Growing up in western Montana, I was never allowed to have a dog. My father was a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service whose route included our neighborhood. The last thing he wanted to deal with after a long day of walking and coping with snarling canines was a yappy mutt at home.
So we had cats. The memory that's seared into my mind of our first cat Bootsie, a black female with white markings, was watching her fall out behind our car. I was in the back end of our green Rambler station wagon watching through the back window as my mother started driving us to our swimming lessons. Unbeknownst to us, Bootsie had crawled up into the car engine. When my mother drove off, Bootsie emerged. She did not survive the incident.
Our next cat, Patty, a female calico, fared better. She lived with our family for many years and died of natural causes at the age of 17. While we were raising Patty, we also had a mixed menagerie. My middle sister, three years my senior, had a soft spot for animals. Even though we lived in a small city, she was active in 4-H. Her first serious boyfriend allowed her to keep her horse at his place outside town and gave her the next two exotic pets to grace our household: Chipper, a banty hen, and Flipper, a gray rabbit. Both had a proclivity to escape their cages.
Chipper was a social bird. When she wasn't roosting in a tree, she would wander our neighborhood. Our neighbor across the street had a habit of keeping her front door open during the summer (it's a lot more temperate in Montana during summers than in Arkansas). One afternoon, Chipper walked in through the neighbor's front door. Our neighbor was not thrilled. We were quickly dispatched to retrieve Chipper.
When we went on a multi-week vacation later that summer, friends on the outskirts of town agreed to keep an eye on Chipper in their chicken coop. While hanging out in the roost, Chipper became pregnant and hatched a brood of chicks that she watched over closely. One night, a hungry skunk got into the chicken coop. Despite Chipper's valiant efforts to save her chicks, the skunk got both them and her.
In 1980 I moved to Little Rock and became acquainted with my future wife, a fellow cat fancier. She owned a svelte black female cat named Nitty after gangster Frank Nitty. The cat was an excellent hunter, ill-tempered at times like her namesake, and extremely protective of the territory around our garage apartment. She also lived a long life before my wife accidentally backed over her. We later had another black cat named Tombo, but he disappeared over Halloween one year and we never saw him again.
After Tombo, we decided to adopt Josephine and Belle, two black farm cat sisters. Jo, the runt of the litter, was trim and athletic. Belle was chunkier and less active. We still have both.
Several years ago while our kids were in middle school, we added a new cat to our household. Puff, a Turkish Van, showed up on our doorstep on a cold and rainy fall night. He was running with a nasty-looking black tomcat. My wife had no interest in the tomcat, but she wanted to adopt Puff. So we did.
Puff is unlike any other cat I have ever seen. His fur is the consistency of cashmere, snow white with dabs of orange-red coloring on the top of his head and his ears, an orange-red ringtail and a spot of the same color on his right shoulder. He also has the piebald gene, which gives cats odd eye colors. In his case, one eye is blue and the other green.
He has what's known as a "cobby" body. His shoulders are broader than those of American shorthairs and he's almost like a dog. He barks sometimes, as opposed to mewing and howling like the other cats. He follows me around the house and trots at times. I have often thought that if we had adopted him as a kitten, I might have been able to train him to walk with a leash.
It took Puff a while to become acclimated. Belle never liked Puff much and still does not to this day. Jo initially tolerated him, but as the years went by Jo and Puff became friends and sleeping partners.
A few years ago, Puff was in our yard when he was attacked by a roaming feral tomcat. Puff has never had an aggressive bone in his body, so he ended up on the short end of the fight. We treated him for his wounds and he seemed to be recovering OK. However, one day he began snarling and hissing at us and foaming at the mouth. We immediately took him to the vet.
Puff had developed an abscess that had become infected. The next week was nip and tuck for him. The vet kept him hospitalized and initially told us he might have rabies. Fortunately, the rabies test was negative. But his health continued to decline and the vet said he might die. Somehow, Puff was able to trade in some of his nine lives and survive.
After he was released from the vet's care, we nursed Puff back to health. A few months later, he started experiencing seizures. He was prescribed a daily dose of phenobarbital. I figured out a way to grind up his pill and mix it with some soft food. Most days he would take it. Some days he would not.
Puff is now nearly 13, while Jo and Belle are a couple of years older. As Puff and his adopted sisters age, I've learned some things about older cats that apply to aging humans as well. Their energy levels are not what they used to be; they lie around and sleep a lot, and they have to be administered medications at times.
I've also noticed an emerging dynamic between Jo and Puff that I would consider to almost be unconditional love if I were observing it in humans. They spend a lot of their waking and sleeping times together. They groom one another. The coolest thing, though, is when they sleep side by side in circles and Jo has her head up and lower body down and Puff has his head down and his lower body up--kind of like the yin and yang. It's amazing what your pets can teach you.
------------v------------
Jeff Thatcher is a professional communicator and longtime resident of Little Rock.
Editorial on 03/05/2015