Cats and Dogs

I've been lying to myself.

Well, maybe not lying. Deluding, certainly.

If someone had asked me: 'Which are you, a cat person or a dog person?' I would have chosen dog.

I'm a dog person. Of course I am. When I was a kid, the highlight of my weekend was watching 'Lassie' on Sundays. One of my first picture books was, and I'm not making this up, the AKC dog breeders' guide. I could tell the cockers from the springers, the corgis from the shelties. I'm telling you, I really had my shih tzu together.

The only reason we didn't actually have a dog was because my brother was allergic.

It didn't matter allergic to what, he was allergic. To everything. Especially fur. In all its variations. Real fur, fake fur, fir trees, furniture polish...if it had the phoneme 'fur' in it, he was allergic.

So it was a big surprise to me last night when I realized that over the course of my life, I've only had two dogs, and I only had them for a little over two years combined.

On the other hand,I have had six cats, and I've had them for the last twenty-seven years.

It started out with two: Sam and Scarface. They were littermates, Sam was a big orange Tom, and Scarface was a female tortoiseshell, who had a white stripe running diagonally across her snout--hence the name. I got them when I was a senior in high school. I convinced my mother they would be the best way to control the chipmunks who were living large on our property, and beginning to make bold forays into our garage and house.

My mother, who said she didn't want them, said the following: "They can't come in the house. I'll put a box in the garage for them, and that will be it. Okay, they can come in the house, but just the family room and the basement, that's it. And the kitchen. They can be in the living room, but not the dining room. Okay, they can be anyplace downstairs, but not on the furniture. Except the couch in the family room. Or the recliner. I'll put a sheet on the good furniture, but they're not allowed upstairs. Unless I'm upstairs with them. But not on the beds. Except my bed."

It took a little longer than that, but not much. In the end, when I went to get an apartment, I couldn't take them with me. Not only that, but it turned out that I had new relatives. My mother never told me to feed the cats. She'd look at Sam or Scarf (her abbreviation of what I now freely admit was possibly the Worst Cat Name Ever), and say 'Tell your brother to feed you.'

At least she didn't make me include them in my wedding.

They were pretty amazing cats, though. One time I saw them work a dog off our property. We had about a half-acre lot, with lots of trees. A lab-shepard mutt came sniffing through one afternoon, and Sam, who was quite large for a cat, came running up to it, hissing, his fur puffed out, making him even larger. The dog stood there nose-to-nose with him, growling. Out of nowhere, Scarf streaked by, swiped the dog in the ass, and ran up a tree. The dog turned and chased Scarf to the tree. Sam chased the dog and started hissing again. The dog turned around to face him, and Scarf climbed down from the tree, swipes his ass again and runs up the next tree, and the process repeated itself, until the dog gave up and ran away.

My cats now don't do yardwork, although Wendy, who's a tortoiseshell cat just like Scarf, is one hell of a mouser. This house had been vacant for two years when we moved into it. It had a few mice. For about ten minutes. Even at seventeen, she's ruthless. And when they're gone, she acts like they were never even here. All she cares about is being brushed. Being brushed is the thing she loves more than anything in the world. It's also the thing she hates more than anything in the world. And you never know which way it will go.

And Popper (who was named by my second son in honor of his favorite book, so don't blame me) is a very rare breed, indeed: the American chrono-cat. He has the uncanny ability to wake me up to feed him exactly one-half hour before my alarm is to go off--regardless of what time I've set.

Listen to me--prattling on about my cats. After all, I'm a dog person. I only had cats because I don't have room for dogs.

So why six of them? Why the multiples of cats? Portia, and Abby, and Wendy and Popper?

And why tortoishell cats? I have never, in twenty-seven years not had at least one tortoiseshell cat (actually, I called them brindle for the longest time, until I was told that, no, brindle is what you call a dog. Cats are tortoiseshell).

Who knows? I guess it's because I'm a cat person.

Yeharr