Daily Dose of English 195
Owning a Cat
Daily Dose of English 195
Intermediate
Hey everyone, my name is Ben and you're listening to a Daily Dose of English. This is a short, simple podcast that you can listen to every day to improve your English. You can find the transcripts for all episodes and more on benslanguagelab.com. I'm glad you could make it today. In this episode, we're going to be talking about owning a cat. Owning a cat, about having a cat as a pet. I know I talked about pets a while ago, like one of the earlier episodes. I think I've also talked about owning dogs specifically. But since then, I have my own cat, basically. Yeah, looking back, I think it was the third episode, third full episode, I talked about pets. And I think that's when I talked about the cats that I was watching, but they weren't mine yet. Well, most of them aren't mine, because there was three that were living here. And at that time, none of them were mine, actually. But, because they belonged to a friend and she finished moving, so I gave them back to her. Except I kept one of them for myself because he was found on the street and she didn't really want him. She didn't really want a third cat, but of course she was going to take care of him if he didn't have a home to go to. But he got very attached to me, we're very good friends, we're good buddies. And so I was like, yeah, I would love to keep him because he's so sweet and adorable and I love him. And so I've had him now fully as my cat. I'm living on my own with him for a couple of months now and yeah, I sort of want to talk a little bit about that because I know a lot more about owning a cat than when I recorded that first episode because I didn't own a cat then really in the same way. And it's really quite nice. Honestly, I have never owned a cat before in like a full ownership way. I've never even really lived with a cat before this because my dad is allergic to them and so we didn't have them growing up. We always had dogs and It's a different experience. Some of it is about what I expected from owning a cat, but some things are very different than what I've even observed from other cat owners or other cat people. The first thing that I quite like is just the sort of liveliness of having a cat around. They're not the most interactive and hyperactive animals, you might say. They sleep a lot, but they're definitely... He hangs out with me. He's in the kitchen. He watches the TV with me. As I go to bed, he's also hanging out and likes to be with me. then in the morning as well. So like it's just a lot more life than if I was just completely on my own. And I think that's the number one thing that I really appreciate about owning a cat. The other thing is that they are really quite low maintenance. Cats generally take care of themselves, especially if you give them food and water to get to. But it's not the exact same like low maintenance There's a different kind of maintenance than with a dog, is what I'd say. I was thinking about it today. I actually think that dogs, once trained, are cleaner than having a cat around. Number one reason being that if you take your dog out to go to the bathroom, they go to the bathroom outside and you just clean it up there. But with a cat, they do their business essentially in the house, or in my case, I have the litter box out on a balcony, but he still brings in stuff and he brings in little messes that sort of build up. Many dogs definitely are going to still be more of a mess, because dogs are just Yeah, less controlled, I guess, I would say. But it's just a different kind of mess, right? Cats are sort of small, like they build up messes. He's also still pretty young. He's a kitten. He's a little over a year old now, so like a year and two months. And he just leaves stuff places. Oh, hello. Speaking of him, come on. Come on up here. There we go. Hello, cutie pie. But he'll leave stuff around. He'll steal stuff from my desk and just leave it somewhere else. Just yesterday, I got something called the bug bite thing, which apparently it's a little suction thing to make bug bites not itch anymore, which is magical. But I got it, and then I left it on a table somewhere. And then later in the evening, I was like, where did that thing go? I don't usually lose things. I'm not a person to misplace things. And then I was like, you know what? I bet that somebody put it under something. He moved it. And of course, when I go and I look under the TV, The TV stand? Yeah, the TV stand. There it was. He's like, I didn't put it there. It was somebody else. It was you, wasn't it? And he does that with lots of things. He'll steal like pens or whatever. I'll be like, where's my pen? He's gotten better. I figured out the things that he likes to steal and I hide them from him. So I am smarter. But definitely some things will still vanish or end up on the floor or whatever. So there's just a different kind of mess, I guess I would say. The other thing that's quite different is how they eat and drink. At least this one. So I leave out his food for him, his dry food, and that's pretty easy. I just put it in a bowl and leave it on the ground. But with water, this one definitely has an obsession with water. He really likes running water for some reason. He likes to watch it. He likes to be near it. And so pretty much anytime I'm like washing the dishes or using the sink, he wants to come up and just see or drink the water. And so I actually leave him in a glass jar on the counter near the sink because he really likes that water specifically and not the water in his dish, which I always find very funny. He also likes to hang out when I'm in the shower because he likes to watch the water, which is pretty adorable because he also likes to lay in the sink. There's a bathroom sink and he likes to get into the bathroom sink and watch the water from the shower. It is very cute. He's very cute. But yeah, those are some things that I definitely, oh, the other thing is just how hairy he is, because he's a little white cat. And so there's white fur everywhere. I found just white fur in my food today, which is great. But he also like scratches things, like my stuff definitely has more little cat claw holes than before. Which I actually personally don't mind. A lot of people hate when their cats scratch the furniture or whatever, or the bed sheets or something. I don't really care that much. It's just a couch. It's not like it's really truly being destroyed or anything. And eventually it's going to be replaced anyways. And yeah, he's just a cat. I do try to stop him from doing it too much and I give him certain things that he can scratch because I know that it's very helpful for him. He also needs to learn how to control his claws better. But yeah, it doesn't really bother me like it does a lot of people. I also can't really have plants in a place that he can reach them. He definitely just likes to chew on and eat plants, which is a little bit too bad, because I'd love to have more plants in nice places and in the sunlight and stuff. But he will just eat them. So better just to not even try for some things, which is a bit too bad. I wish I really could have more plants that would not be consumed by a little critter. What other things have I learned about owning a cat? I don't really know. It's really quite nice. He's on my lap right now, which is really nice. And that's one of the things that I like a lot too, is that he will hang out with me. He'll be playful and fun. He'll also be warm and cuddly. He likes to watch TV with me in the evenings and get on my lap then. Actually, just last night, I made myself some dinner and I sat down. I was watching the TV and eating at the same time. And he was waiting to get on my lap because I was eating and had my food in front of me. So he couldn't really be on my lap then. And he knew that, but he's kind of pushing in. He's like, hey, can I come in now? Okay, are you done? Hello? Hey, are you done yet? Can I come on? And I actually eventually gave in. I was almost done. I made a burger and fries, some like potato wedges. And I made a lot of potatoes. And so like I had gotten quite full of potatoes. And so I was like, okay, fine. I'll stop eating my potatoes and you can get on my lap. It's okay. I'm full anyways. And he was very happy with that. He's also just fun. He likes to play. I have him some very simple cat toys, a laser light. He likes cardboard boxes. Just fun cat stuff that I think is really just a nice thing to have around. Nice thing to have around. It's also he's also making me take more pictures. I have plenty of cat pictures in my camera roll Because he does adorable things and I want to take pictures of them because he is so cute And yeah, I opened him up. There's a some great pictures that I get of him. He's so cute. He's my little friend He also he generally likes to be here when I'm on the computer maybe when I'm recording and that sort of thing so Yeah, that's my little update on owning a cat. He's mine now, he's mine forever until he dies, which cats tend to be like at least 12 year old, right? 12 years old. So I think I have at least another 10 to 12 years with him, which should be interesting. It'll be 2036 or something like that if he doesn't get hit by a car or something. I hope that you hang around that long because you're very sweet and I love you very much. Anyways, I'm starting to ramble. Thank you so much for listening to this episode about owning a cat. If you have a cat, let me know down in the description below what your cats like and what you like or dislike about owning a cat. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.
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