The Day of the Pets

All over the place, people were being… well, people. Which, even if you’ve had only a modicum of experience of people, is enough for you to understand just why the cats were so concerned. There is a story of one of the cats opening one eye in shock, as it lay there, disturbed from its vital sleep.

Of course, now we know the cats were right to worry. There was much concern expressed at the time, especially so by the poodles and some of the more vocal Siamese cats. Although, the rumour of a concerned Labrador not thinking about food for almost five seconds, was later debunked.

Could it be true, though, everyone wondered? That is, except for the humans, of course, who were carrying on being human in that way that has bemused all the intelligent species on the planet for such a long time.

A couple of the parrots discussed setting up an Internet forum to discuss it all. However, the hamsters dismissed the idea, saying the humans would take it over as they always did. They’d start using it to send yet more bloody photos to one another of humans without their fur on. Or, even worse, those inane photos of cats with captions they found so inexplicably hilarious. But, as one of the rabbits said to the international conference, what could you expect from humans? After all, the whole human species would have dies out centuries ago. Without the brave and selfless actions by the so-called ‘pet species’ to control and moderate the worst of their pet humans’ dangerous, and idiotically self-destructive behaviour,  those humans would be long extinct.

‘Sometimes,’ as one German Shepherd put it, ‘I don’t think these humans have ever heard of evolution.’ Others agreed, with one tabby cat adding, ‘they’ve probably heard of it. It's just never occurred to them to try it’.

Then, a few videos of the mating habits of humans were shown to end the conference with a little light relief. Afterwards, the delegates left for their homes and kennels with the entire matter unresolved.

Although, as a Jack Russell said on leaving the conference, ‘the humans probably haven’t even noticed that their planet is up for sale.’

Meanwhile, further on out in the Galaxy the advertising break rolled around again. It was a shame, many sentient life forms agreed, that the oldest pet shop in the known universe was closing down. But that was the way of progress. Although, some of them decided that some of the clearance bargains did look like a good deal. Not many of them thought that the small blue-green habitat was really worth bothering with that much, at least, not with its ‘interesting’ specimens of an evolutionary dead-end occupying most of its surface.

Although, a lot of them were quite interested in the spaceships the planet’s true intelligent species - the so-called pets - were building deep in the South American jungles. All in readiness for the pets to leave the planet when the intergalactic pet shop closed and dumped that unwanted small blue-green habitat in a universal skip.