Here’s what’s on my mind this morning: gratitude to the universe. Last weekend one of my cats experienced a medical emergency, a reaction to a vaccine, and it’s taken the last five days for him to recover and now, at last, he seems himself again.

In general, I’m a lover of animals, but cats especially command a place in my heart.

Like everywhere else these days, the world of animals lovers is partisan, and many dog-owning friends of mine don’t understand my affection for felines. But I’ve always understood cats—and by understanding I mean a acceptance of Rumsfeldian “known unknowables.”

Their independence drives some people crazy—but then again, so do I for exactly the same reason. And because of this, I think that cats also get me. I’ve never known a cat who on first meeting was anything more than simply wary. The same can’t be said for dogs—there’s subset of them that operate with a snarl/nip first, decide later philosophy. Cats, on the other hand, coolly size me up at first meeting and begin to calculate the trust quotient. Which, again, is pretty much how I meet new people.

Because of this, in even worst case scenarios, cats and I start at a place of almost professional courtesy and build from there.

The succession of cats that have lived with me, always in pairs, have had relationships with me that resemble friendships in that they were not first and foremost built on dependency. Cats and I share our lives together in the same way good matches of roommates inevitably become friends. As I write this in my office, one of my cats is downstairs in the living room looking out the window, while the other one is in the upstairs grooming on the bed. All of us doing their own things, together-yet-otherwise-directed. And then, at lunch, we’ll probably touch base again and enquire about each other’s days. Not pets and owner, but, well, colleagues.

Hunter S Thompson memorably, if idiosyncratically, captured the essence of being an animal lover when he wrote:

I have always loved animals. They are different from us and their brains are not complex, but their hearts are pure and there is usually no fat on their bodies and they will never call the police on you or take you in front of judge or run off and hide with your money . . .

Animals don’t hire lawyers.

But with regard to cats, that has always struck me as far too much of 30,000-foot view. Instead, I’ve always favored naturalist Henry Beston’s description of cats:

For the animal shall not be measure by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.

Yup—a perfect description of my feline friends.