Cat People

Cat People

  “How we behave towards cats here below, determines our status in Heaven” - Robert Heinlein.  Two men I greatly admire, Robert Heinlein and Ernest Hemmingway, were cat lovers. Hemmingway’s home on Key West has always been a cat sanctuary. In fact they are the sole inhabitants of it now. Heinlein once remarked that cats should be given full citizenship. And I don’t think he was joking. Cats have obtained an unusual status in human society. Dogs are said to be man’s best friend, and that may very well be true. But it is also true that man has become cat’s best friends in the same way. It is true that cats provoke varying degrees of responses in people. Some people look on them with suspicion and mistrust. Some see them as evil. I’ve even known people who are extremely afraid of cats. And then there are those like one of my brothers who hate them for no apparent reason. I don’t understand such adverse reactions. I suspect it has something to do with control issues. A dog is easily trainable and learns quickly who his master is. If he doesn’t, he’s sent to obedience school until he gets it. Cats are not easily trained to obey. In fact it’s pretty much a waste of time to even try. You can’t out-stubborn a cat. But cats are pretty good at training us. They will let you feed them and provide shelter, but they are quick to point out (via a gifted body of a dead mouse or bird left at your doorstep) that they don’t need you for either and are perfectly capable of making it on their own. They signal you when they’re ready for inter-species interaction and disdain any attempts at such when they are not. They train you the same way you would train a dog. Reward and punishment. You are rewarded with a little attention for good behavior and are punished for bad behavior by being ignored completely. If you persist in your bad behavior, punishment could quickly escalate to a more physical level. We humans learn fast, and they like that in us.

  My wife and I have three dogs and two cats that share our home with us. The dogs mostly stay outside during the day. The smallest of the three usually comes in at night because he has a job as foot warmer in the bed that he is very diligent about. The two cats lounge around the house all day and go out at night. Tabby Cat has been with my wife for about eight years now (he has seniority over me, and he’s always sure to point that out – so do the dogs. I’m the junior member of the pack.) We have another female cat that has only recently joined us. Ali Cat is her name (don’t look at me – I didn’t name either of them or they would be sporting something like Orson Wells and Dejah Thoris). Ali is only about six months old and was abandoned by some neighbors who moved out when she was only a few weeks old. She had to fight her way into the family, but she’s a brave soul and a tough one. She’s earned the respect of all the dogs and quickly became best buds with the smallest one. Tabby Cat, on the other hand, was a tough sell. It took him a little while, but he finally decided there was enough room in his kingdom for one more…besides she’s kinda cute.

  Tabby Cat is a real character. I didn’t much like him when I first came on the scene. He was not affectionate towards me at all. In fact I could see it in his eyes that I was looked upon as a temporary nuisance that he could easily get rid of with a mere flick of his tail if I wasn’t careful. Tabby is a big cat. And not at all graceful like the cats I’ve experienced in the past. He’s a klutz! I’ve often described him as a four-legged Dennis the Menace. He has this habit of picking a spot in the house that will become his favorite napping spot for about a week or so. Then he gets bored with that spot and picks another. The spot he picks could be an end table, a night stand, a book shelf, or the top of my chest of drawers. Anything that happens to be on the spot of the week gets pushed off to the floor. It doesn’t matter if it’s fragile or not, it’s going down. He’s broken many a vase, a couple of lamps, and a picture frame or two. Tabby Cat, like all cats, is a pretty good communicator. You just have to know the language. Once I settled in and, more importantly became the one primarily responsible for feeding the cats, Tabby warmed up to me. Now we’re best buds, or at least he lets me think we are as long as it suits him. Which means, I guess, that now I belong to him, and I can stay. I like dogs. They are loyal and protective of the ones they care about. Like I’ve said before, they have qualities that make them better people than we are sometimes. But I really like cats. Especially ornery old rascals like Tabby Cat who is what he is and could give a fig about what you think of him. It took us a while to get to know each other, but now that we have, we’ve both come to recognize and appreciate kindred spirits.