Columbus, Ohio USA
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To All the Cats I've Loved Before
By Joel Knepp
May/June 2019 Issue
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Bernie the Democratic Socialist Cat Science news flash! In a recent release from the Associated Press, a Japanese study indicates that cats can distinguish between words that we people say. The study, by Atsuko Saito of Sophia University in Tokyo, also suggests that cats react to the sound of their names. Hmm...
I don’t want to rain on Ms. Saito’s parade, but we humans have known this for centuries, if not millennia. Japan is a cat-loving country, and one would think she would have already had access to this information.
My experience with that sublime creature, Felis catus, is extensive, and not to boast, but it likely exceeds greatly that of researcher Saito. Growing up as an army brat in a family that moved frequently, pets were not practical. However, I’ve lived with cats throughout most of my adult life. Each was unique, with different likes, dislikes and habits. The ones I’ve shared homes with have run the gamut from clever to dull, mischievous to unimaginative, and handsome to, uh, not so much. A roommate’s calico from early times at 4th and Highland kept a large stash of twist ties under the edge of a rug. Where she came by those twist ties is unknown. I can’t recall her real name, but she was popularly known as The Beast. When my roomie relocated to the West Coast, I had the unpleasant task of shipping that unfortunate creature to California. Though she is long gone, I have never forgotten the profoundly dirty look The Beast gave me when I handed her cage over to the airport freight clerk.
Some years later, a pesky young cat, in one afternoon, destroyed fifty 1980 dollars’ worth of glass Christmas-tree ornaments from Helen Winnemore’s German Village shop. This was roughly a week’s take-home from my crappy waiter’s gig at the time. One learns the hard way that some cats just can’t be trusted at Christmas. Though memories are a bit foggy, it might have been The Beast or another feline who ran around the house at Christmastime one year with silvery mylar icicles hanging out of her behind. That’s a Christmas memory I could live without. On a more upbeat note, another of our cats was crazy about tortilla chips.
Siamese cats are the royalty of the feline world. Unlike many other breeds, they are actually quite dog-like and can grow emotionally dependent. In contrast to their physical beauty, they generally have voices that grate like the sound of old rusty hinges. I have seen Siamese cats in actual Siam, aka Thailand. Those critters are super-skinny and don’t look like the ones in America. Maybe ours are just better fed. My first Siamese, a weird, nearly toothless full-blood, came to me late in her life, and we bonded strongly. Like many ancient ones, she was cold all the time and would crawl totally under the covers with me on winter nights; apparently heat was more important than oxygen. I was heartbroken when I found her stiff under a couch one morning.
Our all-time favorite cat was an incredibly handsome half-Siamese we picked up at quite a young age from a farmer friend. He was our first male, and when we spotted each other in the barnyard it was love at first sight. Prior to this, I was prejudiced against males, but this guy was a total sweetheart who loved to curl up on top of you. He reminded us of a little monkey, which became his name. He was not just another cat, but rather like our child, with us through thick and thin for sixteen years. Monkey was also the first cat we actively had put down when it became apparent that the end was near, marking an evolution in our thinking about what to do with dying pets.
I have always treated cats as free-will individuals which, though they deign to live with us, are independent, largely self-contained entities, although this varies a lot, such as with Siamese. Though my earlier feline companions were kept inside, I’ve come to think that such confinement is cruel and unnecessary and that cats need the stimulation of the natural world. It hurts to see cats whose only connection with the outside is gained by staring out a window. Plus, these prisoner kitties are forbidden from engaging in the hands-down favorite activity of all house cats everywhere, which is, of course, going out, then coming back in, then going out again, ad infinitum. And yes, folks, I stole the title of this column from Garrison Keillor, who paraphrased that treacly song by Julio Iglesias and Willy Nelson.
Domestic cats, like tigers, are essentially loners, but on a few occasions we have resided with two cats. This seems to work out fine for some households, especially if the cats are from the same litter or otherwise related. I have also seen cats become close buddies with dogs. When Monkey joined our household, we already had a smallish tabby named Gina. Gina wasn’t at the front of the line when the brains and personality were passed out. Monkey, still a large kitten, immediately loved Gina and just wanted to play. Gina wasn’t having any of it and repeatedly rebuffed Monkey’s friendly approaches. Later, when Monkey was full-grown, he exacted revenge on the stuck-up Gina by kicking her butt in the hallway outside our bedroom most nights around eleven. These were not evenings of quiet domestic bliss.
Certain cats just repel me. Mostly, these are long-hairs with squashed-in faces, like Persians and similar dumb-looking cats. Grumpy Cat is in there, too. Maybe this feeling stems from an experience with my wife-to-be’s Himalayan which took place early in our relationship. It was a dead-weight cat to begin with, lacking in positive qualities as far as I could tell. Then it came down with a raging case of fleas in its way-too-long fur. I had to give it a bath in some foul chemical brew. Although I rid the cat of fleas and won many points with the WTB, that nasty bath probably soured me forever on that type of cat.
Our current model is Bernie the Democratic Socialist Cat, another fetching specimen. He’s a Cincinnati-bred, fully clawed, free-range, gray-and-white tuxedo. Though unable to reproduce, Bernie is a sleek, muscle-bound, super athlete who can dash fifty feet in two seconds flat and can leap onto a six-foot fence post as easily as I can take a breath. Just as easily, he can lie on our bed for ten hours contemplating the bliss of the self. True to the nature of even fixed tomcats, he enjoys roaming far and wide through Victorian Village and perhaps beyond. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see him on a stool in Mike’s Bar. And yes, Ms. Saito, he responds to his name. He also clearly understands the word “no” and comes to the door after dark when the porch light is turned off and on. Despite his decidedly macho appearance, his vocalizations are delicately feminine. He is not really a lap cat, but allows us to pick him up and carry him around. He will gladly snuggle and accept unlimited amounts of petting from people he likes. He can also tell time, specifically breakfast time, dinner time, and snack time. The recent time change did throw him off a bit, but he’s back on track now.
Bernie is a predator. Unwary birds, mice, baby rabbits, and rats beware. We don’t like it, but our neighborhood certainly has no shortage of any of these creatures. It’s part of his cat nature, and the reason cats and humans first got together was probably their ability to protect grain stores from marauding rodents. Neither do we have a shortage of squirrels. For Eric Anderson’s take on the never-ending Short North squirrel menace, see his article “I Hate Squirrels” in the Gazette’s March/April issue. I must point out that unlike Eric, I am not ready to reconcile with these destructive critters, and have already exported several this spring to an undisclosed location outside the Short North. But back to Bernie, unfortunately, unlike some cats we have known, Bernie wimps out in squirrel confrontations, allowing them to flauntingly frolic unchallenged practically right in front of his nose. We’ll have to work on that, but as most cat lovers know, you don't train them, they train you.
Finally, getting back to the aforementioned Tokyo researcher Atsuko Saito, I think we would all agree that she deserves to make a living, but one would hope she will henceforth direct her efforts toward a research project which will bear some practical fruit. For starters, I suggest that Ms. Saito apply for a large grant from the Takata Corporation to help them come up with some air bags that don’t explode.
Joel Knepp lives in Victorian Village with his wife Lynda McClanahan, an artist.
They performed as the musical duo Nick & Polina for many years in the area.© 2019 Short North Gazette, Columbus, Ohio. All rights reserved.
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