I spent the last two days looking after my rather sick & miserable mother, when I did get back home, I totally expected the cat not to give a hoot about my return.
Justified, she was sitting on a camping chair in the back yard beside one of the orange trees, enjoying the secluded sunshine. She came inside three hours later to complain about her dry food not being ideal.
I shoved it back into its storage tin, mixed it around loudly and scooped some back out. Now, at 10:30 pm, she's smooching up to me on the bed.
Dogs have owners, cats have staff.