I Think "Spoiled" Is Such An Unfair Word

One might say that the pets in the Schneider household are spoiled. I personally think that's a bit harsh though. What's spoiled?

I mean, ok, besides the furniture, our cats have about three beds in every room to choose from. One of them is my former laundry basket. I say former because Samson fell in love with it, and I bought a new one so he could have the old one. And it has a towel inside so he has a soft place to sleep.

Then there's the kitty apartment, Casa de Amy, birthday palace, The Great Wall of China, the two window perches, and loads and loads of blankets on various flat surfaces (including one on each dining table in the house). Don't get me started on the three cardboard scratching toys or the piles of cat toys strewn about the house.

Then we have the dogs. While Indy and Isis generally choose to sleep either on the bed or on the floor, Indiana does in fact have two "dog" beds. (Isis will never touch one--she's weird that way). One is a super-duper-expensive memory foam affair that we bought her for Christmas. She eschews that one for the super-duper-old one that is actually one dog bed stuffed inside another to fill up the dog-shaped hole in it.

The dogs too have their insane pile of toys. One toy box used to be enough, but Boommaw and Boompaw bought a new basket for them, which is of course now full, so Boommaw and Boompaw bought them a cute duck-shaped laundry basket for overflow toys, which was promptly taken over instead by Gus for a rasslin' ring. Sam uses it to murder rodents. Great fun.

The animal insanity isn't just contained indoors, oh no. Within the 550 feet of escape-proof cat fencing you'll find a custom built playhouse, complete with stairs, ramps, and a sleeping loft for the cats. Of course. Who doesn't have one of those?

While chewing this blog topic around in my head, I consulted Jim for the crazier things we have around the house. He very astutely reminded me that spoiling isn't just about things, but it's also about the way we treat our animals. Bah. Don't spoil my fun! I'm doing a light-hearted blog post for once, for heaven's sake. Don't expect me to get all deep.

The thing I love about spoiling our pets vs. spoiling our children is that we can spoil the critters 'til the cows come home and it won't make a bit of difference to their behavior. They either appreciate it or they don't, but they don't demand more from us. Our pets have all of these crazy houses and loads of toys, but essentially because they make us as parents happy. It makes me happy to give my cats a 4 foot long Great Wall of China and affix pictures of "Chairman Meow" to it. It makes me feel like a good Mom to buy Indiana the best possible bed, even if she never uses it.

Life isn't about stuff, I know. We're fortunate to be able to afford it, but our pets don't need it. It makes me happy to be surrounded by cat and dog paraphernalia though, and nothing brings a smile to my face like a cat ACTUALLY USING SOMETHING YOU BUY THEM. And life is all about happiness, for our pets AND for us.