Feline Time

One bitterly-cold winter night, this friendly little black cat came to our door. Meow...meow....meOW....MEOWWWWW. This went on for a few minutes before we couldn't take it anymore and started rummaging through the pantry for something to feed the little guy. (Or girl; at this point, we didn't know.)

This cat was not exactly a stranger — he'd been spotted cruising around the apartment building for at least a year or so. Rumor had it someone had abandoned him when they moved out of their unit, leaving him to fend for himself. He'd allow himself to be petted and fed, then disappear into the woods, and occasionally stalk small birds and the evil attack Canada geese that roost annually on the roof, honking, hissing, and making a mess. So we'd seen him before.

Anyway, I popped open a can of tuna, scraped it all out onto a paper plate, and carried it to the sliding glass door, where Mr. Kitty was still meowing pitifully and staring in at us, all warm and cozy and watching Survivor. When I opened the door, he blinked up at me, and my husband said, "Aww, it's so cold out...let him come in for a few minutes while he eats."

You cat lovers out there can probably guess what happened next.

Fast-forward to that weekend, when he was allowed to spend Saturday night and Sunday afternoon hanging out with us. All the rest of the next week, he'd be waiting by the door as soon as we came home from work, ready to eat. (I finally had to break down and buy some Nine Lives on my weekly shopping pilgrimage.) By the time a week had passed, I was out shopping for such feline necessities as a litter box, a huge plastic vat of kitty litter, a collar (with bell, to give our pet birds some fair warning), a little pink kitty brush, fish-shaped kitty treats ("now with more tuna!"), and of course the required squeaky mouse and little bag of catnip.

Yes, this little black cat had claimed us as his family.

Kitty appeared very healthy, with one exception. Well, two. For one thing, he'd randomly drool for no apparent reason. Secondly, it was pretty likely he hadn't had a shot for anything in years. I knew what I had to do...take him to the vet. While I'm glad now that I did, I am also glad that the ordeal is now over. (I'm still not sure who it was worse for, me or Kitty — I mean, at least he got to be loaded with some really great anesthesia!)

In addition to jabbing needles in him for rabies, distemper, and kennel cough, they determined that he had a pretty bad infection in the gums on one side of his mouth. Not only did I have to take him to the vet for shots, now I had to bring him back for dental work! Up until now, the ideas of "cats" and "dentistry" had never seemed to go together. So I took him, and they pumped him full of drugs and ended up having to extract two teeth. I know he must feel a lot better now...but I still feel pretty guilty.

This being my first cat (I've always been a dog person), I'm now finding out a lot about felines, including the fact that cats are masters of the art of the guilt trip. Let's just say Kitty's been gulping down a lot of those fish-shaped tuna treats lately....