My Very Good, Very Bad Cat

by Amy Newmark

  In my heart, however, I think I already knew which one was the right cat.

  Portia was quiet. She watched us with partially closed eyes, as if she had already staked her claim.

  “Take your time,” her expression seemed to say. “In the end, I know it’s going to be me.”

  As I neared her cage, one paw extended. There was no desperation, no ulterior motive, only a gesture that seemed to say, “Hello, at last.”

  That appendage quickly retracted when the silver Tabby housed below reached up and swatted her. Portia pulled back, giving me what looked like a hurt expression while still relaying that she knew she was “The One.”

  “Aw, that was sad,” my husband said.

  “I know!” I exclaimed. “You should pick her up and make her feel better.”

  Portia slid into his arms. As he pulled her close to his chest, she maneuvered so that her belly was exposed. Craning her neck, she touched her nose to his.

  My husband was smitten. We were bringing home a cat that day.

  After a day or two of settling in, Portia became a sort of small and fluffy nanny to my toddler. She would travel from room to room with us during the day, usually staying closest to my son. She wanted to sit where he sat, look out the windows from which he peered, and make valiant attempts to share (steal) whatever he was eating. At night, she would sprawl onto his lap during story time. We dubbed her “Guardian Kitten” for the way she always wanted to be where he was, watching over him as if he were her own.

  Then, one day, she saved his life.

  I was raking leaves while my child delighted in disturbing the piles. Portia was dozing on the porch, the tip of her tail periodically twitching, and her ears sometimes shifting toward the sound of our voices. Aside from these, she seemed gone to the world, lost in the lazy, dreamy repose that is best achieved on a fall day that is closer to the end of summer than the beginning of winter.

  From down the street, a frantic voice cried, “No! Come back here!”

  The phrase was repeated and the volume increased as the speaker drew closer. The Golden Retriever reached my property first.

  It wasn’t a bad dog. In the split second that it reached and then leaped over the low fence surrounding the front yard, I ascertained that it was a young one, and not well-trained. It veered toward my son with boundless energy and body language that expressed that it wanted to play.

  “Puppy!” my son exclaimed, spreading his arms apart in a welcoming gesture. Unlike me, he was oblivious to the fact that this dog would, at the very least, knock him down with its uncontained enthusiasm.

  And I wasn’t going to be able to close the space between us in time.

  A demonic scream erupted behind me, as Portia flew from the porch in a blur of brown and black stripes, landing between the dog and child. Compared to the fully grown dog, Portia was tiny, but her outrage overcompensated for that. Every hair on her body was raised. Her back was arched and her lips were drawn back to reveal sharp teeth.

  She yowled again, claws extended as one paw exploded outward and struck the dog’s nose. It yelped and took a step back. Once more she closed the gap, claws ready to slice. Hissing, growling, and striking, she drove the Retriever out of the yard. It gave me time to step in front of my child and contemplate how to protect both him and Portia should the dog retaliate.

  It didn’t. The owners arrived and apologized profusely while taking hold of their errant pet’s collar before returning home. Portia watched with disdainful eyes until they rounded another corner and disappeared. With a bored glance in my direction, she returned to napping on the porch.

  I still think often and fondly of the Guardian Kitten. Her certainty toward us and the seamless way she became a part of our family encouraged me to feel as if there is a kind of destiny to this existence. She was definitely beyond compare.

  ~Ligaya Flor

  Who Rescued Whom?

  Fun fact: A cat can rotate its ears one hundred and eighty degrees.

  I found Tiger and his sister Tigger on the highway in front of my home one summer afternoon. They were about six weeks old and scared. I brought them in with no intention of keeping them. I had a cat who didn’t get along with other cats and had just turned eighteen. He was also in end stage kidney failure, and I had resolved that I would have no more feline companions. It hurt too much to lose them when it was their time to go.

  The kittens endeared themselves to my older cat, Quackers. More than once I would come home from work to see the three of them curled up sleeping on my bed.

  After a couple of months Quackers succumbed to his disease and passed on. I bought my first home and was busily moving boxes and furniture. I was single and so with working full-time, unpacking became a slow luxury. As a result, I found myself sleeping on the couch since I had not found time to set up my bed.

  One night, around two a.m., Tiger came bounding in and jumped on my chest. He began pawing my face, which he had never done before. I placed him back on the carpeting and rolled over. I was too tired to play. But he was relentless and repeated his earlier actions. This time he added a growl sound to his frantic motions. When I finally sat up, he ran to the kitchen. Thinking that maybe he wanted a treat, I decided to give him one if it would allow me another couple of hours sleep.

  I made my way to the kitchen and was surprised to see him sitting in front of the back door. Instead of heading to his bowl or the treat cupboard, he placed himself there like a soldier on duty. When he saw I was near, he began to meow louder than before and then paw at the door. Since he was an indoor cat, I couldn’t figure out his actions. Then I saw it. The doorknob was moving. Someone was trying to get in.

  I immediately turned on the lights and dialed 911. Unfortunately, by the time the police arrived, the intruder had fled. I would later find out that there had been a series of break-ins in the area.

  Needless to say, Tiger and Tigger both got treats galore that morning!

  So while I took in two helpless kittens just a few months before, I lay the question before you: Who really saved whom?

  ~Pastor Wanda Christy-Shaner

  The Guardian

  Fun fact: The blue-eyed Siamese cat is one of the oldest breeds, treasured members of the Thai royal family, seen in ancient manuscripts as far back as 1350.

  Long ago I lived in Vancouver with a Doberman named Sasha and a Siamese cat named Paxton. Now, Paxton was a great cat, tolerant of people in general and kids in particular, but he hated dogs. All dogs, any dogs, he made no distinction. The day we moved into our new home I remember a black Lab wandering across our front yard and hearing, later, some high pitched, dog-type yips. Shortly after a very irate dog owner showed up claiming my cat had chased his dog down the street and swiped its snout, which now sported some (relatively) minor gashes. Pax loved sitting at the end of our driveway hissing at the dogs walking by on leash. He didn’t discriminate: large or small, pure bred or mutt, if you were canine he hated you.

  The only dog he tolerated was our Doberman Sasha, probably because she had been there first. He completely ignored her attempts at friendship, but they coexisted more or less peacefully. At least Sasha never turned up with her nose in shreds.

  As Sasha aged she started to have trouble walking and controlling her bladder. I took her to a specialist. We learned she had a tumour wrapped around her spine. There was no treatment that would work so we just brought her home to let nature take its course.

  Sasha deteriorated gradually, to the point that she became unsteady and sometimes had to be helped to stand. But it was summertime in Vancouver, which allowed for Sasha to be outside most of the day, slowly making the rounds of the back yard or basking in the shade. It was a good summer.

  Toward the end of July I had left Sasha in the back yard and gone with the kids for the weekly grocery shop. I noticed, coming back to the driveway, that there seemed to be an inordinate number of ravens sitting on top of the fence that surrounded the yard, hopping on and off and calling incessantly
. I knew instantly they were after Sasha.

  My heart pounding, I ran to the back yard, but something beige whizzed past and beat me to it. There was Sasha, unable to get up, surrounded by a mob of ravens edging ever closer. The ravens, sensing an easy target, had gathered to defeat her by numbers. But the real action was happening a few feet away. Paxton literally had one raven by the leg, another by a wing, and was going for a third. They were attacking him but he wasn’t giving up.

  Paxton drove the ravens off and they retreated to the top of the fence. The cat remained crouched, every hair on end, spitting and yowling in a way that would have made a wolf think twice. I’d never heard anything like it. After a couple of minutes the ravens dispersed.

  Amazingly, neither Sasha nor Pax was really injured. Given the number of black feathers littering the yard I’m not sure the same could be said for the ravens.

  Summer passed into a long, uncharacteristically warm and dry fall. I never again let Sasha into the yard unless I was home. But she loved lying in the grass, watching the bees and smelling the earth, so I did let her enjoy long periods of time outside. And ever after that day, she had a guardian. No matter where he was, within a few minutes of Sasha going outside, Pax would appear, sitting on the fence above wherever she lay, sharing the last warm rays of the season. Sometimes they would sleep together, dog on the grass, cat on the fence above, but the cat was always there. The dog was never alone again.

  As the fall grew colder, Sasha reached the point where life was more pain than joy, and I let her go.

  Some may say Pax was being territorial, defending what he saw as his own. Some may say he just figured Sasha was the best bird bait the cat goddess ever made. But after I put Sasha down, that cat sat on her bed for three days and, other than to relieve himself, did not move. So judge as you will.

  Paxton lived to tolerate another dog in our family, a German Shepherd named Kia. As with Sasha, Pax seemed to barely stand her and spent a lot of time glaring at her down his very long Siamese nose. But he didn’t fool me, not for one second!

  ~Trish Featherstone

  Lion and the Uncouth Bear

  Fun fact: At the Berlin Zoo, a cat named Muschi voluntarily shares a cage with his best friend, a black bear.

  My full name is Richard the Lionhearted but, for their ease and convenience, I grant my staff permission to call me Lion most of the time. If any soul troubled itself enough to inquire, my staff would readily concur that I have full membership status in the Association known to you as Very Good Cat.

  Although it pains me to admit this, it hasn’t always been so. Allow me, if I may, to elucidate for you my proof of this somewhat disagreeable truth.

  I was born to a charming and respectable family, but as is the wont of foolhardy and recalcitrant youths, I found that way of life much too staid and circumspect for an intrepid and adventurous swashbuckler such as I. One day, I gathered my inner fortitude around me and escaped the confines of family and friends to courageously make my own way in the world.

  The Montana mountains are a treacherous place for an unsophisticated and untried young cat such as myself, and I rapidly blew through several of my allotted lifetimes. One day, cold and weak with hunger, I came upon an old truck bed filled to overflowing with kitchen refuse Oh my… Oh my… Oh my. This was going to be a heavenly treat.

  Soon, I was industriously consuming the most delectable comestibles I could ever recall devouring. Indeed, I was so preoccupied with enjoying this fine repast that I neither saw nor heard The Bear.

  You, dear readers, may not be aware that the Yellowstone National Park officials had recently decided that there was a superfluity of bears in the Park, nor that they devised some nonsensical plan to capture said bears and relocate them to the wilds of Canada. I must say, to this day I consider that to have been quite rude and presumptuous on the part of the officials. It was disrespectful to the bears and, more importantly, nearly cost me… well, I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Now, this truck filled with a garbage buffet and the house it belonged to, lay directly in the path the deported bears had to take as they made their laborious journey home from Canada to the Park, where they preferred living. This fine morning, as the sun rose over the mountains and warmed my happy little back, I filled my happy little stomach.

  But not for long.

  Suddenly, sensing that the feaster was about to become the feast, I whirled around and came nose to snout with an excessively ill-humored bear. He was, no doubt, as tired and hungry as I was. Unlike me, though, it was through no choice of his own that he now found himself in this sad situation. I’m ashamed to admit that his feelings, however, never entered my mind at the time. Like any callow youth, I thought only of myself.

  Quite naturally, I yowled my protests and leaped out of the truck-bed, forgetting entirely about my half-finished breakfast. I saw that the back door of the house was open and, at a loss for a better plan, I took a chance that I could find a hiding place before that uncouth and pestilential bear could make use of my skinny body to break his fast.

  Good lord, that bear was fast! There was no time to make the hard right turn into the kitchen, so I plunged down the stairs into the dirt basement instead, with the bear, as they say, hot on my tail. Round and round we went in that tiny dirt room. I could feel his noxious breath and the whoosh of air as his great claws slashed the air by my rump.

  Somewhere above us, I heard the welcome screeching and roaring of agitated human creatures. I sincerely hoped they would get to me in time. I was fast losing steam. The Bear apparently registered human activity, too, because he seemed instantly to lose interest in me as he skidded to a halt and gazed around wildly for the exit. Indeed, I managed to make two more laps around the room before I realized he was no longer paying the least attention to me. Instead, up the stairs he charged, quite possibly even faster than he had come down. Moments later, I heard a gunshot.

  Wisely, I remained concealed in that dark hole under the house till evening. Nothing and no one could convince me to emerge any sooner. Finally, I stealthily tiptoed, in slow motion, up the stairs and out into the woods, peering warily in all directions as I went. There was no bear to be found, and I must admit I was glad, since it was my own guidance that led him into that basement. The old chap must’ve got away after all. He likely even told his grandcubs the story of how he almost had fresh young cat for breakfast one morning on his Long Journey Home.

  ~Loral Lee Portenier

  We Rescued Each Other

  Fun fact: Studies have found that pets can help develop positive social behaviors in autistic children.

  “Why can’t you be like everyone else? You’re weird. I don’t want to talk to you.” Those statements had been ingrained in my mind for so long that I just accepted them as part of the daily life of someone who has Asperger’s. As I entered high school and college, I could feel the eyes of strangers intently locked on me, waiting for me to make that one awkward expression or statement that made absolutely no sense. At home, it wasn’t much better. I went to bed confused, even frightened, by this condition that had taken hold of me and had no intention of ever leaving.

  In August 2011, my life forever changed when I was offered a position with the federal government. It was the chance of a lifetime, one I had imagined for so long when I was a student. I was fascinated by the history of our country and the workings of Congress. Whenever I pictured the heartbeat of our democracy, one city came to the forefront — Washington, D.C. I closed my eyes and visualized what it must have been like to be part of the Continental Congress, to have your name called as you were asked to sign what would become the greatest and most important document ever created. In my eyes, it was not a privilege, but an honor to be living and working in one of the most special cities anywhere.

  The first day I found myself on the Metro, traveling to the office, I could hardly believe it was happening! In the crowd of well-dressed commuters, I was one of them. However, I began to face the frustrations o
f being an “Aspie” more each day. I attended social events such as speed dating and black-tie galas, only to discover that instead of fitting in I was standing out in all the wrong ways. I’d return home feeling bitterly disappointed and tormented, asking why I had to be different. I made small talk at work, but still found it a challenge to maintain a steady conversation — until the day one of my co-workers posed a question: “Have you considered adopting a pet?”

  It was like a thunderbolt out of a clear blue sky. When I was growing up on Long Island, we had tried to welcome pets into our household, but failed miserably twice. The first time was with a gray Labrador named Jason, who loved my brother and me, but not my parents — so he was given away. The tears I cried that day could have filled the Chesapeake Bay. Three years later, we adopted a Basset Hound named Barney with the cutest floppy ears and a sad expression. When we were eating, he’d put his jaw on our knees and stare at us with droopy eyes. How could we not love him? But one night, my grandmother came over, and Barney decided to eat her pink slippers for dinner. Two days later, he was returned to the shelter.

  I knew that animals were excellent for “pet therapy,” but I just wasn’t sure if I was ready for the challenge of ownership. What I did know, though, is that I was hurting and alone, with little social options, and feeling like the color in my world was slowly being erased each day. On a spur of the moment, I called home and announced my intentions. After being told “good luck and do your research,” I was off and running.

  I didn’t know what type of cat I wanted, but I did know I wanted a black cat, for a number of reasons. First, being a person who has Asperger’s and a stutter, I had known all my life what it was like to be an outcast and feel unwanted. In our culture, people often feel black cats bring bad luck, so the odds of them being adopted are lower. Many shelters even offer incentives for adopting them. Many people also consider black cats to be ugly, and I had had more than my fair share of days feeling that way.