Let me out!
Max, our cat, has finally drifted off for a nap and left me with some peace and quiet for a change. Almost from the crack of dawn this morning he's been yowling at me constantly. It's a beautiful Spring day here -- warm and sunny, everything is blooming and growing, birds are chirping, and squirrels and chipmunks are happily frolicking in the undergrowth.
Max clearly wants to be let out; it's obvious that in his previous life he was an outdoor cat. He doesn't understand why we keep him inside, and gets especially agitated if he sees *us* outside, as if we are taunting him with our opposable thumbs and our clever corresponding ability to operate door knobs and handles easily.
If I could speak Cat, I would explain this to him succinctly. We don't let Max out because:
A) We promised the woman who runs the cat shelter we adopted him from that we wouldn't. She's the town's animal control officer, she knows better than anyone what happens to cats left outside, and she'll have none of it for the felines in her care.
B) There are dogs in the neighborhood that roam free, and I've seen them chase cats and bark at them.
C) The teenagers in this neighborhood drive like fucking retards.
D) So do some of their parents.
E) Our last cat, who only accidentally got outside, came back dead. We suspect issues B, C and D were all contributing factors.
F) There are cat-eating coyotes (no shit) that prowl the woods in this neighborhood. Our neighbor found one of her cats' remains thusly consumed last fall, completely eaten save the fur.
G) We love Max and want him to stick around, so he can yell at us well into his golden years.
All these, I think, are good reasons to keep Max inside.
Comments
My aunt & uncle lost two young cats outdoors, probably to wild animals, but picked up a stray while looking for the second one. She doesn't get let out.
Posted by: Alphax | June 3, 2004 06:26 PM
I've seen people with their cats on a leash. I was helping the homeless last Saturday and one had their cat on a cute puple one. Perhaps let the little thing out with one of those once in a while? The outdoors is too nice a place and the house too confining, methinks.
All valid points for keeping him in, methinks, but... a leash perhaps?
Just a thought.
-T
Posted by: chocolate-covered treat | June 4, 2004 04:10 AM
heh. A leash. I tried that. My cat puts up with a lot of things, but a leash was *definitely* not one of them. Get one and try it for the hilarity if nothing else.
Posted by: vajrabelle | June 4, 2004 07:48 AM
Yeah, some cats can be trained to use a leash, some can't. I wouldn't even try to do so with Max -- he's a force of nature as it is.
Last time I was in San Francisco I saw this fellow walking down Market Street, and it appeared that he had a huge, fluffy coonskin cap sitting on his shoulder. Then the coonskin cap glared at me, and I realized that I was looking at a fair-sized longhair cat. He'd trained the cat to sit on his shoulder like a parrot on a pirate. Quite remarkable.
Posted by: flargh | June 4, 2004 07:55 AM
We used to have a Weimaraner at my mom's house (http://www.akc.org/breeds/recbreeds/weim.cfm). It was a hunting dog that started catching hens by the neck when it was only 4 months old. It was almost 6 feet tall standing on its hing legs, powerful but also docile. It would instinctly keep an eye on the smaller kids for us when we had barbecue parties with 20+ people in the garden.
My mom also happened to have cat, which was quite used to roam free around the garden before the dog arrived. The cat was always tauting the dog, which would remain on a leash so the cat could walk outside a bit.
One day, the dog managed to catch the cat, which ended up in a vet hospital for 2 weeks, as the dog's teeth pierced right through the cat's thigh.
The cat never stopped taunting the dog. Both died, eventually. The cat, by natural reasons, but the dog was poisoned by a jealous and crazy neighbor.
Posted by: fcc | June 4, 2004 05:01 PM