Wordgrove Post & Review

THIS EDITION:   pet

Quoted In The Grove:
I’m a lot less cranky when it’s just me and my dog.
~Bob Peterson

Sometimes losing a pet is more painful than losing a human because in the case of the pet, you were not pretending to love it.
~Amy Sedaris

The difference between friends and pets is that friends we allow into our company, pets we allow into our solitude.
~Robert Brault

EndQuote:
Love is a four-legged word.
~author unknown

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Exercise Prompt for Twosday • 02/22/22:   myth

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I used to love dogs until I discovered cats.
~Nafisa Joseph

My cats inspire my daily. They inspire me to get a dog!
~Greg Curtis

Pets reflect you like mirrors. When you are happy, you can see your dog smiling and when you are sad, your cat cries.
~Munia Khan

Every dog has his day, but the nights belong to the cat.
~Poor Richard Junior’s Philosophy

Cats are smarter than dogs. You can’t get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.
~Jeff Valdez

Cats will outsmart dogs every time.
~John Grogan

Dogs have important jobs, like barking when the doorbell rings, but cats have no function in a house whatsoever.
~W Bruce Cameron

“You are fond of cats?” said Mrs. Gardner…
“I love them,” said Dorothy. “They are so nice and selfish. Dogs are too good and unselfish. They make me feel uncomfortable. But cats are gloriously human.”
~L M Montgomery

A dog is a man’s best friend. A cat is a cat’s best friend.
~Robert J Vogel

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
~Robert A Heinlein

A cat, after being scolded, goes about its business. A dog slinks off into a corner and pretends to be doing a serious self-reappraisal.
~Robert Brault

Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are God. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are God.
~Christopher Hitchens

Dogs have owners, cats have staff.
~Ricky Gervais

The dog may be wonderful prose, but only the cat is poetry.
~French proverb

~

Having a dog will bless you with the happiest days of your life and one of the worst days.
~Unknown

She lived to be twenty years old, and when she died I felt as if I had lost a child.
~Charles E Bullard

If you have a dog, you will most likely outlive it; to get a dog is to open yourself to profound joy and, prospectively, to equally profound sadness.
~Marjorie Garber

Dogs’ lives are too short. Their only fault, really.
~Agnes Sligh Turnbull

Animals have a much better attitude to life and death than we do. They know when their time has come.
~Emmylou Harris

Animals have a great advantage over human beings: they never hear the clock strike, however intelligent they may be: they die without having any notion of death: they have no theologians to instruct them on the Four Ends of animals: their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and often objectionable ceremonies: it costs them nothing to be buried: no one goes to law over their wills…
~Voltaire

Dogs die. But dogs live, too. Right up until they die, they live. They live brave, beautiful lives. They protect their families. And love us. And make our lives a little brighter. And they don’t waste time being afraid of tomorrow.
~Dan Gemeinhart

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Posted From The Grove

Our pets are our family.
~Ana Monnar

Pets are like infants that never grow up. Forever children. We love them for that.
~Anonymous

My philosophy when it came to pets was much like that of having children: You got what you got, and you loved them unconditionally regardless of whatever their personalities or flaws turned out to be.
~Gwen Cooper

Animals are sentient, intelligent, perceptive, funny and entertaining. We owe them a duty of care as we do to children.
~Michael Morpurgo

We have three cats. It’s like having children, but there is no tuition involved.
~Ron Reagan

A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.
~Arthur Conan Doyle

~

The kindness lavished on dogs, if evenly distributed, would establish peace on earth.
~William Feather

If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.
~Harry S Truman

I love a dog, he does nothing for political reasons.
~Will Rogers

~

…in fact, cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young, when deprived of them; and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures.
~Thomas De Quincey

The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk.
~Ogden Nash

The lizard struck an attitude — sleek back a little arched, legs in odd, uncouth positions, tail set stiffly in a queer curve. They are brilliant little creatures. “Pretty little chap, isn’t he?” said Jonathan. “Stylish,” I said, “but foolish. They never do anything that I can see, except attitudinize.”
~Elisabeth Woodbridge

I’m not about to go out and buy a snake for a pet. I mean, I may have faced a few fears but I’m not insane.
~Kristin Davis

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~Hope Unitarian:  Herding Cats   (1:00)   scratches notwithstanding
https://vimeo.com/30017849

~

~Jason Lee:  Dyed Cats, Painted Cats   (1:45)   this will delight some, pain others
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW6APmq4JOM

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~Omeleto:  Fred:  The Town Dog   (12:57)   down-homey feel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=016BmZ9MvjE

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CAT is a mighty modest looking varmint — as meek as Moses around the house in the day time, but when a gentleman cat gets his fighting clothes on — I mean in full evening dress — and goes out into the highways and hedges and backyards and barns, there is something doing.
~Josh Billings

You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does — but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you’ll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it’s the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it’s the sickening grammar they use.
~Mark Twain

No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
~Author unknown

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It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
~Mark Twain

There is in all animals a sense of duty that man condescends to call instinct.
~Robert Brault

Uncle Hank says he doesn’t reckon his dog has human feelings, but he sure lets you know when you hurt his instincts.
~Robert Brault

~

He’s overbred, like one of those expensive little dogs. I like a bit of a mongrel myself, whether it’s a man or a dog; they’re the best for everyday.
~Bernard Shaw

A lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me.
~Barack Obama

Rescued is my favorite breed.
~author unknown

~~

§ DOG in lieu of VIDEO:   with other scatterings

Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made.
~Roger Caras

Some of our greatest…treasures we place with curators in museums; others we take for walks.
~Roger Caras

~

The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.
~Andy Rooney

Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.
~Alexander Pope

For a man living alone, dogs are almost more important than human beings.
~Richard Katz

Whoever said that diamonds are a girl’s best friend never owned a dog.
~author unknown

Whoever said you can’t buy happiness forgot little puppies.
~Gene Hill

You do not own a dog. You have a dog. And the dog has you.
~Chelsea Handler

No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does.
~Christopher Morley

Before you get a dog, you can’t quite imagine what living with one might be like; afterward, you can’t imagine living any other way. ~Caroline Knapp

Once you have had a wonderful dog, a life without one is a life diminished.
~Dean Koontz

Why does watching a dog be a dog fill one with happiness?
~Jonathan Safran Foer

I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love. For me they are the role model for being alive.
~Gilda Radner

It is hard to fool a DOG one time and next kin to impossible to fool him the second time. Right there he is a long jump ahead of the average man.
~Josh Billings

No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses. They see through us at a glance.
~Herman Melville

I’ve seen a look in dogs’ eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.
~John Steinbeck

Dogs are the best example of a being who doesn’t need to lie to protect someone’s pride.
~Ammiel Josiah Monterde

I detest dogs, those protectors of cowards who have not the courage to bite the assailant themselves.
~August Strindberg

A friend may smile and bid you hail,
Yet wish you with the devil;
But when a good dog wags his tail,
You know he’s on the level.
~The Sentinel

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself.
~Josh Billings

My fashion philosophy is, if you’re not covered in dog hair, your life is empty.
~Elayne Boosler

If you don’t own a dog, at least one, there is not necessarily anything wrong with you, but there may be something wrong with your life.
~Roger Caras

It’s just the most amazing thing to love a dog, isn’t it? It makes our relationships with people seem as boring as a bowl of oatmeal.
~John Grogan

Dogs are my favorite people.
~Richard Dean Anderson

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.
~Roger A Caras

~~

~Hannah Jacobs:  Your Mountain is Waiting   (7:45)   fox, journey and a laundromat, animated
https://vimeo.com/660229716

~

~Omeleto:  Milo   (7:00)   tiny dog as a catalyst
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3Lg1N4JRpc

~

~Omeleto:  The Reward   (15:07)   catharsis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrDauIguI8I

~~

Amount of time it takes for a dog to “do its business” is directly proportional to outside temperature + suitability of owner’s outerwear.
~Betsy Cañas Garmon

Ever wonder where you’d end up if you took your dog for a walk and never once pulled back on the leash?
~Robert Brault

Fox-terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs are…
~Jerome K Jerome

The dog has got more fun out of man than man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that man is the more laughable of the two animals.
~James Thurber

The dog who meets with a good master

The dog who meets with a good master is the happier of the two.
~Maurice Maeterlinck

Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.
~Orhan Pamuk

It’s tough to stay married. My wife kisses the dogs on the lips, yet she won’t drink from my glass.
~Rodney Dangerfield

I have caught more ills from people sneezing over me and giving me virus infections than from kissing dogs.
~Barbara Woodhouse

Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
~Ann Landers

Actually, my dog I think is the only person who consistently loves me all the time.
~H G Bissinger

Thorns may hurt you, men desert you, sunlight turn to fog;
but you’re never friendless ever if you have a dog.
~Douglas Malloch

When a man’s best friend is his dog, the dog has a problem.
~Edward Abbey

Your pet is not your friend. It is your hostage.
~Scott Dikkers

They say the smart dog obeys but the smarter dog knows when to disobey.
~Amy Hempe

A well-trained dog will make no attempt to share your lunch. He will just make you feel guilty so that you cannot enjoy it.
~Helen Thomson

The dog that trots about finds a bone.
~Golda Meir

If you eliminate smoking and gambling, you will be amazed to find that almost all an Englishman’s pleasures can be, and mostly are, shared by his dog.
~George Bernard Shaw

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.
~Mark Twain

If there are junk yards in hell, love is the dog that guards the gates.
~Charles Bukowski

The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.
~Charles Dickens

Even the tiniest poodle or chihuahua is still a wolf at heart.
~Dorothy Hinshaw

If your dog doesn’t like someone, you probably shouldn’t either.
~Jack Canfield

~

My idea of absolutely happiness is to be in bed on a rainy day with my blankie, my cat, and my dog.
~Anne Lamott

I just want to be in my sweats, walk my dog, watch TV and eat pizza.
~America Ferrera

Scratch a dog and you’ll find a permanent job.
~Franklin P Jones

Be prepared. A dog is adorable and noble. A dog is a true and loving friend. A dog is also a hedonist.
~Mary Oliver

The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.
~Samuel Butler

Dogs have boundless enthusiasm but no sense of shame. I should have a dog as a life coach.
~Moby

In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn’t merely try to train him to be semi human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.
~Edward Hoagland

~ ~

§ CATS, Etc in lieu of MUSIC:   and other scatterings

Cats know how to obtain food without labor, shelter without confinement, and love without penalties.
~W L George

I really love pets. They’re like children. They know if you really love them or not. You can’t fool them.
~Donna Douglas

Pets have more love and compassion in them than most humans.
~Robert Wagner

~

I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog which growls every morning, a parrot which swears all afternoon, and a cat that comes home late at night.
~Marie Corelli

Every woman should have four pets in her life. A mink in her closet, a jaguar in her garage, a tiger in her bed, and a jackass who pays for everything.
~Paris Hilton

Armadillos make affectionate pets, if you need affection that much.
~Will Cuppy

~

The very dogs and cats incline to affection in their relation to man. It often happens that a man is more humanely related to a cat or dog than to any human being…. we grow to love one another.
~Henry David Thoreau

He liked companionship, but he wouldn’t be petted, or fussed over, or sit in any one’s lap a moment; he always extricated himself from such familiarity with dignity and with no show of temper. If there was any petting to be done, however, he chose to do it. Often he would sit looking at me, and then, moved by a delicate affection, come and pull at my coat and sleeve until he could touch my face with his nose, and then go away contented… He always held himself in a kind of reserve with his friend, as if he had said, “Let us respect our personality, and not make a ‘mess’ of friendship.”
~Charles Dudley Warner

I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things, to me, are expressions of love.
~James Herriot

People seem able to love their dogs with an unabashed acceptance they rarely demonstrate with family or friends.
~Ann Patchett

A dog is so often the answer — when you’re lonely and need company, or when you’re tired of company and need lonely.
~Robert Brault

Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.
~Colette

~

It doesn’t matter if you are six feet four and broad of shoulder, if a kitten is looking for a mother-figure, you’re it.
~Pam Brown

A kitten is the delight of a household. All day long a comedy is played out by an incomparable actor.
~Champfleury

Kittens are angels with whiskers.
~Alexis Flora Hope

Kittens are wide-eyed, soft and sweet.
With needles in their jaws and feet.
~Pam Brown

She named the kitten Rose — fur soft as a petal, claws sharper than thorns.
~Terri Guillemets

The smallest feline is a masterpiece.
~Leonardo da Vinci

~

I walk with my dogs which keeps me fit. I talk to my dogs which keeps me sane. I can’t think of anything that makes one happier than to cuddle and play and start the day with a warm puppy.
~Audrey Hepburn

A dog may be man’s best friend, but a child’s best friend is a puppy.
~author unknown

People have been asking me if I was going to have kids, and I had puppies instead.
~Kate Jackson

There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.
~Bern Williams

Happiness is a warm puppy.
~Charles M Schulz
Felicitas est parvus canis calidus.
~terri guillemets

I would recommend to those persons who are inclined to stagnate, whose blood is beginning to thicken sluggishly in their veins, to try keeping four dogs, two of which are puppies.
~Elizabeth von Arnim

It’s impossible to keep a straight face in the presence of one or more puppies.
~author unknown

~

We come like Kittens and like Cats we go.
~Oliver Herford

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
~Albert Schweitzer

~~

~Snow Patrol:  Chasing Cars  •  a dog dies, a song was written

~Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol  •   (3:54)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrpSjXo6ah0

~

~Cinematic Pop   (3:52)   reprised by request
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm4GNxTANDs

~

~Jasmine Thompson   (2:58)   juvenile capture of a song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ6HdDAHelo

—

~Petula (Pet) Clark: Sign of The Times (2:56) dancing colors from another time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhKTqdSwx2I

~

~Brian Wilson:  God Only Knows   (3:14)   from: Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ2RJwTwbzg

~

~the suicide machines:  Sometimes I Don’t Mind   (3:20)   dawg being a dog, fun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEr9Fy3C-Yw

~

~Lobo:  Me and You and a Dog Named Boo   (3:07)   mop-head dork with a pretty good song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTbBvPoxUkk&t=158s

~

~Art Garfunkel:  Bright Eyes   (3:57)   nature’s light of life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a502RejLz8s

~

~Baha Men:  Who Let the Dogs Out   (3:36)   the other fun video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojULkWEUsPs

~

~Norah Jones:  Man of the Hour   (3:05)   …is a dog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAAJteXPqqY

~~

Perhaps one reason we are fascinated by cats is because such a small animal can contain so much independence, dignity, and freedom of spirit. Unlike the dog, the cat’s personality is never bet on a human’s. He demands acceptance on his own terms.
~Lloyd Alexander

Round, misty-blue eyes stare desperately. Love me, they say, let me into your life — so that I can begin to take over your entire existence.
~Pam Brown

As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows, cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the humankind.
~Cleveland Amory

I enjoy many silent moments with my cat, a conversation always resumed exactly where left off.
~Robert Brault

As for intelligence, anyone who has ever known a cat really well feels that this cat is superior to most Harvard professors in brain power.
~Gladys Taber

I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.
~Hippolyte Taine

A happy arrangement: many people prefer cats to other people, and many cats prefer people to other cats.
~Mason Cooley

I still love sparkles and grocery shopping and really old cats that are only nice to you half the time.
~Taylor Swift

Keep an eye on the cat and another on the frying pan.
~Proverb

It always gives me a shiver when I see a cat seeing what I can’t see.
~Eleanor Farjeon

Cat lovers can readily be identified without any assistance from us. No matter what they wear, their clothes always look old and well used. Their sheets look like bath towels, and their bath towels look like a collection of knitting mistakes.
~Eric Gurney

A cat is an example of sophistication minus civilization.
~Author unknown

You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats.
~Proverb

Never try to outstubborn a cat.
~Robert A Heinlein

It is in the nature of cats to do a certain amount of unescorted roaming.
~Adlai Stevenson

The cat loves fish, but she’s loath to wet her feet.
~Proverb

[C]ats have a habit of staring at one by the hour; it is one of their most disconcerting tricks.
~Carl Van Vechten

I like cats…. When I meet a cat, I say, “Poor Pussy!” and stoop down and tickle the side of its head; and the cat sticks up its tail in a rigid, cast-iron manner, arches its back, and wipes its nose up against my trousers; and all is gentleness and peace.
~Jerome K Jerome

Cats are like walking brooms you can actually comfortably cuddle with.
~Jarod Kintz

A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.
~Ernest Hemingway

Way down deep, we’re all motivated by the same urges. Cats have the courage to live by them.
~Jim Davis

With the qualities of cleanliness, affection, patience, dignity, and courage that cats have, how many of us, I ask you, would be capable of becoming cats?
~Fernand Mery

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
~Jean Cocteau

Time spent with cats is never wasted.
~Sigmund Freud

The cat was created when the lion sneezed.
~Arabian proverb

A cat is a lion in a jungle of small bushes.
~Indian proverb

A cat is a tiger that is fed by hand.
~Proverb

Just watching my cats can make me happy.
~Paula Cole

I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.
~Jules Verne

To me, a cat is an easy pet, they don’t need any spoiling or looking after.
~Karl Pilkington

Cats readily conform to the habits of society, but never acquire its manners.
~Georges-Louis Leclerc

~

I subscribe to the theory that Mankind never domesticated any animal. They came in from the cold and looked cute until they were fed.
~David J Beard

The phrase ‘domestic cat’ is an oxymoron.
~George Will

After all, cats are the only untamed pets that we have. You cannot tame a cat.
~May Sarton

Well-washed and well-combed domestic pets grow dull; they miss the stimulus of fleas.
~Francis Galton

~ ~

~~

I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult. It’s not. Mine had me trained in two days.
~Bill Dana

The best way to get a puppy is to beg for a baby brother — and they’ll settle for a puppy every time.
~Winston Pendleton

ZEBRA. An animal used principally to illustrate the letter Z
~Noah Lott

When I walk my dog, people always ask if we’re twins.
~Jarod Kintz

[T]he person that had took a bull by the tail once had learnt sixty or seventy times as much as a person that hadn’t, and said a person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was gitting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn’t ever going to grow dim or doubtful.
~Mark Twain

I enjoy watching Little Monster — a retired tomcat who shares my bed and board — roll over on his back and groom his bib and chest. For a human being to exhibit such dexterity, he would have to lie flat on his back and bite his belt-buckle.
~Gerald Raftery

A cat is an adorable violation of the laws of physics.
~Terri Guillemets

~

Parrots make great pets. They have more personality than goldfish.
~Chevy Chase

No one can feel as helpless as the owner of a sick goldfish.
~Kin Hubbard

We have all kinds of pets. We have birds who specialize in singing; we have dogs who specialize in barking; we have cats who specialize in meowing, and we have turtles who specialize in dying. …I’ve never had any luck with pets. I once had a turtle I had to send to obedience school.
~Robert Orben

In the morning light,
You sleep despite my meow.
I stand on your face.
~Kate Miller-Wilson

There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast.
~Audrey Hepburn

The best alarm clock is the purring kind.
~Terri Guillemets

Paws carry heart and fur,
Whiskers and vibrato purr.
~Terri Guillemets

No amount of time can erase the memory of a good cat, and no amount of masking tape can ever totally remove his fur from your couch.
~Leo Dworken

When an 85-pound mammal licks your tears away, and then tries to sit on your lap, it’s hard to feel sad.
~Kristan Higgins

If a dog jumps up into your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.
~Alfred North Whitehead

Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.
~James Herriot

It’s really the cat’s house — we just pay the mortgage.
~author unknown

But a dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down…
~Robert Benchley

They bounded enthusiastically into the car, of course; dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear.
~Dave Barry

Dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them’s making a poop, the other one’s carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge.
~Jerry Seinfeld

I don’t think twice about picking up my dog’s poop, but if another dog’s poop is next to it, I think, ‘Ewww, dog poop!’
~Jonah Goldberg

Anybody who doesn’t know what soap tastes like never washed a dog.
~Franklin P Jones

~~

© David Lorenz Winston

~~

Life is a series of dogs.
~George Carlin

Old age means realizing you will never own all the dogs you wanted to.
~Joe Gores

~

The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.
~Author unknown

Nature reminds us that the dog will wag its tail, the cat will sing, and the horse will neigh as we approach if we are only kind to them. They do not forget kindness, and that is more than some of us can say.
~Charles F Raymond

Those who play with cats must expect to be scratched.
~Proverb

Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails. And a tail is an awkward thing to laugh with, as you can see by the way they bend themselves half double in extreme hilarity trying to get that rear-end exuberance forward into the main scene of action.
~Max Eastman

Money can buy you a fine dog, but only love can make him wag his tail.
~Kinky Friedman

…in times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.
~W H Auden

A friend may smile and bid you hail,
Yet wish you with the devil;
But when a good dog wags his tail,
You know he’s on the level.
~The Sentinel

Dogs don’t lie. A dog’s tail is a strikingly honest window to their souls.
~Jim Hillibish

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
~Mark Twain

~

If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.
~James Herriot

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened
~Anatole France

Animals possess a soul and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren.
Pope John Paul II

Animals share with us the privilege of having a soul.
~Pythagoras

I really love animals. My cat is my little soul mate. He’s not just a cat, he’s my friend.
~Tracey Emin

If you don’t believe dogs have souls, you haven’t looked into their eyes long enough.
~advert

An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language.
~Martin Buber

If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.
~Woodrow Wilson

Most pets display so many humanlike traits and emotions it’s easy to forget they’re not gifted with the English language and then get snubbed when we talk to them and they don’t say anything back.
~Stephenie Geist

If the kindest souls were rewarded with the longest lives, dogs would outlive us all.
~Ricky Gervais

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@Writers Platform

A catless writer is almost inconceivable; even Ernest Hemingway, manly follower of the hunting trophy and the bullfight, lived waist-deep in cats. It’s a perverse taste, really, since it would be easier to write with a herd of buffalo in the room than even one cat; they make nests in the notes and bite the end of the pen and walk on the typewriter keys.
~Barbara Holland

One cat just leads to another.
~Ernest Hemingway

Psychologists now recognize that the need in some people to have a dozen cats is really a sublimated desire to have two dozen cats.
~Robert Brault

I wish I loved anything as much as cats love walking on keyboards while you’re answering emails.
~Keith Wynn

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Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.
~Emily Dickinson

…it sometimes seems as if in her work a cat came at us speaking English…
~R P Blackmur [of Emily Dickinson]

I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.
~Edgar Allen Poe

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There is something wholly likeable about most people who write about animals.
~Eric Duthie

People love dogs. You can never go wrong adding a dog to the story.
~Jim Butcher

Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
~Groucho Marx

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Cats have it all – admiration, an endless sleep, and company only when they want it.
~Rod McKuen

You cannot look at a sleeping cat and feel tense.
~Jane Pauley

Indeed, there is nothing on this earth more peaceful than a sleeping, purring cat.
~Jonathon Scott Payne

If purring could be encapsulated, it would be the most powerful antidepressant on the market.
~Terri Guillemets

To err is human
To purr feline.
~Robert Byrne

[A] cat purrs while one dozes. I can recommend the experience without reservation.
~May Sarton

The truth is that it’s just really hard for me to get to sleep without a dog in my bedroom.
~Jimmy Stewart

We have a queen-size bed and the dog sleeps in the middle. John and I are sort of these little quotation marks on either corner.
~Rachael Ray

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Cats are sleeping art.
~Terri Guillemets

Like a graceful vase, a cat, even when motionless, seems to flow.
~George F Will

The only system to photograph a cat is to use infinite patience.
~Charles E Bullard

The dog is the perfect portrait subject. He doesn’t pose. He isn’t aware of the camera.
~Patrick Demarchelier

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Prewritten Prompt:   pet

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Cats, as a class, have never completely got over the snootiness caused by the fact that in Ancient Egypt they were worshiped as gods. This makes them too prone to set themselves up as critics and censors of the frail and erring human beings whose lot they share.
~P G Wodehouse

I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time.
~Neil Gaiman

How we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven.
~Robert A Heinlein

It seems to me that the good Lord in his infinite wisdom gave us three things to make life bearable — hope, jokes, and dogs. But the greatest of these was dogs.
~Robyn Davidson

The dog was created specially for children. He is a god of frolic.
~Henry Ward Beecher

Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent.
~Milan Kundera

Dogs and angels are not very far apart.
~Charles Bukowski

Those who love dogs, know something about God.
~Fakeer Ishavardas

It has been said that a man stands to his dog in the position of a god; but when we consider that our own conceptions of deity lead us to the general idea of an enormously powerful and omniscient Man, who loves, hates, desires, rewards, and punishes, in human-like fashion, it involves no strain of imagination to conceive that from the dog’s point of view his master is an elongated and abnormally cunning dog; of different shape and manners certainly to the common run of dogs, yet canine in his essential nature.
~Louis Robinson

Mankind is like dogs, not gods – as long as you don’t get mad they’ll bite you – but stay mad and you’ll never be bitten. Dogs don’t respect humility and sorrow.
~Jack Kerouac

The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man’s.
~Mark Twain

If a dog doesn’t put you first where are you both? In what relation? A dog needs God. It lives by your glances, your wishes. It even shares your humor. This happens about the fifth year. If it doesn’t happen you are only keeping an animal.
~Enid Bagnold

What is a dog, anyway? Simply an antidote for an inferiority complex.
~W C Fields

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If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.
~James Herriot

Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character; and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.
~Arthur Schopenhaur

If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.
~Albert Einstein

Animals are my friends, and I don’t eat my friends.
~George Bernard Shaw

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
~Mahatma Gandhi

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§ The Exercise:

origins

the waning of a puppy
is the waxing of a dog
as the passing of a tadpole
is the becoming of a frog
how the downing of a forest
becomes a bridge made of logs
how a blindness to consequence
becomes an overdose on drugs
and how the greening of a teen
becomes the exit from a fog

~

making it

loose rollin’ fast talkin’
neighborhood kid
fed like a orphaned pet
all the families did
but home her, a stray cat
zodiac cat sayin’ heaven forbid

freewheeling impetuous
hot firing tempestuous
best of our bunch
now takes us to lunch
hot wired to rise
ain’t no one surprised

lord loved that tomboy
gave her a voice made to sing
crooned love, chiseled fire from ice
swooned at heartbreak, loss ‘n sacrifice
smokin’ roar to smokey kitten purr
ain’t no voice compare to her

~

graciously

aging gracefully
or, the unspoken
under-reported curse
of outliving them
pets and friends
heroes and icons
villains and loved ones
styles even histories
flash alive, then…
personal headlines
crowded out by today
become memories
recede in time
become wry smiles then
matters of indifference
aging gracefully

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5s & 7s

Cuban crisis, nyet
Monroe, defender’s doctrine
guard dog as a pet
integrity and safety
stone wall sideways now a bridge

~

rare, to be believed
own truth and honor of word
pet of history

~

fatal sobriquet
hated, despised teacher’s pet
handicapped, and yet…

~

God misspelled as dog
divine truth of acceptance
pet seminary

~

snug in a shoebox
etched stone, roadside carrion
pet cemetary

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The Olio and Salmagundi of Quotes

Old dogs, like old shoes, are comfortable. They might be a bit out of shape a little worn around the edges, but they fit well.
~Bonnie Wilcox

An old dog, even more than an old spouse, always feels like doing what you feel like doing.
~Robert Brault

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Everyone’s pet is the most outstanding. This begets mutual blindness.
~Jean Cocteau

Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
~author unknown

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Do cats actually get lost or are they just not at home yet?
~Andy Lee

Cats are inquisitive but hate to admit it.
~Mason Cooley

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In the country sometimes I go about looking at horses and cattle. They eat grass, make love, work when they have to, bear their young. I am sick with envy of them.
~Sherwood Anderson

I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
~Winston Churchill

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Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day. It is amazing how much love and laughter they bring into our lives and even how much closer we become with each other because of them.
~John Grogan

A dog…is a bond between strangers.
~John Steinbeck

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Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in? I think that is how dogs spend their lives.
~Sue Murphy

…a door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
~Ogden Nash

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The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.
~Charles De Gaulle

The more boys I meet, the more I love my dog.
~Carrie Underwood

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Did you know that there are over 300 words for love in canine?
~Gabriel Zevin

To err is human — to forgive, canine.
~author unknown

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If I could be half the person my dog is, I’d be twice the human I am.
~Charles Yu

My goal in life is to be as good of a person as my dog already thinks I am.
~Paul Dunn

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Man is rated the highest animal, at least among all animals who returned the questionnaire.
~Robert Brault

Sometimes, your pet picks you.
~Julie Wenzel

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The Olio
Quotes harvested from:  https://bqotd.com,  https://parade.com, https://www.quotegarden.com, https://semidelicatbalance.com, https://wisesayings.com

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The Salmagundi
Video Harvest:  https://vimeo.com,  https://youtube.com, https://ranker.com

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