I truly believe that our pets choose us, rather than the other way around. Sometimes we are chosen because that particular dog or cat is a crafty sort, detecting the presence of a “soft touch”, those of us who have “incredible sucker for our dumb chums” writ in invisible letters across our foreheads. We are singled out of a pack of humans as an acceptably reliable source of kibble, shelter and affection which any dog or cat considers its’ rightful due. They decide “Well, that one will do very nicely”, and move in.
But at least as often, it is an instant, passionate affection, motivating an animal to attach itself to our household or person, and that is what has happened to Cpl. Blondie and the white cat, Sammy From Across The Road. Sammy is actually not exactly white, more of an ivory color with faintly orangish points and watery, severely crossed blue eyes. He looks as if he were a white cat washed with insufficient bleach, or an orange cat washed with entirely too much. He was found as a tiny kitten a couple of years ago, by the neighbor in the rental house across the street, and bottle-fed. By curious coincidence it was the previous tenants of that very house whose un-neutered and bounteously fertile queen provided me with Henry VIII, Morgie, Little Arthur, and the sadly deceased Bad Nimue-cat. These neighbors are just as soft about animals; besides Sammy and one or two other cats, they also gave house-room to a pack of half a dozen or eight yappy, excitable teacup Chihuahuas— all them merged together would barely make a fraction of a proper sized dog, although they would produce enough noise for a good many of them.
This was not a situation that any self-respecting cat could tolerate for long, so Sammy soon began hanging out in the Garden of Cats, a peaceful, gentlemanly retreat for a peaceful, gentlemanly sort of cat, who only wished to snooze on sun-warmed stones and watch the birds at the feeder, without being pestered by a pack of yappy, noisy, teasing little rat-dogs. Sammy and the senior clubman, Bubbah From Down The Road exchanged the usual cat-rudenesses (hissing and spitting) until I bought another cat dish, so they didn’t have to share. They got along, rather grumpily, after that, taking very little notice of the junior member, Parfait, who waits patiently until his bettors are finished, until Cpl. Blondie was home for Christmas. And Sammy fell hopelessly, haplessly, deeply in love, much to his owners’ surprise.
“He isn’t really all that good with people, usually, “ they said in baffled surprise, but his adoration was open and demonstrative. He was constantly twining around her ankles, or curled in her lap, purring and blinking his bleary blue eyes at her in rapt adoration. After she went back to Cherry Point, he returned loyally every day for a week or so, and then he didn’t show up at all… and my neighbor Judy told me he had been struck by a car while crossing the road, struck a glancing but not fatal blow. I hated to tell my daughter this, and Judy and I sincerely hoped that after this, his owners would keep him inside for his own safety. Alas, they did not: when Sammy ventured into his old haunts in my garden again, he was thinner, and held one front leg close up against his body, the paw curled uselessly, but hopping easily on three legs nonetheless. He flopped down onto a sunny patch of the stone path, purring with as much enthusiasm and affection as ever. I did take this up with his owners— they said he yowled and clawed at the door so much, they had to let him out. Well, were I stuck in the house with all those little dogs, I think I’d be yowling and clawing at the door myself… but still. Judy and I worried, nonetheless.
A couple of weeks ago there was a for-sale sign on the front lawn of the house across the road— Sammy’s owners were moving to another house in the neighborhood, lock, stock barrel and yappy little dogs. But Cpl. Blondie asked; would they take Sammy? Perhaps they would just leave him to us— would I ask, at least?
They didn’t want to at first, but Sammy made his preference quite plain. He was missing for three days, they said indignantly, the three days where they were moving to the new house, and I said,
“He was over at my house that whole time. If you ever can’t find him, look in my yard first.”
The husband didn’t care all too much; he was agreeable to leaving Sammy where Sammy obviously wanted to be. The wife, though— she was in two minds. She came to the house to get him, the day after they were in their new place, three blocks away, trailing two of the little dogs on leashes. She sent a neighbor boy to ring the bell and ask for Sammy. I carried him around from the back, and made one last plea.
“He’s so fond of the garden, and my daughter loves him— if you take him away to the new house, I’m afraid he’ll be killed trying to get back, unless you keep him in the house all the time.” And I promised that Blondie would always take care of him, and she relented— the dogs were yipping without pause, and it was late in the day. I carried Sammy back, and closed the gate on the outside—so full of dogs and noise and busy streets, and put him down, safe in the quiet garden that he loves so much.
Blondie, sweetie, you are “with cat”… and he’s waiting for you, in the garden.
(Note: Actually, after a through check-out by the vet, he is in the house now. He sleeps in the foot of her bed, and doesn’t have all that much to do with the other cats. They are curious, but fairly polite. The veterinarian thinks he must have some Siamese ancestry— the crossed blue eyes and the raucous yowl are very, very Siamese. So, five cats… but I hold to my self-respect by insisting that only four are mine— Sammy is my daughters’, and when she has her own place, Sammy will go with her. I think he is adjusting to the indoors thing; he would like to go out… but he is not insisting on it very strongly at all)
It amazes me when people think that they OWN cats. They pick us.
We had one cat, a smokey grey persian whom we called Pixel. She disappeared the day we moved into our house after we married. I mean she was GONE. Went back to Wife and Daughter’s old trailer a couple times looking for her.
About a year later, Beautiful Wife and I were walking down a street about a block away from our house, there sat Pixel, all grown up, looking at us with her head cocked out of a first floor window of someone else’s house. I wouldn’t have dreamed of knocking on that door and demanding “my” cat back.
They either bond with you or they don’t.
Comment by Timmer — 20050904 @ 1617
There was a Sammy the Siames who lived across from me in one of my many San Antonio apartments - actually, his apartment was diagonal from mine. If I left my door open while carrying in groceries, he would wander in and check things out. If I left my car windows rolled down (as I often did, in those days - it was an old, old car), he would climb inside and sleep there. I think he sprayed inside there, at one point - it could be rather pungent on warm days, for awhile.
At any rate, one time Sammy disappeared for several days. I saw his people, and asked them where he was. It seems he had been up at A&M, in the hospital, but he was home now. They had found him lying against the building with his head bashed in. The vet said someone had done it deliberately.
They let me come in to see him He remembered me, and licked my hand, but he was only a shadow of his old self. His back legs barely worked, but one day the next week he was outside, dragging himself towards my door, wanting to come inside and visit.
They were going to take him back to A&M for more tests, or maybe more operations, I’m not sure which. It’s been almost 15 years ago, now, since I lived there, so I’m sure that time has taken its toll on my feline friend. I hadn’t thought of him in years, but your post brought him back to life in my memory. Thank you.
Comment by AProudVeteran — 20050904 @ 1746
I don’t know about cats, I can’t live with my allergies. So naturally they like to snuggle up against me. However I know my dog picked me.
I had been going to the local shelter for weeks looking, and then one day I walked in there and all the dogs in there were barking up a storm. Except one seven month old blue healer mix named Candy who came up and just sat quietly up against the kennel door wagging her tail looking up with an expression that said where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you.
Since then Candy has been a real sweetheart who loves everyone she meets, even cats. Her charming ways wins just about everybody over and is only dog I’ve ever seen that the neighborhood kids would ask is she could come out and play.
That was getting a little off the topic of cats, but I just thought that I’d mention that dogs can pick their people too.
Comment by Andrew V. — 20050905 @ 0037
You’re totally correct, Andrew. Of my 3 dogs, two of them selected me, one of them being very obvious about it.
Comment by AProudVeteran — 20050905 @ 1717
I didn’t even mention the rottweiler mix my parents adopted after he followed my sister home from school one day. Or the border collie my parents took in after my sister found him on her front porch on a rainy day.
Lost dogs just seem to pick my family.
Comment by Andrew V. — 20050905 @ 2209
When I went to get my first two cats, I wanted a short hair grey and my girlfriend wanted a longhaired orange cat preferably brothers. I thought I was in for some prolonged search but the first place i walked into, right in front, there were two tiny kittens one grey and one orange sitting right next to each other. It turned out that they were not from the same litter but are only 3 days apart in age and were both the runts of their respective litters. They have been around for three years now and still play and groom together. Bruno and Romeo but usually just called The Brothers.
Comment by chaz — 20050906 @ 0720
She was just a goddamned dog. I was running in one of those great Carolina thunderstorms ten years ago. I had just retired from the Marines and was a little lost myself. This dog, skin and bones wet, bedraggled, shivering was in this open field near the road. As I ran along, she trotted up toward me tail wagging. I stopped and called to her and she approached to just out of reach. No collar, it was a country road, probably abandoned, hungry and frightened, but the tail still wagged. I turned and started to walk back toward the house, and when I looked back, she was there, just out of reach. I started to trot and she stayed right with me and closed to just at my heels. Damned dog.
We didn’t have dog food so we fed her bread and milk. For the first three days, she lived under the workbench in the garage, refusing to come out. We weren’t going to keep a dog; we were just too busy in our lives, two new careers, a lot of travel, etc. We put up posters, took her to a vet, bought dog food; we didn’t get her a bowl, she wouldn’t be with us that long. Once the owners claimed her, they would appreciate what we had done for their damned dog.
Then I found myself hoping she was abandoned, secret prayers asking for a way to fit her in to our lives. They were answered, those prayers. Through career changes, damned near getting a divorce, the teenage years of a daughter with all the willfulness of her father, through nearly losing that child on a hard corner on a country road late one night, through all of the things life throws at you there was that damned dog.
You could sit bitter and frustrated, angry or sad and she would plop down beside you and just lean in to you, or roll on to her side, raise a paw and silently demand a belly rub. All of it would fall away for those few moments. She grew from a very skinny thirty-five pounds to be a full ninety at the end. She was fit even as she got older and four days ago could still charge off the back porch and chase the squirrel off the bird feeder. If the neighborhood children were playing in the cul-de-sac and an unknown car pulled in she would raise holy hell, UPS vans were the most hated. Children who didn’t know Cyndy’s or my name knew hers. Tall as or taller than many of the children around they still wanted to pet her or hang from her neck, and patiently she allowed them. Everyone liked to be around that damned dog.
If you put a cup of coffee down, she would stick her nose right into it. We only fed her from her bowl and made her sit for her biscuits, but she would camp out on the kitchen floor when we prepared a meal hoping for an accident of some sort. On occasion, her patience was rewarded. Food never lasted three or four minutes in her bowl and if you had forgot to feed her she would remind you with a single sharp bark. She would always be afraid of thunder, coming to my or Cyndy’s side whenever it came. We took her to get her haircut about twice a year. When we went to pick her up the first time the woman who groomed her told us, it was the first time she had cried cutting an animal’s hair. She said, “As I was beginning to cut her hair, she leaned into me with such a heavy and patient sigh that I just cried and cried.” She had that effect on you sometimes, who could imagine that you could find grace in a damned dog.
She had survived a bout of Cushing’s disease nearly two years ago, but we knew it would it would come back, it always does. A month ago, we confirmed the now familiar symptoms with the vet. Four days ago, she quit eating and drinking as she threw up every time she tried. After the second day, we took her to the vet again. They gave us some medicine for some intestinal swelling that was causing her discomfort, and something to help with the nausea, and we planned to take her back today to be put to sleep. However, yesterday she was able to get up, and when I went to the biscuit drawer she came over to get one. She didn’t eat it. She did walk over and drink from her water bowl though, something she hadn’t done for three or four days. We had been giving her ice cubes to help her up to that point. I walked her outside to the back yard. She rolled for a moment in the grass as she did every day and I knew that this was the best day she was going to have. She walked the fence line, most of the way, on her daily patrol, but cut across where the yard slopes in toward the porch. She knew the slope in the corner coming up to the porch would be too tough for her.
I have seen family members die, and there always seemed to be a rally day the day before they passed. Yesterday was her rally day; it was the best day she would have. At 1:15, I connected the leash to her collar and walked her out through the side gate, in to the field next to the house. She loved her walks, still pulling on the leash hurrying me along even on last Sunday’s walk. This time she walked beside me and instead of a mile we just walked a few meters in the grass and weeds and then over to the car. I gave her favorite treat. A bone filled with peanut butter. At about 1:45 we sat on the floor of the examination room, I cradled her head whispering those stupid things we say to our animals when the vet gave her the shot. Just as gently as she had lived this life with us she went to sleep, in between breaths she left us.
I know, I know, she was just a goddamned dog.
Caper, August 1995 - 21 July 2005
Comment by Dan Ratcliffe — 20050907 @ 0857