“Doggone it!” I yelled. “That cat used the litter box. Again!” Lonnie, my friend who was visiting from Texas, looked up from his book. “What?” “Paddy O’Cat just used the litter box.” “You don’t want him to use the litter box?” “No! I just scooped it. It was nice and clean!” “You want him to use the floor instead?” “NO!” “I’m not understanding the problem.” I came back into the dining room and reached for my nearly cold coffee. “He just came in,” I explained as patiently as possible. “He’s been outside in the yard for the last hour. He has the whole yard for a litter box, and he comes in and uses this one.” “You want him to poop in your flower bed?” “No! Not in the flower bed.” We looked together at the last of the fall flowers (this was a few months ago) and my herbs which were doing quite… Read More »
Please close the door behind you
As I start to slide the patio door closed, Paddy leaps out of the flower bed and dashes for the house. “Quick! Quick! Before she closes the door!” he runs pell-mell across the yard. “YES!” Just inches before the gap closes entirely, he dives through, skidding on the throw rug sliding to a stop against the dining room chair. He gives me that accusatory look and I say, “Paddy, you know I wouldn’t leave you outside.” But that’s not always been the case. Paddy — originally named Money because apparently he cost a lot of it — used to live across the street in a house with 8 other cats, two large dogs and a host of children. Sitting at my computer I could watch cats come and go through the front windows. It looked like a cat waterfall — three or four cats appearing in the window and then sliding down to the… Read More »
… A Little More About Cats
If you’re a cat person — or even a dog person — I am pretty sure that at some point you have said, “if they could just talk to us!” They do talk to us, of course, but it’s we who don’t understand. And we, of course, are the more intelligent species, yet we can’t learn a few simple words of Cat? or Dog? So how many words or phrases does your cat know? “Treat,” “Dinner,” “Outside,” “Where’s your mouse?” and no doubt several more. My cats each know several words, and yet I — the care-giver, tuna-winner and cat-butler, the one who knows how to open the sliding door as well as a can of cat food — I know not a single word of Cat. They can make their wishes known, of course, by sitting in front of the door and meowing, or standing by the food dish and giving me The Look. But if… Read More »
Do Cats See Angels?
Okay, this has nothing whatever to do with either Phyllis Diller (although she did have a cat) or wine (unless I had been drinking it, and I haven’t — although come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea). I have wondered for quite some time now, why my cat looks toward the ceiling and actually seems to be tracking something. Black Jack just jumped up on his perch by my computer — a pillow in a box on the bookcase — and suddenly looked up, watching intently for 30-40 seconds before snuggling down and closing his eyes. And it’s not just Black Jack. my previous cat, Minx, used to do the same thing. Minx would jump up on the bed, begin bathing and then suddenly look up as though something had caught her attention and stare unblinking for a minute or so before going back to her bath. The other cats… Read More »
Blackjack’s Very Bad Day
Okay, today’s news is supposed to be about Phyllis Diller. But it’s not. Yesterday morning I was flipping through the auction catalog again and thinking about what to write when I heard a heart-stopping cat scream! I raced outside and saw Smokey streaking toward the house and then over the wall from the neighbors, Blackjack’s head appeared. He seemed to be struggling, but managed to pull himself over the wall and make a run for the house. He looked very odd with his fur matted down, and as he ran, he left a trail of brown stuff behind him. I thought that he had literally had the cr*p scared out of him. When he got in the house, the poor little guy was so frightened he streaked through the kitchen, the dining room, into the living room, behind the furniture and finally down the hall to the bedroom where he jumped across… Read More »
