Dogs->Cats->Dogs

While young children are dogs ... 
loyal and affectionate ...
teenagers are cats.

It's so easy to be a dog owner. You feed it, train it, boss it 

around. It puts its head on your knee and gazes at you as if 

you were a Rembrandt painting. It bounds indoors with 

enthusiasm when you call it.

Then around age 13, your adoring little puppy turns into a big

 old cat.When you tell it to come inside, it looks amazed, as if 

wondering who died and made you emperor. Instead of 

dogging your doorstep, it disappears. You won't see it again

 until it gets hungry ... then it pauses on its sprint through the

 kitchen long enough to turn its nose up at whatever you're 

serving. When you reach out to ruffle its head, in that old 

affectionate gesture, it twists away from you then gives you a 

blank stare, as if trying to remember where it has seen you 

before.You, not realizing that the dog is now a cat, think 

something must be desperately wrong with it. It seems so 

antisocial, so distant, sort of depressed. It won't go on family 

outings. Since you're the one who raised  it, taught it to fetch and 

stay and sit on command, you assume that you 

did something wrong. Flooded with guilt and fear, you 

redouble your efforts to make your pet behave.

Only now you're dealing with a cat, so everything that worked 

before now produces the opposite of the desired result. Call it

and it runs away. Tell it to sit and it jumps on the counter. The

 more you go toward it, wringing your hands, the more it moves 

Instead of continuing to act like a dog owner, you must learn to behave 

like a cat owner. 

Put a dish of food near the door and let it come to you. But remember 

that a cat needs your help and your affection too. Sit still and it will 

come, seeking that warm, comforting lap it has not entirely forgotten. 

Be there to open the door for it.One day your grown-up child will walk 

into the kitchen, give you a big kiss and say,

"You've been on your feet all day. 

Let me get those dishes for you."

 Then you'll realize your cat is a dog again!