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It's no surprise that people have strong opinions about how to raise pets, as they do about raising children. It follows that periodically we'll run across people who can't quite get behind our pet philosophy. As a cat owner I don't usually have to deal with such things, but yesterday I mentioned I had to get back to my cat and let him in, and got a response that said I was clearly a thoughtless and irresponsible cat owner.
That this attitude was born of zero knowledge, or reflection, should have instantly disqualified it from consideration as criticism, but you know how things can get to you. So this morning I find myself running over the process by which I keep a cat. It's hard, because I was raised with this process, and moreover it has no formal structure, as it was invented by my mother.
Mom isn't a dog person. She loves them, but to her they are, well, slaves. From her end, the beauty of cats is their aspect of self-sufficiency and independence. Like dogs, they rely on us for food, and they acknowledge us as family, butt there the similarity ends, and a philosophy that treats cats like a form of dog is doomed right off the bat.
I'm not saying you shouldn't ever keep indoor cats, or walk them on a leash, I'm saying you'll have to take a cat's road to get there, not a dog's.
Anyway, I was raised with indoor/outdoor cats. I know plenty of people whose cats were lost or hit by cars or eaten by - well, whatever. None of those cats were ours, my mother's or mine. say what you will, all of our cats lived long lives, and died for reasons unrelated to being outdoors. You can skip the next bit if you don't care, but I want to think about them all this morning.
*************
Grey came to us when I was maybe four years old, with his sister Tinkerbell, who remained feral all her life. She lived indoors, mostly in the ceiling of our basement. Tink deliberately left my mother when she moved to Virginia, the stress of the move was to much for her, and she was connected only to the house, not to us. She got out, and refused to return. My mother called and called into the trees of the neighborhood at night. She could hear Tinkerbell and see her eyes but she refused to return. She was well over sixteen at the time, and eventually my mother had no choice but to respect her wishes and say goodbye. Grey was very attached to us, especially my mother, and stayed with us until his death of kidney failure at the dignified age of twenty-two.
In college we had two cats, Nerf and Li Po, but these were kept by my boyfriend, with his philosophy. Li Po was deaf, and so indoors by necessity, and she never showed much interest in going out. Nerf was a tom, a call I believe had more to do with my boyfriends sympathy against castration than anything else. This, combined with the idea of also keeping him inside, and fixing Li Po so he never got sex anyway, made him restless, fixated on escape, and, of course he sprayed until the house stank. The boyfriend was never much troubled about housekeeping, and this all worked fine for him, but I resolved to do better and always fix my cats. Nerf turned out to have feline leukemia, possibly from birth as he was a stray. But he was hardy and vital, and my friend had a strong belief that if an animal friend had not given up then it wasn't for him to destroy it. Nerf went on treatment when he was two,and lived a long life, considering. My friend loved him greatly, and they were very close. One day when he got home Nerf did not come to greet him. On a pillow in the bed Nerf raised his head as he came in, so my friend gathered him onto his lap and talked to him, said after he had a shower they would go to the vet. When he got out of the shower Nerf was dead. A cat will normally crawl off somewhere to die; to me it was a testament to their friendship that Nerf waited to say goodbye. He was ten.
Li Po never caught feline leukemia, and lived several more years before dying of natural causes. I could never tell if she was happy per sey, as she was kind of insane, but she seemed content enough.
A few years after this I moved into an apartment in Atlanta. My roommate had an indoor cat, Rhiannon, and while I was there she acquired a black kitten, Alexander. These were both indoor cats by her preference, but both died when they got out and were hit by cars. This was several years apart, and my memory may be playing tricks about Rhiannon, but Alexander definitely died that way, about a year and a half old.
After that I took a studio n Virginia Highlands, and struck up a friendship with a young cat who was often near my home. I later discovered this was because her owners had abandoned her and moved away, taking their other three cats with them. I cursed them to a deep pit of purgatory, and a few days later, on a chilly evening, I picked her up and brought her inside my threshold, leaving the sliding glass door open. I explained that, if she wanted, she could come in here sometimes as long as she used the litter box, and if she stayed I'd feed her. She went away for a day to think about it, then apparently decided it was a good deal, especially since she was pregnant. I had her fixed as soon as possible, but she bore a bulky scar all her life. She stayed with me for six years, but when I eventually decided to go to Maine and work the boats we found her a home with a friend of my aunt's, a gay interpreted hairdresser who called her Dutchess and kept her inside and treated her like a queen until she died three years later from a blood clot; I believe a complication from her surgery. Her name was Miss Tabitha.
Since then there have been no other cats except a roommate's, one that got fe-leuk from the cheap inoculations at Pets Are People Too. My roomie decided to have him put down, but couldn't bring herself to be with him when he died. I went instead, and stroked his fur and gave the nod. The attendant pushed a plunger, and he laid his head down. I hope I do it for any animal I have to say goodbye to. There hasn't been a cat since Miss Tabitha, thirteen years ago.
**************************
When Gregg and I got together we were in a tiny trailer we couldn't pass each other in, with a sixty pound dog. When we finally upgraded last year I invoked the agreement we had made: I could now get a cat.
I had spent a lot of time thinking about this. Cats aren't dogs. Dogs love *you*, and will follow you anywhere. Cats love a place. They get very attached, and if that place goes away they get upset. I wasn't going to be able to get a full grown cat and expect it to just adapt to the traveling life.
I was going to need a kitten. Which was totally all right with me; I don't love kittens less than cats, even if they are more work. He was going to have to like dogs, and Strider was going to have to like him. Him, because I needed the outgoing resilience of a boy, and a girl might be too shy - call that negotiable on an ad hoc basis.
So when Chris Osbourne discovered a bunch of kittens last year on I-35 we went over for a look. I had tried not to have ideas about the fur, but I love Abyssinians, so the largest kitten, a tabby with ticked fur caught my eye. They were all healthy and friendly, but I thought this one was a bit more outgoing. Chris's chihuahua had taken a liking to the litter, so with several weeks of dog grooming and loving behind it, we figured the kitten had about as good a chance with Strider as possible. We tentatively called it a girl and took her home. The vet corrected us later, and we named him Pixillation Jones. (Pixil, as in pixie-like, mischievous, not Pixel, as in granulated.)
Shit. I wrote all that thinking it would lead up to a proper explanation of exactly how you raise an indoor-outdoor cat not to die. I still can't quantify it. All I know is it's not about tossing the kitten outside with a bowl of food. Pixil was indoors for the first six months of his life, and during that time I worked hard and loved it. I'm sure I wasn't perfect, I doted way too much and spent to much time worrying about whether he liked whatever litter I'd bought, but he got lots of love and attention, and he still does, when he wants it. I started putting him out on a lead at six months old, daytime only, and our neighbor's dogs checked him out and let him alone. Then we started going for walks together.
It's not true you can't go for walks with your cats, I used to do this with Miss Tabitha all the time. With you as a mobile base,a cat with roam freely within a certain area of you. Pixil took to it at once, stalking us through the woods as we rambled about with Strider, periodically running past us into the brush ahead, occasionally taking a swipe at Strider's tail. I progressed slowly from there to having him outside while we kept the door open, to roaming about with him and showing him the places to avoid (like the raptor yard)to simply letting him out when I saw that the neighbors free-roamer, Puma, was out. Puma was not totally on board with being the big brother to my little guy, but Pixil persisted.
That this attitude was born of zero knowledge, or reflection, should have instantly disqualified it from consideration as criticism, but you know how things can get to you. So this morning I find myself running over the process by which I keep a cat. It's hard, because I was raised with this process, and moreover it has no formal structure, as it was invented by my mother.
Mom isn't a dog person. She loves them, but to her they are, well, slaves. From her end, the beauty of cats is their aspect of self-sufficiency and independence. Like dogs, they rely on us for food, and they acknowledge us as family, butt there the similarity ends, and a philosophy that treats cats like a form of dog is doomed right off the bat.
I'm not saying you shouldn't ever keep indoor cats, or walk them on a leash, I'm saying you'll have to take a cat's road to get there, not a dog's.
Anyway, I was raised with indoor/outdoor cats. I know plenty of people whose cats were lost or hit by cars or eaten by - well, whatever. None of those cats were ours, my mother's or mine. say what you will, all of our cats lived long lives, and died for reasons unrelated to being outdoors. You can skip the next bit if you don't care, but I want to think about them all this morning.
*************
Grey came to us when I was maybe four years old, with his sister Tinkerbell, who remained feral all her life. She lived indoors, mostly in the ceiling of our basement. Tink deliberately left my mother when she moved to Virginia, the stress of the move was to much for her, and she was connected only to the house, not to us. She got out, and refused to return. My mother called and called into the trees of the neighborhood at night. She could hear Tinkerbell and see her eyes but she refused to return. She was well over sixteen at the time, and eventually my mother had no choice but to respect her wishes and say goodbye. Grey was very attached to us, especially my mother, and stayed with us until his death of kidney failure at the dignified age of twenty-two.
In college we had two cats, Nerf and Li Po, but these were kept by my boyfriend, with his philosophy. Li Po was deaf, and so indoors by necessity, and she never showed much interest in going out. Nerf was a tom, a call I believe had more to do with my boyfriends sympathy against castration than anything else. This, combined with the idea of also keeping him inside, and fixing Li Po so he never got sex anyway, made him restless, fixated on escape, and, of course he sprayed until the house stank. The boyfriend was never much troubled about housekeeping, and this all worked fine for him, but I resolved to do better and always fix my cats. Nerf turned out to have feline leukemia, possibly from birth as he was a stray. But he was hardy and vital, and my friend had a strong belief that if an animal friend had not given up then it wasn't for him to destroy it. Nerf went on treatment when he was two,and lived a long life, considering. My friend loved him greatly, and they were very close. One day when he got home Nerf did not come to greet him. On a pillow in the bed Nerf raised his head as he came in, so my friend gathered him onto his lap and talked to him, said after he had a shower they would go to the vet. When he got out of the shower Nerf was dead. A cat will normally crawl off somewhere to die; to me it was a testament to their friendship that Nerf waited to say goodbye. He was ten.
Li Po never caught feline leukemia, and lived several more years before dying of natural causes. I could never tell if she was happy per sey, as she was kind of insane, but she seemed content enough.
A few years after this I moved into an apartment in Atlanta. My roommate had an indoor cat, Rhiannon, and while I was there she acquired a black kitten, Alexander. These were both indoor cats by her preference, but both died when they got out and were hit by cars. This was several years apart, and my memory may be playing tricks about Rhiannon, but Alexander definitely died that way, about a year and a half old.
After that I took a studio n Virginia Highlands, and struck up a friendship with a young cat who was often near my home. I later discovered this was because her owners had abandoned her and moved away, taking their other three cats with them. I cursed them to a deep pit of purgatory, and a few days later, on a chilly evening, I picked her up and brought her inside my threshold, leaving the sliding glass door open. I explained that, if she wanted, she could come in here sometimes as long as she used the litter box, and if she stayed I'd feed her. She went away for a day to think about it, then apparently decided it was a good deal, especially since she was pregnant. I had her fixed as soon as possible, but she bore a bulky scar all her life. She stayed with me for six years, but when I eventually decided to go to Maine and work the boats we found her a home with a friend of my aunt's, a gay interpreted hairdresser who called her Dutchess and kept her inside and treated her like a queen until she died three years later from a blood clot; I believe a complication from her surgery. Her name was Miss Tabitha.
Since then there have been no other cats except a roommate's, one that got fe-leuk from the cheap inoculations at Pets Are People Too. My roomie decided to have him put down, but couldn't bring herself to be with him when he died. I went instead, and stroked his fur and gave the nod. The attendant pushed a plunger, and he laid his head down. I hope I do it for any animal I have to say goodbye to. There hasn't been a cat since Miss Tabitha, thirteen years ago.
**************************
When Gregg and I got together we were in a tiny trailer we couldn't pass each other in, with a sixty pound dog. When we finally upgraded last year I invoked the agreement we had made: I could now get a cat.
I had spent a lot of time thinking about this. Cats aren't dogs. Dogs love *you*, and will follow you anywhere. Cats love a place. They get very attached, and if that place goes away they get upset. I wasn't going to be able to get a full grown cat and expect it to just adapt to the traveling life.
I was going to need a kitten. Which was totally all right with me; I don't love kittens less than cats, even if they are more work. He was going to have to like dogs, and Strider was going to have to like him. Him, because I needed the outgoing resilience of a boy, and a girl might be too shy - call that negotiable on an ad hoc basis.
So when Chris Osbourne discovered a bunch of kittens last year on I-35 we went over for a look. I had tried not to have ideas about the fur, but I love Abyssinians, so the largest kitten, a tabby with ticked fur caught my eye. They were all healthy and friendly, but I thought this one was a bit more outgoing. Chris's chihuahua had taken a liking to the litter, so with several weeks of dog grooming and loving behind it, we figured the kitten had about as good a chance with Strider as possible. We tentatively called it a girl and took her home. The vet corrected us later, and we named him Pixillation Jones. (Pixil, as in pixie-like, mischievous, not Pixel, as in granulated.)
Shit. I wrote all that thinking it would lead up to a proper explanation of exactly how you raise an indoor-outdoor cat not to die. I still can't quantify it. All I know is it's not about tossing the kitten outside with a bowl of food. Pixil was indoors for the first six months of his life, and during that time I worked hard and loved it. I'm sure I wasn't perfect, I doted way too much and spent to much time worrying about whether he liked whatever litter I'd bought, but he got lots of love and attention, and he still does, when he wants it. I started putting him out on a lead at six months old, daytime only, and our neighbor's dogs checked him out and let him alone. Then we started going for walks together.
It's not true you can't go for walks with your cats, I used to do this with Miss Tabitha all the time. With you as a mobile base,a cat with roam freely within a certain area of you. Pixil took to it at once, stalking us through the woods as we rambled about with Strider, periodically running past us into the brush ahead, occasionally taking a swipe at Strider's tail. I progressed slowly from there to having him outside while we kept the door open, to roaming about with him and showing him the places to avoid (like the raptor yard)to simply letting him out when I saw that the neighbors free-roamer, Puma, was out. Puma was not totally on board with being the big brother to my little guy, but Pixil persisted.
