One of Women24's blogs recently posted on the fact that, while children are like dogs, teenagers are like cats.

This may be a tired homily to those of you who have already got teenagers looking sullenly at you from behind hooded eyes and sighing theatrically before stalking off, but given how I am still squarely among bouncy, exuberant little people, I thought the paired similes were too, too fantastic.

My appreciation was quickly underscored by some practical experience. Last month, we inherited a cat from our friend Georgia. Georgia is an arrestingly beautiful, award-winning designer who lives in a magazine-showcased inner city loft apartment and drives a convertible sports car. (More importantly, she is both kind and fabulous... but I needed to set the scene.)

As she is rarely home, she felt she was neglecting her cat Perry so she asked if we could take her in – as our suburban house veritably creaks at the floorboards with people at home. (Indeed, my younger brother Sean came to spend a night in February 2007. He left four days ago. I don't think we'll ever get that indent out of the couch. But on the upside, the sons' poker skills have improved immeasurably.) And so it came to pass that Perry, in her very tasteful cat carrier (followed by her designer scratching post, bowls and toys) joined our family.

Now, we've always been dog people. Milo the Labrador and Odie Rocketboots the Not-quite-Labrador (her failure to grow bigger than a spaniel has cast aspersions on her bloodline) are loud, boisterous, bowl-you-over dogs... very much in keeping with our loud, boisterous, bowl-you-over sons.

We spend a great deal of time running and splashing about with our boisterous dogs. We also spend a lot of time wiping dog saliva off ourselves and apologising profusely whilst wiping dog saliva off others. People wince whenever they get into my car, open windows quickly and mutter about Eau de Wet Dog.

And I always thought that if we replaced our hypnotisingly lazy Bermuda, who died of old age curled up under the nectarine tree four years ago ("How do you know she's dead?" "She's been rained on."), we'd get another Garfield-type cat. A fat lump of feline folds to be carted from room to room tucked under the arm of a child and under no circumstances to be allowed within 20 meters of a roast chicken. You know the type of cat I mean. You've probably got one.

Perry is not that cat. I didn't know it was possible to describe a cat as a long drink of water until I met her, actually. She's tiny but elegantly proportioned, slinky yet seductive... exactly the kind of cat you'd expect to find curled up between Georgia's marvellously musty 1st editions and her vintage record player, listening to Josephine Baker.

Imagine her surprise when she found herself set starkly between a box of peanut butter-dappled dinosaur transformers and a Fisher Price tape deck playing a song which repeatedly insists, "I am animal crackers; a human zoo!"

Poor baby. I haven't seen a look of such desperate yet resigned fortitude since Maria von Trapp's Mother Superior gazed out at that mountain.

It's been a month now and Perry and her regal ways have had a profound effect on our family. For one thing, no one swears in front of her. There's been a lot more bed making; her Perriness doesn't like to curl up on an unmade bed.

The boys are also spending more time reading on their carefully made beds, clearly in the secret hope that Perry will favour the most ardent reader with her side-snuggle attentions.

Perry has also learnt a few tricks of her own. If she naps under the lavender bush, she not only gets a calming aromatherapy session, but she can avoid the clamouring attention of the sons, who the bee-laden lavender to be The Bush of Evil.

She's also learnt that it is entirely impossible to distract the Lab and not-quite Lab if they are playing a game of "Goose the Arriving Guest". (Never visit me. Seriously.)

Obviously, it only took a week of having Perry around 'til I was smitten. I even bought her a frighteningly expensive, zippy little collar, as she clearly cares more about fashion than the rest of us put together.

I think it's taken Perry a little longer, but she deigned to eat popcorn from Ben's hand the other day... so we think we've turned a corner.

Mostly though, I've realised that while cats are rarely kind to, or interested in, humans... they have a wildly cool way of getting us to jump to it. And as I see it, I need all the teenager training I can get.

This column was originally published in Child Magazine.