cat, on its mysterious business, made its graceful way across a far corner of the asphalt.

I felt such a tiny burst of joy seeing this dear and elegant cat expressing freedom in the midst of my own plodding evening, and I longed to have a moment to hang out with it, maybe for a short chat with me saying nothing much and the cat pretending not to listen. But I could not leave my post, and so instead I stood there and watched the cat as it slipped into the tall prairie grasses and small wetlands my library is set in and disappeared.

This cat is welcome to chew on our books. I would go that far!

But that cat will never chew a book, no matter the opportunity. Because it is not a dog.