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Praetorium Honoris

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

My Cat Woke Me Up This Morning¹ ...

OAFS Photo
One tosses and turns a lot as an old guy, this is something I have learned. If my alarm is set, I won't sleep worth a damn. Enough to get by, but not enough to really feel rested. I get my rest on weekends.

Anyhoo, woke up at 0300 local to answer a call of nature. As far as nature is concerned, I need to get an unlisted number. Noted the time, felt a certain amount of satisfaction knowing that I didn't have to get up for another three hours. Also had a certain disgruntlement at the knowledge that I did indeed "have to" get up. (I know, I know, I could retire but I ain't ready for that. I have no desire to become a retiree at this time.)

At some point (probably around 0545) I swear I heard a "meow." A cat was talking to me. I recognized the voice, it was Sasha. Pretty sure. She was really good at notifying me of stuff. Like the time the roof was pissing rain out of the closet in my computer room. She came in to the bedroom, woke me up, and led me down the hall to where we were taking on water. She gave me a look as if to say, "This doesn't look right ..."

But it could have been Anya as well, in the last few months of her life she made a habit of checking on me periodically throughout the night. (I swear she was asking me if I needed to pee or not. Thoughtful of her, wasn't it?)

So yes, I still hear my cats around the house. I'll be alone in the house and hear the sound of a cat jumping off the bed upstairs. Weird, yet comforting at the same time.

I don't know what comes after this existence, but if my cats aren't there, I want no part of it ...

Here's something I wrote a while back. I am seriously missing having felines in the house. The Missus Herself has forbidden discussion on the topic. She says she doesn't want to go through the loss and the pain again.

Can't say I blame her, but ...



(Source)
It was with some sadness that I read of the passing of one of Juvat's canines. Especially after a Sunday morning emergency trip to the veterinarian for one of the feline staff. Afterwards, The Missus Herself mentioned that the emotions over the loss of our non-human friends may be more than she will be able to bear in the future. I know what she means, but it's something I've thought about over the years, as I try to measure the pain of their loss against the joy of having shared life with them.

Doing a bit of research, it seems that our species began to interact with certain canine species a very long time ago, perhaps as long as 400,000 years ago. We were still hunter/gatherers at the time, we roamed the landscape and were more a part of nature than we are now. Some studies suggest that dogs became our companions through hunting.

Cats came along much later, perhaps as early as 15,000 years ago. It wasn't necessarily the Egyptians who first domesticated the cat, but they certainly seemed to be the first humans to actually revere the cat as a semi-divine being. Which has led to the cat's modern attitude towards humans. As has been said before, "Dogs have owners, cats have staff."

Cats were domesticated when we first started to settle in one place and learned to grow grain (I won't try to figure that out, it amazes me what early humans came up with, "Hey, let's see what this tastes like!") stored grain attracted rodents, which attracted cats.

While modern humans and modern canines aren't perhaps the hunters they once were, all cats are hunters. They retain that instinct and practice it from the time they are old enough to walk. If you look closely, you can see the wolf in the dog, you don't have to look that hard to see the tiger in the cat.


I grew up with a cat and have been a "cat person" my whole life. I think perhaps because my father was deathly afraid of dogs, he'd had a narrow escape as a kid from a very vicious dog. But I was also familiar with dogs from a very early age. My maternal grandparents lived on a farm, they had two dogs, both mixed breed, though one was mostly collie and the other mostly beagle.

When we would go to visit the farm, those dogs would go nuts, they were so happy to see us. I'm sure you know what I mean, wagging their tails so hard that their whole body was involved. Small yips and a happy look on their faces and a frantic need for physical contact. God, I loved those dogs. They were also fiercely protective of us.

My grandfather once demonstrated this to Ye Olde Vermonter and I. Those dogs adored my grandfather but one day he told us that he was going to come after us, he would act mad and make like he was going to hit us (which he never, ever did) and told us to watch the dogs.

At first they thought he was playing, then they sensed that he was demonstrating a lot of aggression towards my brother and I. They took it seriously and in an instant they were between my grandfather and us, snarling fiercely at him, fangs bared and ready to kill. Gramp defused the situation by laughing and backing off, but my brother and I had to convince the dogs that Gramp was just playing. I do think those dogs would've torn someone limb from limb if they had meant us harm.


Now cats are, on average, smaller than dogs and certainly far less emotional. I doubt that any of the cats I've known would have attacked someone for threatening me. Well, except maybe for Tommy, my first cat and the one I grew up with, from the age of five to the age of seventeen.

Tommy was unusual for a cat. He'd follow me to school and would follow my friends and I up into the woods when we were out for an afternoon. Nothing scared Tommy except for one animal, one of my friend's dogs, a big Golden Retriever named Sam. Oddly enough, Sam was one of the friendliest dogs I've ever known. But he was huge, so Tommy wanted nothing to do with him. If Sam was around, Tommy made himself scarce.

There was a family who lived briefly in our neighborhood who had a German Shepherd. Not a small dog but not one of the bigger of that breed. He probably weighed forty pounds, and he was terrified of Tommy. I don't know what happened to cause that but I did see the dog coming down the sidewalk one day. Tommy was sitting in the middle of that sidewalk.

That dog crossed the street with his head down and his tail tucked away. He kept an eye on Tommy but avoided direct eye contact. Tommy stared at that poor dog until he was a good hundred feet down the street.

That dog was in Tommy's territory and he let that poor dog know it.


For too long a stretch I had no pets in my life. Being single, then being in the Air Force didn't really present the opportunity. But on my last assignment in Germany, which turned into two three year tours, back to back, with a few months added on to take me to retirement, I insisted to The Missus Herself that if we were going to stay that long, we should get a cat.

She was hesitant at first, then I casually mentioned to the kids that we were "thinking of getting a cat." They got pretty excited and Mom realized that she was cornered. Yes, I was told, "don't ever do that again," but hey, it worked.

A friend of ours in the neighborhood had a landlord with a farm, and a pregnant cat. We determined that one of her litter would be ours, everyone agreed and one day when the kittens were about six months old, we went to pick one from the two who were left.

If you guessed that we left with both, you guessed right. I'm a big believer in not breaking up a set, so to speak. Those cats were a joy. I had been worried that The Missus Herself might be a bit stand-offish as she had not been thrilled with the idea of having "animals in the house," she turned out to be the biggest softy, spoiling those two cats like you wouldn't believe.

The Nuke once remarked that we treated the cats better than the kids. "If reincarnation is a real thing, I want to come back as a cat in this family." I pointed out that we were raising her and her siblings to be good, productive citizens. The cats, not so much, so they could pretty much do whatever they wanted, within reason of course. (Staying off the kitchen counters was the one hard and fast rule The Missus Herself enforced. Often by using a spray bottle of water. The cats persisted, she eventually gave up.)


All good things must end and we bid farewell to the sole survivor of our to German cats back in 2003. (Pat's brother Tiger had died very young, passing in 1998 at the age of five. He never saw the States.) I was devastated, as was The Missus Herself, it's amazing how attached one gets to those furry members of the tribe.

We lasted one weekend with no cats in the house. Pat had passed on a Friday, when I was at work Monday, I checked the internet to see if our local shelter had any cats. The house was just too empty, The Missus Herself being all alone at home with The Naviguesser being away in the Navy and the two daughters away at college. She and Pat had kept each other company for a few years.

When I called home to mention the availability of cats at the shelter, The Missus Herself asked, "Can we go over there when you get home?"

Why yes, yes we could.

Fifteen years on we still have those two (yes, we went to get one, but there were two sisters, damned near identical, how could I break up the set?) we picked up that chilly night in October. Sunday morning last, it seemed that we were about to lose one of them. Tore us both up, a lot. While at the veterinarian emergency clinic, there was another family there, about ten of them, with a very sick dog. Poor pooch didn't make it, that family was very torn up, I felt their loss having been in that situation.

Fortunately Anya just needed some antibiotics for a urinary tract infection, she seems to be doing fine. Though Sasha is pissed at her for getting "special" treatment. She's the jealous sort.

But it was harrowing all the same. Still and all, much as I hate to say it, it's something I need to prepare myself for emotionally. They are fifteen, which is old for a cat, about 78 in human years. But they're both pretty healthy, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Those who don't understand the attachment many of us have with our non-human family members are missing something very special. Something we humans have been experiencing for over ten thousand years.

It's a special relationship, one that can only be understood by experiencing it. They truly are family.




¹ Monday morning actually, post was written on Monday, posted on Tuesday.

40 comments:

  1. After these posts Sarge, going to still say there a little Egyptian somewhere in your background.......... :) That is a rather calming photo there. Don't forget, retiree is not a four-letter word.

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    1. Might well could be, thinking of building a pyramid for the afterlife. 😁

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  2. I had forgotten how much I like cats! YAY, GEORGE! We have, being a farm as we are, a couple of dozen cats, come over and pick up a couple!

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  3. Sarge, there was an original Twilight Zone episode where a man and his dog die. In the afterlife, they are enticed by a fine looking gentleman to "heaven" - except the dog growls at the man The fine looking gentleman says the old man is free to enter, but must leave his dog. The old man passes, saying that if the dog is not allowed there, likely nowhere he would like either.

    I am sure you can guess whom the fine looking gentleman represents.

    I firmly believe our pets haunting the liminal areas of consciousness between dreams and waking, as I think it unlikely they will abandon us and I cannot imagine an otherwise good God refusing them this small thing.

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    1. Funny this; I just had a dream about the male dog we just lost. Someone called his name and I said "You must mean his sister" (who's still with us, sleeping next to me as I write this) but I turned and there he was!
      Soon after we had to put him down, I said to someone "I believe dogs have souls and I cannot believe God would deny us their company in eternity".
      Those Twilight Zone episodes were brilliant.
      Boat Guy

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    2. What sort of God would deny us the companionship he gave us in this life in the afterlife? Not our God, that's for sure.

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  4. About a decade ago, when we were living in a semi-rural area, we lost a cat to a predator. We knew this because our big dog, his good friend, had found part of him and was guarding it. He was quite a character; the friendliest cat I had ever had. He was prone to hopping up on the bed at night, walking around a bit, and then sleeping at our feet. After he died, we would feel a cat walking around on the end of the bed late at night. That was weird but also comforting. We would tell him to lie down and it would quit.

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    1. I fully believe that they won't abandon us. Sounds like a very special dog as well.

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  5. At 73 and living alone I have made the decision to no longer have animals as I wouldn't want to not outlive them and have them suffer the fate of unwanted pets.

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    1. That is one of my wife's concerns, truth be told, mine too.

      I remember seeing something, fairly recently but I don't remember where, where the man (in the story) says that if anything should ever happen to him, bring his dog to see his corpse. He wouldn't want his old friend to think that he'd abandoned him.

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    2. There's a very poignant photo of a dog lying in front of a SEAL's casket.
      We had our female in the room when her brother went out
      BG

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    3. I've seen that, very poignant indeed. In the local paper (online version) there was a photo recently of a K-9 who had died in the line of duty. The dog's handler was kneeling next to the gurney carrying his deceased partner. Made me tear up it did.

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    4. Our love of dogs (and cats) can make even the most "hardened" of us emotional; I remember reading that Otto von Bismarck stopped getting Great Danes because he "could not bear to lose another friend"
      BG

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    5. I know that feeling all too well.

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  6. Our community has a wonderful resource, a grief center. Free to everyone. They now have a program for people who have lost pets.

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    1. I remember you mentioning that, sounds like an excellent resource.

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  7. Very touching post. All of my "animal friends" have belonged to others; I've always been afraid of leaving them behind.

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    1. I have a number of animal friends which "belong" to others. I cherish them as well. (My grand-dogs and grand-cats spring to mind, I also have a grand-rabbit. I think what triggered this post is that my grand-hamster passed way over the weekend, much beloved by my granddaughters from LUSH.)

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  8. Lovely post all around. I love cat stories, being a cat person myself (but without one for 33 years now, due to an allergic WIFE. We have a deal - If I go first, she gets to have a toy poodle. If she goes first, I get to have a cat. Consolation prizes!) Anyway, I'm really commenting to tell you how much I love this line - "As far as nature is concerned, I need to get an unlisted number." Brilliant!

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    1. That line just came to me out of the blue, probably while getting up to hit the head in the middle of the night!

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  9. Yup, concur all about how important our furry friends are, and how their loss is so hard to take.
    Not a cat person myself, but I really don't case much for vanilla ice cream either, so to each their own. But, doggies or chocolate will wag my tail!

    Maybe I will do something on military mascots some day, or maybe someone else will.
    JB

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  10. I know how you feel, although the absence of a pet in our household never lasts long. Every successive pet we've had has been harder to lose than it's predecessor. Not sure if that's because the kids are grown or we're growing more sentimental. We said no more after the previous 2 passed away, but we now have another- however she is the sister of our daughter's dog, and a catastrophic foster fail. Our latest is a total cuddler and my wife's constant companion. We'll see how we feel in 10 years or so when this one leaves us. Travel is on that horizon and my daughter won't always be here to dog-sit.

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    1. The last gap between cats was three days, this one is hard to take.

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    2. In Africa (Northern Rhodesia as it was then, now Zambia) we found a kitten in the bush, it was weaned but unable to survive on its own. A vet was of the opinion that she was a cross between an African Wild Cat and a domestic tom. She adored domesticity and human company but was also a huntress par excellence.
      She could catch bats which were swooping low over the vegetable patch. Snakes such as cobras were naught but a snack for her.
      When we moved from the farm into town she had to adapt to this new environment which took time. Our dogs she'd grown up with and she tolerated them. The people across the road had a most obnoxious German Shepherd which thought that he ruled the street. One day he spied our cat in our driveway and charged it with "Kill" in his eyes. The cat stood, unworried until the dog got close then she crouched. The dog leapt at the cat, the cat went airborne and landed on the dog's back. She had one paw across the dog's eyes, the other around its neck. Then she started to chew off one of the dog's ears!
      The dog yelped and began shaking and jumping but there was no dislodging that cat. When he eventually decided to roll the cat jumped clear and actually WALKED away!
      The dog's owner later came to see my Father and demanded that damages to his dog be financially recompensed. My Dad politely refused and related the story of the incident which both he and I had witnessed.

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    3. Selsey Steve,
      Never pick a fight you can’t win. Even if you think you can!
      Well done, Cat!
      juvat

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    4. selsey.steve - Quite right, acts of aggression shouldn't be rewarded. I'm sure that pooch learned his lesson!

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    5. juvat - Never mess with a cat with a bit o' wild in him!

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    6. ...(From a friend in graduate school and ex SF sgt). When the odds are just too great - Airborne!!!...

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    7. The only branch used to fighting surrounded!

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    8. When I posted, I was remembering an old video of a little boy attacked by a neighbor's dog. Before the parent filming it could react, their cat sprinted full tilt for the dog. He hit the dog that weighed five or six times more than himself with enough force to knock the dog over, then enveloped him in a blizzard of claws and teeth. The dog finally escaped with the cat chasing him all the way home. Don't mess with MY little human!

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    9. I've seen that video. Cats defend their own!

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  11. No cat ever filled the hole that Tiss Puss (as she was known) when she passed aged 16.

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    1. Some of them are like that, one of a kind. Always missed, never forgotten.

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  12. I don't miss any person as much as I miss some of my dogs.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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