Won’t Somebody Help Me Flesh-Out this Painful Obsession?
My Life With Cats…Many, Many Cats.
We started out with Zero. No pets at all. Couldn’t have them in the apartments we lived in back when we were first married, finishing up our collegiate careers.
Ahh, the bliss. Of no pets, that is.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love animals. All animals. But especially dogs and cats. Big surprise, huh? And this love led us to our first pet, a dog who had been rescued from a bad home. She was a Whippet — mix and as gentle as a lamb.
We named her Shekel (old Hebrew coin, if you care to look it up [1]), and she became ours the moment we rented a house allowing pets. No cats for us. She was our baby, our only pet.
And that’s all we ever planned on having…one.
Just like Lay’s Potato Chips…[2]
What Is That Strange Bird?
I can still hear my wife asking that. It was a cold snowy February afternoon as we walked Shekel up the road to our dog walker’s paradise: the city cemetery. We were just about on our way to the exit — and then to the home we’d purchased five years after rescuing Shekel — when we heard a strange bird call.
You see, we used to be avid bird watchers and kept many types of feeders going strong in our back yard. We had lived near a national park and the avian activity was astounding. If you like that sort of thing. Which we did. In fact, we had such a good operation going that we took part in a national survey. Too cool.
Anyhow, we had gotten pretty adept at recognizing a bird by its vocalizations. Or so we thought. We couldn’t figure this one out or locate it in the sparse winter branches of the cemetery’s trees. Or ground. Or bushes. It was an odd call.
Regardless, it was cold and Shekel and I both wanted to get home to some warmth. Whippets aren’t the heartiest of breeds. We often had to carry her when her paws would get too cold. And so we headed for the exit…or at least we tried to…we tried…I tried…
There’s this part of my wife both endearing and frustratingly annoying: SHE NEVER GIVES THE #### UP! On anything she can’t solve. And so she kept on searching…and searching…and then she and I saw it. A grey bird about the size of a Grackle. It was perhaps twenty feet up one of the largest trees near the trail out of the cemetery.
We closed in and the stark reality hit us like a snowball to the chops.
“That’s no bird, it’s a kitten!” By God, so it was. How he’d gotten up there was anybody’s guess, but there he was, and no mistake. We coaxed and prayed and coaxed some more, then I thought I’d take Shekel home and get my friend to bring a ladder. Seemed good. Warm van and all.
My wife stayed behind to keep trying as dark was falling fast, and when I got back, she was walking toward us with a small grey kitten gamboling behind her. Our first cat…for me the first-ever.
He was so cute…you know that kind of cuteness that just doesn’t seem possible? No? Well, then, get a cute cat. He was so cute and Shekel so gentle that we introduced them right away. As my wife held the kitten, she motioned for Shekel to come nearer.
HISS! SWIPE! CLAWS! SHEKEL RUNNING AWAY! Yeah, I wouldn’t recommend doing it this way. I even tried to put Gandalf back on the porch — nobody hurts MY dog! Except he came in behind me before I could close the door. He’s a cheeky little blighter, that Gandalf (he’s a grey cat, we’re avid readers, what would you expect?). But soon he became Shekel’s odd little puppy. She loved him and he accepted her as his surrogate mother. They did everything together.
Ahh, bliss again…
That’s Not Gandalf!
Nope, sure wasn’t. We used to be able to leave the back screen doors open in summer and Shekel would go out and in with Gandalf and no issues. Then one night, I saw a cat in the dark living room eating out of Shekel’s bowl. No big deal, Gandalf and her shared a lot of things.
Only Gandalf was out in the other room! Alahm!!! Mach Schnell!!! Alahm!!! We jumped up and hustled this little intruder back outside. Problem solved…until the next night…and the next. I decided he’d earned the right to stay and so Gandalf had a little orange and white brother named Radagast.
And it didn’t stop there. What’s the saying? “One cat becomes another and another and another”…up to nine for us. That doesn’t count the neighborhood strays we help with food, shelter, and attention. If our house were only larger…
But, back to the story.
Over the years, we’ve been forced by circumstances to take more cats in until we our current nine…to match the nine Ringwraiths if you Tolkien fans are keeping score. [3] And believe me, NINE in one small house is a full-time petting zoo. And costly. And filled with vet trips and medicines, and surgeries, and special foods, and…ad infinitum.
In Steps Jen
My wife Jen could see we needed something to help us keep track of all the special needs and foods, etc. which each cat had. So, she went back to her college roots and got a binder. A nice big binder with pockets and a zipper and a three-hole punch added in. She was a Conservation of Natural Resources major, after all.
The pic? No, that’s not Jen. That’s me. And that’s the binder. And that’s really all there is to it. Simple organization to the rescue.
In this binder are nine folders with each of our cats’ names on them. And in these folders are the check-up pages from the vet; vaccine schedules; dietary restrictions and special foods; birthdates and ages of each cat; and rabies certificates — you name it, it’s in there.
All in one place. Nice and simple.
So when vet visits come up, there it is, ready to give out and receive any and everything needed to keep track of it all. When questions arise regarding medicines or allergies, all there.
Sure it takes work to maintain, but not as much as you’d think. And it isn’t temperamental like computers and internet connections and electrical outages. And as if to make a point, my internet connection was lost during this writing. You can’t make this stuff up, people.
Old School DOES have its perks.
So, there you have it. Not difficult by any means. Not expensive, really. And it brings a sense of comfort to people like me who love organization. You can do this, too. If you have multiple pets in your house, you need this. It just simplifies everything, especially when emergencies crop up. And with all of ours being rescues, you can bet we’ve had a lot of emergencies on top of the mundane.
So do yourself a favor, if you’re an old hand at pet ownership or just getting that first cuddly puppy: Get organized. It really saves the day when you need that info fast for a vet to do their job better.
Obsession…by John Woolf [4]
Sorry, couldn’t resist. By now I’m sure you’ve figured out my obsession…my pets. Cats in this case, as we have been sans canine for ten-plus years now. I wanted one, but Jen just couldn’t. All you pet lovers: you understand.
So our fellowship now includes, in addition to Gandalf and Radagast, Strider, Samwise, Pippin, Nessa, Elrond, Tauriel [5], and Meriadoc. (Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit are books by J.R.R. Tolkien and all names are from these except for Nessa from The Silmarillion and Tauriel of the movie version of The Hobbit by Peter Jackson.)
Ad infinitum. Plenty of more names.
Afterthoughts…
Our sweet doggie Shekel passed in 2010 of a spinal tumor. And Gandalf was devastated. I never knew a bond could exist like that between species. But it can.
And now Gandalf is our old grey warrior. He’s had his share of medical issues over the years and is turning fourteen this month. Time is so cruel. But he’ll always be the little grey kitten up in that tree to us…making that terrible bird impression Jen just HAD to figure out.
