I'm glad this thread is in the Red Room, so that anyone who opposes the three-year-old's survival is free to say so.
Okay, the dog in an "enabler." The dog kept the brat alive when nature should have weeded him out.The kid needs to fight his own battles. That Lassie wanna-be dog just shit on Darwin's grave. You watch, within a week the dog will push the kid down a well just so it can rescue him. Fucking showboating mongrel! Okay, does this about cover it in vitriolic Red Room funk?
Wrong, that dog just proved once again that Darwin was right. By makign himself indispensable to the family, he's ensured himself a long happy life with many opportunities to procreate. Assuming he isn't snipped already, that is.
Now, if it's a cat, totally different thing. Remember that urgent letter you absolutely have to mail today, but you've searched the entire house and can't find it? Look under the cat. She's been sitting on it, folded up in that "hatching" position with her front paws tucked under her, completely covering the thing, and watching you with great amusement as you run around tearing the house apart. She's probably even purring. Cats...the ultimate Gotcha!
And the cat will move from place to place when you're not looking so you never stop to think about it.
Cats can hide so well Colonel Flagg on M.A.S.H. "I'm the wind" would be humbled. Last weekend I thought I lost my cat. It hides in a set of box springs I sent away with Junk In A Box. Hours late when we couldn't find the cat, my drug fueled paranoia kicked. I imagined that somehow the cat hid inside the box springs, stayed quiet while I tilted the springs upright and carried it outside. I imagined the cat staying tucked away until the junk people took it off to destinations unknown. Of course this was a weekend, when I couldn't track anyone down. My paranoia at a fevered pitch, I got an idea. So I looked on a shelf high above my drier, inside a litter box we never actually used and lined with blankets. I lifted up the corner of the blanket, and there she was, with the classic "WTF is your problem" facial expression all cats get when they FUCKING KNOW you are looking for them! Damn that cat - but I'm glad she didn't get taken away with the junk.
I don't think any cat would have stayed in the box springs once you were jostling it around and carrying it about. It's the fixed objects where you will never dislodge a cat, precisely because nothing will spook them out in to the open.
That was my son's take on it, since he helped me carry out the box springs. But cats have "stowed away" in luggage and shipping crates with some frequency, so it's not unheard of.
