The lion and the lamb

I'm not sure which is the lion and which is the lamb here. Todd (the orange) looks more leonine, but he's also an amiable sweetheart.

Emma (the tortie) isn't particularly fond of other cats. She isn't aggressive, but she would much prefer to be the only cat in the world. Which is why it's so amazing that she's curled up this close to Todd, sharing a corner of a quilt on my desk with him.

Emma really doesn't do sharing most of the time. On the other hand, she's no fool, and Todd is big and warm, and I keep my house quite chilly. She likes to sit on the cast-iron radiators, but when they're either too hot or too cool, apparently she'll deign to accept Todd's warmth.

Animal therapy

I'm fascinated by the current research into animal therapy. That is: therapy for humans that is undertaken with the use of animals. Like cats and dogs (and llamas!) visiting nursing homes and hospitals.

It goes beyond that, too, with therapists using the animals sort of to distract young patients, get their guard down a bit, to open up to treatment. And there are programs for returning veterans with PTSD too, where shelter dogs are trained to help (or the veterans themselves do the training, which is apparently therapeutic too), and apparently the training is less intense and less breed-specific than for service dogs, so there are more (and less expensive) dogs available for the training.

Nice article here, from NPR: pet therapy.