Working when they feel like it, sleeping the day
away, partying all night, and making sure you know that whatever you say
or do means not a whit to them (what IS a whit, anyway?), these creatures
who inhabit a homestead do not hop, trot, gallop, waddle or run like the
other resident critters - they saunter.
Saunter around the corner just in time for dinner.
Saunter away with a mouse after a lightning quick
hunt ends successfully.
Saunter purposefully after doing something
embarrassing, exuding “I meant to do that” from every furry pore.
Saunter right in front of your legs while you are
carting in 50-pound bags of feed, or better yet, groceries. The sack
with the breakables in it.
The fuzzy equivalent to the relation who comes to
visit, and then stays long past his welcome, not with appreciation, but
with the attitude that he’s doing you a big fat hairy favor by consuming
YOUR food and using YOUR utilities, you know, of course, who I’m talking
about.
The Barn Cat.
Why on Earth would we keep a creature around that
seems to be in permanent teenaged morosity? “To catch the mice,” we claim
defiantly.
Really.
Really?
I currently have three cats in residence.
Gremlin was born here 12 years ago. His mom was
a tiny feral fluff of a kitty who had 2 kittens under the house.
Shortly after the kitties were weaned, momma cat disappeared with the cute
kitten, and Gremlin was left. Mostly wild, he’s prime Farm Cat
material, yet if confronted, nay, presented with a mouse, he turns his
back and yawns. I’ve witnessed him hastily pulling his paw away from
danger of coming in contact with a running mouse.
Petri was a friend’s cat. When Angela moved out
of state, Petri came to live with us. Angela had found Petri as a
starving stray kitten, and bottle-fed him into a sleek, panther-like
specimen. He had been denied transfer due to a fondness of urinating on
everything inside the house, so even though he had had his front claws
removed, he was dubbed a Barn Cat, and turned loose. I’ve seen him catch
one mouse in 8 years. It was slow, and looked a little brain-damaged.
Petri is a prime example of "you are, what you eat."
Oswald was born in the lap of luxury - the planned
child of two housecats. Fluffy, orange and white, with whiskers all the
way out to there, Oswald lived in our house till we started the big,
noisy, alarming parts of our home renovation, at which point he showed his
displeasure by using our bed as a litter box. After a few such episodes,
I picked up the cat, opened the front door, and unceremoniously plopped
him onto the porch, closing the door behind me.
Guess he showed ME.
Surprisingly, Oswald is the Master Mouser. He
can hear a mouse from across the yard and through an insulated wall.
If I come across a mouse in a feed sack, all I have to do is say "here
Ozzie" and he’s right there to retrieve it for me. I tip the sack
and in he darts, backing out with the offending rodent. If there are
TWO mice in the sack, that’s his specialty - it only takes a split second
longer, then he backs out with a mouse-tashe, one tail drooping out of
each side of his mouth.
For the squeamish mouse lovers out there, Ozzie is
also the most business-like cat I’ve ever seen. He’s not interested
in the least with playing with his hapless prey. It’s a quick
execution, followed by happy ingestion.
Here’s where the informational part of this story
begins…
