...and an example of great parenting, and great daughtering as well.

Companion animals enrich our lives immensely, even if they, and the interactions with the rest of the family, are from a comfortable distance.

Thanks for the post, packman.

& if they slept with her, she would often wake up wheezing, but she loved cats so much that she gladly bore the pain & inconvenience that came along with her cat allergy. The first picture I have of myself is in utero. My mom is sitting in a chair about 7 months pregnant, smoking a cigarette, LOL, (this was 1955) with our tuxedo cat, Geraldine, draped across my mom's HUGE belly. She said that Geraldine would lay there for hours, purring. She thought that Geraldine enoyed listening to my heartbeat. She had a cat (always at least 1 Siamese) until the day she died, and then I took in her cat when she passed. I will also have a cat until the day I die. I am so grateful to my mom for enduring the discomfort and potential danger in order to enrich my life--all of our lives--the way she did. I miss you, mom!