My Very Good, Very Bad Cat

by Amy Newmark

Curiosity got the best of me, and I flipped on the light. After my eyes had adjusted to the sudden brightness, I peered into the toilet bowl again. There, floating face up, was Baby Jesus, all smiles and none the worse for wear from his almost two-week absence. Obviously, Miss Snuggles had decided to bring him out from her hiding place and baptize Him in the process!

  I gave the baby a thorough cleaning and put him back into his rightful place in the crèche, rearranging Joseph and Mary to make room for him once again. As Miss Snuggles watched from her perch atop the couch, I’m almost certain I saw a mischievous gleam in her eye.

  ~Diane Ganzer Baum

  Reprinted by permission of www.offthemark.com

  The Great Fish-Tank War

  Not-so-fun fact: Many cats are sensitive or even allergic to fish; it is one of the top three most common feline food allergens.

  The war between man and cat began the day my daughter Emily brought home two goldfish and a ten-gallon tank complete with gravel, filter, and one of those ancient Greek temples the fish are supposed to swim through and relax in but actually avoid like death. While the rest of the household regarded the fish with mild interest, Draco the cat ignored them almost completely. It wasn’t the fish that started the war; it was the call of the water.

  Draco the cat was not named for the Harry Potter character, but he could have been. He was a sly and devilish creature whose inner vocabulary never included the concept of “no.” We got him from a pet rescue. He was a tiny black kitten with large golden eyes as round as a lemur’s, a soft purr, and the strangest “meow” I’d ever heard; it sounded more like the burble of some strange bird.

  Like every kitten we’d ever brought home, we put Draco in the bathroom with his food and cat box until he became acclimated. All the other kittens had accepted this situation, even though they would sometimes yowl to get out and explore, and they waited more or less patiently until the day they were given free run of the house.

  Draco had other plans. I was reading on the couch when, less than fifteen minutes after we’d put him in the bathroom upon his arrival, he jumped on my shoulder, nuzzled my ear, and began purring. I could not understand how he’d gotten out of the bathroom. I’d closed the door myself, and I knew it had latched. How could a tiny kitten open a bathroom door? I sat with him a while and read him some poetry. I then had to work on some writing and placed him in his little comfy box back in the bathroom and shut the door. It was maybe twenty minutes later when he startled me by hopping up on my lap where I sat at the computer. I inspected the bathroom door, and the latch worked as well as ever. I had to conclude Draco had magical powers, otherworldly assistance, or Super Cat strength in opening doors. This feat of his, though, was only the beginning.

  In the years we had him, I found him perched on the tops of doors, curled up high on kitchen cabinet tops no cat should have been able to reach, and once found him asleep in the corner of a closet shelf he could not have gotten to without leaping ten feet straight up from the floor. There was no place you could keep Draco in or out of. He was the Houdini of cats.

  There were three other cats living with us, all female: Little Kitty (a Sydney Greenstreet type of calculating villain), Eggnog (the perpetual damsel in distress) and Luna (the spacey hippie). Draco, as the male, considered himself a noble prince and Lord of the Realm, but it was pretty clear that Little Kitty actually ran the show, using Nog and Luna as her puppets. Maybe this was why Draco felt he had to show his superiority in scaling heights and performing grand feats. And maybe this was also how the war of the fish tank began.

  As the fish swam happily around in their tank, studiously avoiding the Greek temple they were supposed to play in, the cats were watching. Once I passed by and, noticing the tank looked odd, paused for a closer look. I found Luna sitting in back of the tank, watching the fish. Another time, Eggnog hopped up and tried to get her paw in the top to scoop one out. Little Kitty even hoisted her enormous bulk up onto the bureau where the tank sat to study the fish and contemplate their untimely demise. These were all singular incidents, however; it was only Draco who never gave up.

  Draco didn’t care about the fish. In his world, the fish were no more than wallpaper to his actual object of desire: the water. The fish-tank pump continuously sent a cascade of water arcing down into the tank, making a soft, sibilant sound even when the tank was filled to the top. And Draco loved water. He loved the dog’s water. He loved the water in the kitchen sink. He loved the water left in glasses on the kitchen counters or living room tables. He loved all water everywhere in the house except the bathtub. All of these, though, were still waters; the fish tank was sparkling, moving water — and its soft sound beckoned.

  The first time I found Draco drinking from the fish tank, I told him “no” and put him on the floor. The second time I found him up there I yelled at him and tossed him onto the floor. The third time I discovered him, I squirted him with a spritzer and shouted “No!” The fourth time, I did the same. The seventy-fifth time, I repeated the above with variations. Nothing made any difference. My wife Betsy covered the opening of the tank with foil; Draco gently peeled it back and drank his fill. She covered it in plastic; he did the same. I covered it in plastic wrap, foil wrapped around with duct tape, and placed a large Styrofoam skull from Halloween on it to scare him off; he knocked the skull to the floor, broke through the plastic, and unwrapped the tank for a drink.

  At first, I just hadn’t wanted him bothering the fish; then I’d not wanted him drinking fish water. I also didn’t want him disturbing the pump’s operation — which he’d done twice. Finally, though, it became a simple battle of wills. Who was this cat to continuously defy me? I was the man, he was the cat, and he was going to learn to behave as it pleased me. Draco’s view of the situation differed; in his world, he was the cat, and I was the thing he slept on. Who was I to constantly annoy him at his water banquet?

  The war of the fish tank dragged on for almost two years until its dramatic conclusion. My last attempt to keep him off the bureau was to set up a number of pictures of the family in frames around the tank. I had also placed some figurines, a desk calendar, and a lamp there. None of these deterred him. Lithe as a spirit, he would hop up and manage to land perfectly between my obstacles, raise himself up, and drink from the tank. I knew this first because I heard him jump down when I was reading in the next room, and he came in to sit on my lap fresh with the scent of fish tank upon him. Then I saw him in action one time as I was coming down the stairs.

  His skill at landing between the pictures and the figurines, not moving one of them an inch, was very impressive. Still, I could not let this cat defy me day after day and month after month. And so the day came when I walked into the room and there he was, draped over the top of the fish tank, absorbed in his drink. I grabbed the spritzer bottle and let him have it. He reeled away from the tank, scattering everything around him. A picture frame flew to the floor with a loud crack; another disappeared in back of the bureau; the figurines spiraled skyward and all across the floor; the desk calendar danced a pirouette and then joined them. Draco launched himself into the air and vanished into the other room.

  I looked at the mess all over the floor and the cracked picture frame, thought of how I was going to have to now move the bureau out to retrieve the one fallen behind it, and realized that Draco had won. He had never been doing anything all that bad in the first place. Once I’d moved the pump farther away from the side, he hadn’t bothered its operation anymore. He never disturbed the fish themselves and, since I always kept the tank clean, it wasn’t like he was drinking water that could harm him. The whole war, I realized, had been one-sided, with me as the aggressor. All Draco had wanted to do was enjoy his special water dispenser.

  So he won. After that day, I would sit writing at the computer, the fish tank trickling and bubbling beside me, and Draco would hop up, get his drink, and go on his way. The first time he did this after my surrender, he watched me carefully with his large, round eyes, suspec
ting a trap. The second time, he was also wary for any sudden moves on my part. The third time, he was a bit more casual, but still kept raising his head to make sure I hadn’t moved and that the spritzer wasn’t in sight. By the seventy-fifth time, he just ignored me and, after drinking, would sit by the tank while deciding his next move. He would then seem to shrug, gaze about a moment, and then hop down to go nap in his favorite corner of the living room couch.

  I could have continued the war. I could have moved the fish tank, boxed the top, anchored the plastic or foil with hoops of steel, but what was the point? If you have a cat, you must at some point recognize who is master and who is not; and the sooner you do that, the happier you both will be.

  ~Joshua J. Mark

  The Amazing Cat Trick

  Fun fact: When giving treats to your cat, make sure they’re not chocolate, which can be toxic to cats, causing high blood pressure, heart problems or seizures.

  When I was twelve years old, we had a cat that wandered in and out of our house. When Topsy, a gray striped Tabby, chose to stay inside, he had food, safety, and companionship. Outside, he explored, hunted and roamed the countryside, sometimes mysteriously disappearing for days. Coming and going as he desired, he had the best of both worlds.

  One day, I said to him, “Topsy, you are going to learn tricks.” I made this announcement after spotting a mail-order offer on the back of my cereal box featuring a booklet explaining how to teach your cat tricks. I ordered it.

  During the time I waited to receive the booklet in the mail, I imagined the fantastic stunts Topsy would soon perform. I had big plans for him. I pictured my cat jumping through a ring of fire like a tiger in the circus. I went and found my old hula hoop so I’d be ready.

  When the booklet arrived, it advised me to start with a simple trick: shaking hands. Following the directions, I said, “Shake hands,” lifting Topsy’s paw and feeding him a snack simultaneously. I repeated this procedure many times, sometimes waiting for Topsy to return from one of his jaunts before continuing. Topsy finally mastered the trick. Whenever I said, “Shake hands,” he lifted his paw. I was proud of him.

  Topsy had learned his trick so well that he no longer waited for me to say, “Shake hands.” Instead, he constantly raised his paw and touched me, staring hopefully, as if to say, “Come on, where’s my snack?” Petting him as a reward didn’t work. Neither did ignoring him. He continued shaking hands. He must have believed I always carried around bits of yummy food and had suddenly decided not to share.

  Then one day, when I was wearing stockings, Topsy shook hands with my ankles. His claws snagged my stockings, damaging them. I had created a “stocking ripper” cat.

  Not long after, something far worse happened.

  When I saw the expression on my mother’s face, I knew she had terrible news. “Topsy’s dead,” she said. “He’s been run over.”

  “No,” I cried, rushing outside to see for myself.

  In front of our house, Topsy’s crushed body lay on the road. Nothing much was left of his remains. Perhaps he’d been hit by a truck or run over more than once. My insides felt like they’d been dragged along with him.

  My mother scooped up fur scraps and bloody bones. She placed them in a shoebox and buried it. We sobbed and hugged each other. Topsy was gone forever. He’d never shake hands with us again. We had lost a beloved member of our family. I cried myself to sleep.

  A few days after Topsy’s death, I was standing outside when something touched my leg. At first, I thought I’d imagined it. Again, I felt the same sensation. It sent chills through my body. Had Topsy’s ghost returned to haunt me?

  I looked down. A paw rested on my ankle.

  “Oh, my God!” There was good old Topsy, alive and well, and expecting a reward for shaking hands. Well, he certainly deserved one. After all, he’d performed the most amazing trick of all. He’d come back from the dead!

  Clearly, my mother had buried someone else’s cat. Whose gray striped Tabby was it? I never found out. I wish I could have told the owner what had happened to his pet, but that wasn’t possible.

  Meanwhile, I focused my attention on Topsy. He received compliments, cuddles, caresses and extra treats. He purred contentedly, probably thinking it was about time he was appreciated. I began teaching him to jump through my hula hoop. I didn’t know how much more time he and I would have together, but I was going to make the most of it.

  ~Laura Boldin-Fournier

  Fat Cat

  Fun fact: To determine if a cat is overweight, vets use Body Conditioning Scoring (BCS). If they can feel the cat’s ribs, but there is a light layer of fat, they’re probably of normal weight.

  Last month, my cat, Thor, got an e-mail from the vet notifying him that he was due for a checkup. I found the note in my spam filter.

  Very clever, Thor.

  But the vet was smarter and mailed him a postcard, too. It read: “Attention, Thor! It’s time for a visit!”

  I found the card near the litter box and scheduled an appointment.

  Now, Thor is an extremely easy-going feline. Nothing rattles him except perhaps an empty food bowl, but more about that later. “You’re going to go on a road trip!” I told him.

  He yawned and covered his eyes.

  Since our older cat, Milo, had shredded the cardboard carrier during his last vet visit, I borrowed a sturdy plastic crate from my mother-in-law.

  I set it in the middle of the living room floor. Thor crawled in immediately and made himself comfortable.

  Our drive to the vet’s office was punctuated by Thor’s pitiful mews, or “meeps” as we call them. While Milo yowls, growls, meows, hisses, and generally makes a ruckus, Thor is the strong, silent type. However, he didn’t appreciate not being able to see out the windows, and he let us know.

  He was much happier when we arrived at our destination. He tolerated the poking, prodding and related indignities of his exam with good cheer, and didn’t even flinch when he received his shots.

  Then it was time to weigh him. I knew he’d grown a lot since his previous visit, but when the vet put him on the scale, well, a lot of Thor spilled over.

  “Wow, that’s a pretty small scale,” I ventured.

  The vet just looked at me. “Thor is overweight,” she pronounced.

  Immediately, I plunged into denial. “Are you sure?” I asked. “I mean, he is a Tabby, and horizontal stripes aren’t very slimming.”

  She pointed to the scale. My one-year-old cat weighed seventeen pounds. “He should weigh between twelve and fourteen pounds.”

  “Gosh, Mom. Thor is a FAT cat,” my son, Sam, said. He scooped Thor off the scale and rubbed him between his ears.

  I was mortified. “He’s still wearing his winter fur,” I mumbled. “He has a thick coat.”

  Sam agreed. “He is fluffy.”

  The vet remained unconvinced.

  “Our other cat is slim,” I said. “Positively svelte, and he eats the same food as Thor.”

  Sam shifted Thor in his arms. “Mom, we call Milo Chubsy-Wubsy.”

  “Do you give Thor treats?” asked the vet.

  Sam raised his eyebrows and looked at me. “Oh, yes, she does,” he said.

  On our next vet visit, I’m leaving Sam at home.

  I fidgeted with the cat carrier. “Well, uh, just once a day,” I said. “But he sits up and begs for them. That’s good exercise, right?”

  The vet just shook her head.

  We coaxed Thor back into his carrier, which somehow felt even heavier than when we arrived.

  The bottom line? The cats were only to be fed one-third of a cup of dry cat food a day. No more self-feeding. Their bowls were to be set out in the morning, put away, and then put back in the evening. And no treats.

  Thor seemed discouraged by the news. He didn’t make a peep on the drive home. Well, until he threw up.

  His humiliating day ended in the tub.

  The next morning, I carefully measured out one-third cup of food into each c
at’s bowl. As usual, Milo pushed Thor out of the way and began eating out of Thor’s dish. Thor just switched over to Milo’s bowl.

  A few minutes later, Milo left. Thor kept right on eating. When he finally walked away from the bowls, they were both nearly empty. I put them out of reach.

  Soon, Milo returned. He looked at where his bowl should have been. He paced. He walked in circles around the water dishes. “Yeeeoooww!” he said.

  I ignored him. “Meeeeooow!” he whined.

  Milo was not a happy camper. He’s a grazer, not a gorger. But he was paying the penance for Thor’s gluttony.

  I’m afraid I drove my family crazy over the next few days. “Do you think Thor looks thinner?” I asked repeatedly. “I think he looks thinner.”

  After two weeks of the new regimen, we weighed him. “Sixteen pounds!” Sam announced.

  Whew! My kitty was losing weight! I gave him a treat to celebrate.

  Our celebration was cut short when my husband brought in the mail. “Something here for Milo,” he said. “It’s from the vet.”

  I’ve scheduled Milo’s checkup for next week. But if the vet tells me Milo is overweight, I’m going to find a new veterinarian.

  ~Cindy Hval

  Reprinted by permission of www.offthemark.com

  A Tail of Loyalty

  Fun fact: A female cat is called a queen or a molly.

  My husband and I often joke that Molly is a dog trapped in a cat’s body, so it did not surprise me when she came running across the lawn to meet me when I got home from work. It had been a busy Saturday morning shift, and I was looking forward to sitting down with a cup of tea and the newspaper. I glanced half-heartedly in Molly’s direction, and then did a double take. Her welcome was not a surprise, but the neat white bandage that was bobbing merrily on the end of her upturned tail was.

  I had left her that morning lazily sunbathing on the kitchen windowsill alongside her sister Maisie, who doesn’t have even a hint of “dog” in her personality. Maisie is the kind of cat who gives cats a bad reputation. She is independent, aloof and often downright rude, barely glancing my way as I walk by. It is rare for her to seek me out for an affectionate pat on the head or a scratch behind the ear. She is a fickle friend, sociable when I am cooking, indifferent when I am not. She would never suffer the indignity of bounding across the grass to meet me.