Cat ownership

A day or so ago, my wife and I were sharing a laugh over an observation on social media that cats own us. It observed that a stray cat shows up at your door, and very shortly thereafter you will be buying cat chow and kitty litter.

But we have been manipulated just a bit further. This formerly stray, gopher-catching calico lives with us on her terms. She will disappear during the day, or be gone long into the evening visiting our neighbors. For several nights, we try to coax her inside before we go to bed without success. But in the middle of night, she will cry to be let in. Her doorman might be either one of our adult sons who live with us (she has identified their bedroom windows also) or wakes my wife or me. During December, it was enough for her to sleep on the living room couch, but in February, I waken around 2 AM to hear purring from the bottom of our bed. The cat is curled up and doesn’t mind sharing her bed with me. What is more unusual, is that she took up her position around the time that our son laid out a Christmas present blanket he had made for his mother. It bears almost a full-size image of our late dog, Dexter. I cannot say that the cat is purposely making herself at home on this blanket, but this was the jealous dog that annoyed her while she was hunting rodents in our yard and even had nipped her once when we were all sitting together on our patio last summer.

We joke that this cat is deliberately making herself at home now, making up for several winters she spent out in our garage since Dexter was not about to tolerate her in his house. With a cat now as a semi-permanent resident, I do find it amusing that each time I begin to browse the web for our next rescue, I am looking for dogs that are acclimated to cats as well as children. While our grandchildren spent some time around Dexter and Comet, and they are the litmus test for any rescue animal we may consider, any pet we adopt will have to pass a few additional interviews. This may be why the cat is sleeping close by at night. We are too preoccupied with her needs, but she is just using feline mind control to disabuse me of the idea of another pet.

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