Egads. Now We’ve Received a Complaint From a Cat

We have received a complaint from a cat in England. Rita says she reckons you cannot trust a woman who writes about dogs, with hardly a mention of cats. 

That tortoiseshell cat has been a critic for years. Rita does it because she wants more from life than sleeping in the sun. I met her while visiting her humans. Rita pretends she doesn’t like me because it’s more interesting that way. It’s something I understand, being a contrarian myself. Mister says cats are anarchists. Proud of his vocabulary, he dogsplains that anarchists believe that society should have no leaders, laws, or police. In other words, cats are masters of chaos. An ocean away, Rita preens. 

Cats state their superiority by flipping dogs off with the tip of their tails. You’ve seen them do it. It’s that twitch right at the end. Worse, they sit in doorways and stop the world. Cats are superior to dogs, and dogs know it. Mister has never met Rita, which is totally fine with him.

I would like Rita to know that I have an indoor cat who does yoga with me. She was a feral teenager when we met. A ginger with a white belly. I coaxed her to the barn with food, hoping I could befriend her and that we might take a trip together. To the vet. Once she got close enough to touch, I could feel her kittens inside. Peach would like you to know it was her plan, not mine. Now that she owns a house, looking out the window satisfies her. She lives in the front half of the house, which is a better neighborhood. The reprobates and raconteurs, my dogs and I, live in the back half. Sometimes we visit Peach, but she glares at the dogs with contempt and boredom. No matter what Mister barks at her, she ignores him. Jolene watches this unfold with confusion. She’d like to poke that cat with her nose and get a contact-whiff. But she is equally confounded by Mister’s behavior, so she bounces on her front feet and keeps a safe distance. 

Mister says if this is a gripe fest, he would like to complain about Charles. We think that’s what he said his name was. He’s a feral cat that I have been working my whispering skills on for the last four years. Charles is the pale color of prairie grass. His camouflage might explain his survival on the fringe for so long. It isn’t enough that Charles has a shady rest with the horses. I leave cat food out in my barn, hoping that strays will stay for a warm, crunchy dessert. It’s working. I have more mice in the house than in the barn. I mentioned this to Peach, but she doesn’t do domestic work.

In winter, Charles nests in the tack room. I barged through the door one day and scared both of us witless. A quick look told me he’d been locked in for a while. Now, I warn him first and enter slowly. And yes, I gave him a door of his own, cracked a window just far enough and put a stool under it. I like to think I am wearing him down with my compassion. I also like to think that I am tall and thin.

Charles draws a hard line between himself and domestication, while frolicking at Mister’s expense. He knows two things. First, dogs are idiots. Second, tormenting dogs is excellent sport. Charles saunters near, knowing the dog fence is tall. Mister barks like a machine gun because he is safe behind the fence. The insult follows. Charles takes time digging a deep, wide hole. He surveys it thoughtfully. Jolene watches thoughtfully. Mister is still screaming. Then Charles digs a bit more. When the hole is perfect, he turns his back to Mister, and if that isn’t insult enough, he poops. Shamelessly. Mister might learn to tolerate him, but what happens next makes that impossible. Charles builds a monument to his poop. There are several pyramids, eight inches tall and fifteen inches across, down the fence-line. Mister says the photo doesn’t do them justice. 

Mister would like you to know it’s humiliating. He is prone to overthinking, weighing his need to express his emotions with how much barking makes him hungry. Jolene thinks she would really like a poke-sniff of this big boy. 

The problem is that cats delight in Mister’s anxiety. Then he develops anxiety about his anxiety. There is a certain cat in Texas who sat on our truck hood and stared at him inside the trailer. Mister could barely breathe. Then that hairless cat who strolled past us on a leash at a campground still haunts him. It’s just not right. Mister says cats should abide by the laws like dogs do. It infuriates him that cats don’t believe in laws. Now Jolene thinks she wants to be a cat.

In a moment rare to humans, Mister takes full responsibility. He raises a paw and admits his guilt. He doesn’t trust cats. He barks out his confession. If only they had given him a calming signal. A tail wag, a full-body shake. But no. In stillness, they stare back; they mock him. Mister says cats think they are the king of beasts. I have to interrupt his rant here to remind him that big or small, cats are just that.

Mister looks me square in the eye and lets out a deep woof. What is he supposed to do? Cats kill birds and varmints, and he isn’t sure about dogs of a certain height. He admits barking is a ruse to sound bigger and braver, but it’s a lie. He’s reserved. Not one to stand out. He’s a literary dog, for crying out loud. 

Mister has been staring at my bookcase for the last hour. That’s where that mouse lives, and somebody has to do it. He was a bachelor farmer before Jolene came. An old-fashioned sort, wearing his heart on his sleeve where any cat can take a swipe at it. Now Jolene has things moving so fast, he doesn’t know who he is. He doesn’t approve of his own behavior. But he would still like some sympathy. I could stroke his head, but he hates that. 

Mister formed his opinion about cats long before coming here, and boy howdy, I know change is hard. Better to accept him without judgment and encourage him to feel good about himself. Change happens in its own time. Just like horses, dogs aren’t problems to be solved. He doesn’t need to be Mister All-Around Perfect-Dog. Jolene says, no, that’s me. 

So Rita, should I ask him to apologize to cats who never have an existential dilemma about where they belong in the universe? It’s not like it would make a whisker of a difference to any cat I know. You might agree with Charles, who says a tiger doesn’t lose sleep over the opinions of sheep. Jolene says, did someone mention sheep?

My previous cats and dogs were always the kind who slept around, if you know what I mean. Maybe it was a different time. Now I am trying to negotiate a truce on the middle ground. “Can’t we all just get along?” I cajole, my age showing like a thick elastic bra strap. Jolene wants one-on-one time with a cat, but Mister says no. He can’t give in to cats now. It’s not safe. They might wait in the shadows.

My four-legged family is heckling me. Calling me an old hippie, a tree-hugging peacenik, a wilted flower child. It’s anarchy. The cats narrow their eyes with pleasure. Right now, these cats and dogs are all young enough to like the drama. Young enough to think peace is boring. It’s when the elders don’t know better that the world is in trouble.

To be continued…

…

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