Pets

It's really quite amazing how similar you can get to your pets, especially when you spend a lot of time together. As in you live alone with a dog and a cat. Think Jon, from Garfield. Except hopefully not quite as hopeless or idiotic, although the cat is very smart and rather mean sometimes, and the dog is rather clueless on occasion. But enough of that, it's starting to creep me out. Over time, you get to know your animals, and can sometimes figure out exactly what it is they want. I'm good at that, especially with my boys. Lincoln here was whining earlier from my spare room. Now, I know it's a bit smelly in there at the moment thanks to them, but it's not bad enough to elicit that reaction from a dog who loves to stick his head into anything that smells. After coaxing him out of the room, he picked up his toy duck and jumped on the back of the couch. The entire time he was looking outside through all the windows he could see, like he was waiting for something. I noticed that he kept on looking along a path that a certain friend of mine always takes coming up to the door. Not that I have many visitors at all, he's basically the only one who does this. Finally, after watching him and trying to distract him, it dawned on me what was wrong. Lincoln was waiting for my friend to "come home." It's behavior I've seen before when I lived with people. Now, I know my friend has been over here a good bit lately, and that the dog has grown rather attached to him, but I was in no way expecting him to be missing my friend that much when he was just here yesterday. Nor to be expecting him to come home, waiting with his (current) favorite toy. Of course, I've grown rather fond of having him over here, and would have loved to have looked out and seen him walking up, but I was in no way expecting it. But between picking up on me liking my friend, and liking my friend himself, apparently Link decided that my friend now lives with us as a part of the "pack." Just one of those ways where our pets can pick up on our subconscious cues and exemplify them, although taking it a bit farther than reality goes. Despite having somewhat opposite personalities (the dog is social, I'm not. I'm more similar to the cat, just less mean), it seems the dog and I share a few more traits in common than I'd realized.