Pets. A term that conjures images of fuzzy, playful creatures (or occasionally independent disdainful creatures) that share your home and hearth, that you have to take care of and share companionship with. Yes?
Well yes…generally speaking this is true. But if you’re a furry…well, lets just say that the term can take on entirely new meaning and can even occasionally define a relationship. In furry-speak, a pet is not just a creature that you devote part of your attention to, it is a type of relationship you have.
I won’t pretend to fully understand all the nuances of being (or having) a furry “intelligent pet”, and I’ll admit that the concept, when I first encountered it…well, it was just plain weird. The idea of treating somebody as simply a “thing”, something you paid some attention to but was hardly as important as your fellow human beings (sorry to anyone who disagrees with THAT assessment) is a very disturbing idea. For one thing, it’s against my nature to consider my will to be more important than another’s. I firmly believe that everyone has a right to free will…but pets don’t really have that do they? You just can’t treat another person that way. So the whole thing was suspect to me.
You know what they say though: “Don’t knock it till you try it”. And try it I did…though not entirely by choice. A friend more or less…persuaded me to accept him as my pet even though I didn’t really want to do it and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. And let me tell you, it turned out to be entirely different from what I’d imagined. Like I said, it’s an entirely type of interaction where different rules seem to apply.
The way I understand it, what a “furry pet” gets out of such interaction is a feeling of safety, of being cared for and protected. Naturally it is also a submission thing, of giving up control, and therefore also responsibility.
This is not something I fully comprehend as I’ve fought my whole life long to HAVE control of my life. Why would I give that up to another? It’s one thing to give somebody else temporary control over your sensual experience (bondage for sex) but to yield everything else too, AND have another in a position to command you…well…Supposedly, not having those responsibilities feels good. Of course, for some there’s a sexual aspect to it as well. Being helpless is sexually stimulating. Well…I don’t really understand this, but I sure as hell share that kink even though I can’t explain it. Maybe it too is some sort of surrender, of just being in another’s control. Maybe it’s because I can’t really face up to sexuality and therefore its good to have another make such choices for us. Would fit the profile. But once again I’m straying off topic.
I have no idea what the dominant partner gets out of it. Like I said, I’m not a true dominant. I only assume the alpha position when nobody else steps up to claim it…and in my personal life, with my partner (read: my mate) equality is what I look for. In the bedroom though….THAT’S where I submit. But again I’m straying off the point…
The point is…when I was asked to accept this person as pet, I hated the idea. However, at the time I really did think that I’d make a better master for him than somebody else since I knew myself and trusted in myself enough to know that I wouldn’t hurt him or take advantage of him. It was completely silly, but that was the extent of my reasoning at that point. I have a very powerful protective instinct and he’d roused it at some point. I quickly realised though, that he was by no means stupid, or in serious need of protection. I need not worry about him.
And that freed me up a bit as well. After all, if I as his master didn’t need to look after him in that way, then I could just concentrate on the friendship we had. Of course, he still wants me to train him, punish him, generally treat him like a pet, but what I realised is that this in no way diminished him. He was still the same person with the same sharp mind that challenges my own at every turn. I could still respect him as an individual even though I “owned” him. It’s not dissimilar to dom/sub interaction, except it’s a bit more encompassing, more complete. It doesn’t degrade him in any way…just as long as I keep control, and continue to respect him. And there’s no fear of me ever losing either.

After reading this http://www.furf-forum.ca/forum/index.php?topic=889.0 thread on one of my favourite furry forums, I am once again reminded of what it means to be furry, just why it is that the furry lifestyle means so incredibly much to me. Not only because I have found answers about my own nature there, but also because within the ranks of the furry, I have found the perfect society that fits the ideals I have striven for all my life and could never find in the ‘mainstream’. Some may argue it is denial of self, of reality even, but I beg to differ. It is an acknowledgement of something primal that we all have, but have denied. It is the acknowledgement of the wild side of us that we have forgotten in the race to be civilised, that church and state have robbed us of. A fellow forum-goer said it so perfectly that I’ll just quite him here:

“Deep, deep down, even past that part of our subconscious that begs for everlasting continuity, we all have the same thing at our centers: a small, frightened child quaking under human oppression. Our spirits, our energy, the part of us that wants to laugh and play not just for fifteen minutes but for all day, everyday, the part that wants to spend warm nights sleeping in the grass under the full moon with the fireflies, cuddled together with our friends and stroking eachother's tails and faces for comfort and company, the part of us that wants so badly to scream with sensual pleasure and not cares who hears just because it feels so incredibly right -- that is the part of us that furries have awakened! We aren't crazy, we're begging for the affection of a world we've missed out on, a world that our births as humans deprived us of. We want so badly to be held and hugged and snuggled against, to be with eachother... that, my friends, is what humans were TRULY supposed to be!”

We’re not crazy. But we are different from you. We think a little bit differently from you. Mere difference doesn’t make us crazy, or gays and lesbians would be crazy too. The Japanese would be crazy. Hell, everybody but the head-shrinkers would be stark-raving insane. When did it become such a sin to be different? When did being furry, wearing a tail in public and/or growling when you’re angry become a mental illness? When did we have to become perfect every moment of every day? And why is this even necessary? People speak of cultural diversity in glowing tones out the one side of their mouths, but scream bloody murder when you admit to being Wiccan or heaven forbid a furry or gay. When you’re all three…well, time for the straight-jacket. I’m not sure whether to be angry or sad about this whole thing. In that same thread, a young fur is going through hell with his parents for being who he is, and somehow this is perfectly all right because he’s deemed to be ‘unstable’ and ‘needs help’. Its fine to dope us up and medicate us to a fare-thee-well. Just exactly who was it that decided what normal is? I was not consulted about it, so why should I or anybody else have to submit to such treatment? We’re not insane damnit! We’re just different. We harm you not at all, and we sure as hell don’t harm each other, so why this whole ‘furries are evil! They must die!’ mentality? Generally, we’re the gentlest of people, loving and caring and law abiding (well, as much as everyone else is anyway). We’re different, but not THAT different. Why judge us so harshly? Our ways are different from yours, but we’re not suicide bombers and we’re not about to tell you you have to be like us either. All we ask is to be left alone. We don’t want your pity, or even your understanding. Why is it that furries clump together? This person has an answer:

“Everytime your parents yell at you, or argue, or fight, your brain is fighting too. Why are they yelling? Why can't they accept you? Is not the purpose of a parent to nurture and coddle? And then, finally... your brain tells you that you must be worthless. You must have no place in this world, because you cannot be loved. And that is how many of us felt, too, before we found eachother here. You are among friends who understand you and care for you, who would go out of their way just to make you a little happier. We are free of oppression and stereotypes, at least when we have each other. We can snuggle and glomp and do whatever we want and not one of us will think it in any way out of the ordinary.”

If we find no acceptance outside ourselves, then we will seek it among each other, and because we have all gone through this, we will love each other. As SheWolf (a wise and wonderful person) says: “…being furry doesn't mean you are nuts, not even close. The majority of ppl who have tails and don't wear them in public is because they don't want to be ostracized and made fun of...the general status quo just don't understand that we, as furries, aren't any different than they are. We all possess a heart, we all have blood running thru us, and we all breath the same air. It's just many have the problem co-existing with us, and the only reason that is, is because they just don't fukking understand. What makes it worse is that they are so narrow minded that they don't want to understand, and figure we are all sexual perverts and should be locked away in a mental ward along with the suicidal schizophrenics. There are those of us who just have said fuk it, and will wear those tails and those suits in public because we WANT to, and are proud to be what we are. And to those that turn up their noses at us and sneer, yet don't have the balls to come up and ask us what it means, we do it proudly because it is who we are! If they don't like it, too fukking bad. Don't share the space.”

Amen SheWolf! Amen! I am proud to be a furry, and even prouder to know these wonderful people who love and support each other with such selflessness…and humbled beyond measure to know that they call me friend! You are loved, all of you.

...or is two really one? One of the most irritating things about people is that they keep expecting others to behave in a certain way, to think in a certain way...and when you don't, they hold it against you. It's as if the persona they expect you to be somehow overrules the reality of who you are. Very few people look into our souls and see - and far more importanantly, accept - who we are. Who these people turn out to be can occasionally be very surprising. Take the case of Sherri, my HeartSister. She appeared on the scene one day on an online forum I frequent and wandered into a general chat thread that I participated in. I did not like her right at first. She struck me as far too defensive, too easily offended, too emotional by half. We never really talked much and she more or less became part of the wallpaper of the site for me. The one day she contacted me via private message with a little...joke she wanted to pull on a mutual friend. I was floored, but went along with her scheme as it really sounded like fun. The game never happened but we kept talking. She was the very first person to learn certain things about me...she saw right through me to my soul and...well, burrowed her way past my defensive walls. Today I cannot imagine my life without her...this person who used to be wallpaper to me. She was the first. Others followed. Priscilla, who became the mother of my heart through many tribulations, Pat and Mimi. She's a special case. Not an aunt...(goddess, I have a hard time of thinking of Mimi as being an aunty)...not a sister, but nevertheless family. They're all older than I, and all just took me as they found me. They saw past the mask to the soul underneath. We all seem to be layered. There's the outer shell that people see and interact with. What we forget is that this outer shell is all people see...because this is all they are meant to see, and therefore we should expect to be judged for the image of ourselves we project. I'm not saying that people do this to be deliberately decieving. Those people who do this usually have good reasons for not wanting to expose themselves to people too soon. As Pat tells me...it is best to be cautious when dealing with people. The image we project is us...but it is only a small part of ourselves. Only we ultimately know who we are, and it is up to us to show others this if we want them to respond to us. I was lucky. Some people more or less just barged through my walls to touch my heart. In some cases, I still have no idea what exactly they saw in me, why they reached out to me, but they did and I'll be forever grateful to them.