Monty's Diary, February 2020 : Why dogs?

Every time I think I’ve worked out how this strange alien species – the humans – work, they do something even stranger.

Take my female carer, (who still seems to think she’s my mum). A little while ago she had another big cardboard box delivered to the house. I just presumed it was ‘Christmas’ again and she was buying more presents. Maddie and I were quite excited at the thought of more fun in empty boxes.

But when Mum opened up the box, she looked all smiley and happy and said ‘It’s my books!’

She seemed pretty excited with this book

Books are something our humans seem to get some kind of pleasure from. I have no idea why: you can’t eat them, you can’t chase them around the house, and they don’t have any catnip in them. So what’s the point of them? But the humans spend ages just sitting in their chairs staring at the things, turning over the sheets of paper inside and sometimes laughing. Weird.

Anyway, the oddest thing about this box of books was that they were all the same. Yes, really! I had a peek in the box, and there were loads of them, all with the same picture on the front and the same scribbly marks humans call ‘writing’. Not only that, but the picture was of two humans, each with a dog.

Maddie and I still haven’t worked out why humans like dogs. What is there to like? We don’t know any personally, apart from the one in the garden next door who didn’t seem to want to play with me, but cat legend has it that they are noisy, smelly, chase cats, and can’t even be trusted to walk down the street without a human tied to them. Pathetic. I’m disappointed to think Mum and Dad used to have dogs. I just hope they have the sense never to get another one.

Mum showed us this picture of their dog,Sophie.

Well, Mum put one of these new books down in front of me. I sniffed it. It smelt quite nice so I lay down on it, and she laughed.

‘Do you like that, Monty?’ she said. ‘It’s the new book I’ve written. ‘The Lonely Hearts Dog Walkers.’

What?!? I got off the book quickly. She’s told us before that she’s written books, some of them about cats (which sound much better obviously). But I didn’t see her write this one! She spends so much time tapping away on that toy of hers that she calls a laptop, I can’t imagine when she has time to do the writing thing. I rarely even see her pick up a pen! But – why write so many books, all exactly the same? And most importantly, why about dogs?

I told Maddie, and she felt pretty offended too. We went off and sulked on the sofa together.

‘Don’t worry, babies,’ she said later. (See? Weird. She even thinks we’re her babies, and we’re nearly seven years old – mature, middle-aged cats!). ‘I know you don’t like the dogs on the cover of the book. But there’s a cat called Monty in the story.’

Oh! Well, I suppose that’s something. I quite like the idea of being the hero of a book – like the ones she says she wrote about cats called Oliver and Charlie. Maddie’s still sulking, though. Mum’s going to have to write another one, with her name in it.

Anyway, never mind about the books. The important thing is, we now have another cardboard box to play in.

I'll meow to you again soon, humans. Happy hunting.