By the looks of this blog, you might think we over here at Alstin eat, breathe and sleep all that is recruitment and retention. Every so often we’ll stray from the HR talk and bring you more on some of our favorite things, places and activities that also populate our daily lives.
I was never a cat person. The truth is I wasn’t really a dog person, either. With two active school-aged kids, a full time job and a daily commute, my husband and I had our hands full. Adding a dog or a cat to the household was not an option. The children, of course, had other plans.
We have two girls: Natalie, who is almost 12, and Ava, aged 9. I’m partial, but they’re good kids – well-behaved and well-rounded. It turns out, they are also wily and persistent. Their campaign for a pet (a real pet, not the hermit crab or goldfish that we tried to placate them with) began in earnest more than two years ago. It was a full on assault on two fronts. Their research and preparation spanned a range of media – print, electronic, and broadcast. Every week they brought home library books about pets. They regularly visited sites like petfinder.com. And they watched on-demand videos about caring for pets. Their conversation became sprinkled with detailed information on a wide variety of dog and cat breeds. They began making toys for pets. This wasn’t a typically short-lived kids’ phase. It didn’t last a few weeks or months. It lasted years.
At this point you’re probably thinking that resistance is futile. But then, you probably don’t know my husband, Tony. He thinks of dogs and cats not so much as loving companions, but more as unwanted animals in your home. He didn’t think that adding a pet to our household was either practical or desirable. Between the kids’ unyielding desire for a pet and my husband’s unbending resistance, it would seem that the battle had been joined. And the best man (or child) would win.
The logical next step in the kids’ campaign was to begin visiting available pets. They wanted to just stop at the shelter, run into the pet store, or make an appointment to see the nearby breeder’s kittens. “Can’t we just look?,” they’d ask. In stereo. And what’s the harm, really, in looking? It’s one thing to tell your pet-crazed kids that they can’t have a pet; it’s another thing entirely to tell them they can’t even look at pets.
The rest of the story is fairly predictable. Shortly after starting to “just look” at pets, we met Mango, a six-month-old orange tabby who gently reached her paws through her cage every time my daughters approached her. The first time we saw her I thought to myself, “That cat has a pretty face.” (I should caution you that this very thought is the first step towards becoming a cat person. After you first think it, you are only weeks away from cooing “Who’s a pretty girl?” to a kitten curled up in your lap.)
Mango has been a member of the household for less than a week. Already, we don’t know what we did without her. It’s early, but so far so good on the kids doing all related chores. And she is a pretty girl.
Being a cat person I can SO identify with this. Once they reach out to you they grab your heart and don’t let go. I just hope that Tony comes around. Tell him that she’s the only female who will always, ALWAYS, think of him as perfect. What more could any man want, lol?