Friday, July 29, 2005
Minding Gina's Cats
I enjoy being around cats. But what makes me a competent volunteer cat-sitter is that I actually mix & sit with them. It's far better to have someone looking after your pride of cats who is fond of the species. My first aim is simply not to freak them out by disrupting their home. I take seriously the primary catkeeper’s descriptions of their various personalities. It's important to know a cat's vulnerabilities, too; older cats may have poor eyesight or hearing, or parts of their bodies that cause them pain if touched.
However, I'm no sucker or sentimentalist. Much domestic cat behavior is recognizable in wild cats. Cats often interact without seeming to notice each other, & even cats with personal alliances hiss each other away on occasion. Young cats mostly practice hunting & protecting themselves, but sometimes they ask to quietly feel your protective body warmth & breathing. So I can try to behave a little like a cat. I enter the house calmly but not surreptitiously, giving the curious cats a moment to sort themselves out into those that greet me & those that get out of the way. My names for them (I know Gina's official names) are Queenie; Old Blondie & her pal Wink-eyed Blackie; Wee Gee, who stays in the background but sees everything; & a sociable little tiger, who I greet by picking up & giving a raspberry on its tummy. The cats understand what I'm doing. I turn on the lights & ceiling fan to show I'm staying awhile. Then I get a scoop of dry food & go outside to feed the one or two skittish semi-feral siblings that live in & around Gina's garage & lush backyard. They co-exist with a lot of birds. Back in the kitchen, I get out out the yummy much desired canned "dinners", quickly open & dump them into the bowls, & exit the area. Cats can be finicky about what they eat, but when they also accept dry food they're a lot less hung up than dogs about when they get the good stuff. I go into the living room, turn on the TV (satellite), & settle in on the couch. The cats work out their own system for who eats what when, it's none of my business. Then, one by one they walk slowly into the living room licking their chops. The little one usually gets frisky at this point. The others go sit at various windows & fall into complacent, satisfied states of consciousness, lasting up to an hour if they don't fall asleep. The second floor is an absolutely safe sanctuary for them - I don’t go there - & makes the steps a kind of tree they can sit in. Any cat looking to be scritched is welcome, but I do it while I'm watching a movie or ball game, & if I feel crowded I simply pick it up & put it on the floor; “It’s not about you personally,” I say. Gina’s cats have plenty of space, an entire house including a cool shadowy basement, they are sane indoor animals. I have nice place to hang out for awhile while Gina's at the shore. Do I stay with these cats longer than is really necessary? I am a sane animal, too. & Rio Bravo is a pretty long movie.
What I find most challenging about dogs - aside from the leash & pooperscooper - the high maintenance, complex routines & hierarchical relationships you have to work out quickly with them seems to come naturally to most lovers of canine breeds that aren’t inbred to the point of psychosis & physical deformity. I'm inclined to be too indulgent of dogs for the sake of fast acceptance. For the most pathetic mutants among them, the sad reductions of wolves & coyotes, I have only sympathy. But dog people sometimes have little patience for the more slowly paced lifestyles of cats - who can be at rest up to 20 hours out of 24 - & the unhurried approach one needs to take - which is poetic to my taste. .
In memory of "Muppet" - a British cat.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
However, I'm no sucker or sentimentalist. Much domestic cat behavior is recognizable in wild cats. Cats often interact without seeming to notice each other, & even cats with personal alliances hiss each other away on occasion. Young cats mostly practice hunting & protecting themselves, but sometimes they ask to quietly feel your protective body warmth & breathing. So I can try to behave a little like a cat. I enter the house calmly but not surreptitiously, giving the curious cats a moment to sort themselves out into those that greet me & those that get out of the way. My names for them (I know Gina's official names) are Queenie; Old Blondie & her pal Wink-eyed Blackie; Wee Gee, who stays in the background but sees everything; & a sociable little tiger, who I greet by picking up & giving a raspberry on its tummy. The cats understand what I'm doing. I turn on the lights & ceiling fan to show I'm staying awhile. Then I get a scoop of dry food & go outside to feed the one or two skittish semi-feral siblings that live in & around Gina's garage & lush backyard. They co-exist with a lot of birds. Back in the kitchen, I get out out the yummy much desired canned "dinners", quickly open & dump them into the bowls, & exit the area. Cats can be finicky about what they eat, but when they also accept dry food they're a lot less hung up than dogs about when they get the good stuff. I go into the living room, turn on the TV (satellite), & settle in on the couch. The cats work out their own system for who eats what when, it's none of my business. Then, one by one they walk slowly into the living room licking their chops. The little one usually gets frisky at this point. The others go sit at various windows & fall into complacent, satisfied states of consciousness, lasting up to an hour if they don't fall asleep. The second floor is an absolutely safe sanctuary for them - I don’t go there - & makes the steps a kind of tree they can sit in. Any cat looking to be scritched is welcome, but I do it while I'm watching a movie or ball game, & if I feel crowded I simply pick it up & put it on the floor; “It’s not about you personally,” I say. Gina’s cats have plenty of space, an entire house including a cool shadowy basement, they are sane indoor animals. I have nice place to hang out for awhile while Gina's at the shore. Do I stay with these cats longer than is really necessary? I am a sane animal, too. & Rio Bravo is a pretty long movie.
What I find most challenging about dogs - aside from the leash & pooperscooper - the high maintenance, complex routines & hierarchical relationships you have to work out quickly with them seems to come naturally to most lovers of canine breeds that aren’t inbred to the point of psychosis & physical deformity. I'm inclined to be too indulgent of dogs for the sake of fast acceptance. For the most pathetic mutants among them, the sad reductions of wolves & coyotes, I have only sympathy. But dog people sometimes have little patience for the more slowly paced lifestyles of cats - who can be at rest up to 20 hours out of 24 - & the unhurried approach one needs to take - which is poetic to my taste. .
In memory of "Muppet" - a British cat.
