Part I: Everything I Ever Learned
My cats have truly made me stop and think more than anything else has on planet Earth. We have three right now, so I’m tripling my daily education.
Let’s start with Nino. He’s pointed out a lot of my flaws…
Eleven years ago, my cousin was working at the San Francisco Animal Care and Control. This coincided with me finally getting over the loss of my beloved first cat (ok, don’t even ask how many years I took to do that) and she convinced me to visit to see if I’d find another cat to fill that void.
I was like Goldilocks with three bears. The first one I saw was so loving! But he kept drooling all over me and I as much as this was going to be the perfect lap cat, I didn’t think I could do stomach that saliva bit every day. The next was a rambunctious tabby who couldn’t care less about my lap and was only happy if I was playing. Then came Nino and he was just right, as the story goes. He did both jumps and pounces, plus he loved to sit and have his chin scratched. I was sold.
Typically, you ought to introduce cats to their surroundings slowly: small room with little to explore (and be afraid of) first, then gradually the rest of the house over several days. Nino, when taken out of his carrier, was right at home immediately. He rubbed against me, had no fear of the new things around him and just had fun with both his new human and home.
But Nino isn’t always always so easy. Nope. He is one of those cats who is incredibly smart and therefore incredibly frustrated that he isn’t always understood perfectly. Unlike the cats who can be pet until your arm falls off, this one knows precisely when he is done with you. He is annoyed when a camera comes out — he will never ever sit still for a photo (or at least not without both ears fully angled with resentment).
From his reactions to cameras, to not feeling understood, I can see that he is SO me. I want to grab him and put him on my lap when I want to, but that’s just not what he wants. I want a zillion shots of all his funny antics, but he knows that that camera spoils the mood. How can I blame him? I would never do that for anyone, why should they do it for me?!
I got him when I was single and every time I traveled, I took him with me. When I went north of San Francisco to visit family, he’d know the whole route by heart: loving to sit on my lap standing tall to look through the steering wheel to see the Golden Gate Bridge (don’t tell anyone) and he’d cower back on the passenger seat when we went through the tunnel. He’d get very excited to see his first redwoods and smell the Marin air standing on his hind legs to look out the window.
And he was always as much a part of the family vacations as anyone: my mom called him her ‘grandcat.’ And, like my home, he adapted to every new environment easily and with excitement and curiosity. He truly has some very dog-like qualities!
Years ago, he suffered violently of IBD. He couldn’t digest one a bite of food, it just ran right through him to the other end (I hope I said that in as graceful a manner possible). I was horrified and afraid of the treatment: Prednisone. So, I asked the vet before we did that if I could research diet a bit. He absolutely agreed (I’m grateful he wasn’t threatened by that) and I worked on (1) figuring out raw diet for cats and (2) adjusting recipes for him that included no protein he had ever tried and hadn’t already become sensitive to.
In 2 days he was holding in his food, in 2 weeks the symptoms had all cleared, and in 2 months he had a second ultrasound that was perfectly normal. The doctor delivered this news to me as Nino and I anxiously sat in the waiting area (usually I try to sooth and pet my cats there, but no doubt I was just biting my nails that time). In lieu of dangerously inflamed lymph nodes, the vet saw nothing but a healthy gut! He was as shocked and happy as I was and he proclaimed Nino did not need the steroids as he had prescribed just two months earlier.
This has taught me the importance of nutrition in our lives…there’s no denying how critical it is to eat a healthy (and species-appropriate) diet.
The last thing I’ve learned is that you should never ever bank on falling in love with a cat that you saw on a shelter’s set of photos.
I should say, don’t discount a cat that just looks like a grump. Thankfully, I never saw his photos and was never influenced by the angled ears to think he was an evil mean cat! After bringing him home and falling head over heels in love with him over a few days, I finally looked at his photo and bio to keep in my archives on his life with me and boy did I get a laugh.
How anyone ever gave him up at age 4 (he was owner-surrendered) is beyond me! He has been my soul-mate and best friend all these years. Nowadays, at age 16, people think he can’t be a day over 5 years old. He is so fit, healthy, and active, that the neighbors affectionately know him as “Jack Lalanne.” I’m in admiration of this guy. He’s a little human in cats’ clothing and he is one of three that has shaken me up to really see both myself and others more clearly.
