By Trent Rosser
Well, we did it again. After the untimely death of our old cat a year ago, I said that we will never get another cat. I am done with having another mouth to feed. Not only that, but I am done trying to keep them inside and away from stray dogs and trying to make sure that I don’t roll over in the middle of the night and crush them. Worrying that Hunter and Hades the dogs don’t get too rough with a cat is a concern too and, last but not least, I was sick and tired of getting close to another animal and only to see it pass away. Some of you might not remember, but when my wife and I first got together she had a cat that was pregnant. I explained to my wife that no matter what, we were to get rid of the kittens after they were born. Somehow, like most married men, I was talked into keeping one of them. It became my cat and we named him Rascal. I haven’t talked a lot about Rascal for a reason. Somehow, he chose me, I did not choose him. Rascal would protect me while I worked at night by sleeping in the bottom of my desk drawer. While he was a kitten, we would even play fetch together. I would throw one of his little toys across the room and Rascal would bring it back and drop it in my lap. But, unfortunately, like all things in life, Rascal started to get older. Instead of him bringing me his toys back to me after I tossed them he would give me dirty looks and then walk off. He stopped being my cat and wanted to go outside all the time. It was comical when he would want back in. He would come to the screen door. Hook the screen with his claws, hop backwards and let the door go. The screen door would slam shut and everyone in the house would know, “Rascal wants in!”. Then one night it happened. Rascal was on my lap asleep and decided to go outside. He jumped down and started meowing at the door. I opened up the door and there on the porch waiting for him was a couple of other cats. The next morning the neighbors called me and said that they had bad news. Apparently, Rascal got in there backyard with their rottweiler dogs. When I got Rascal, he was still alive, but in quite a bit of pain. We had to put him down to stop his suffering. I came to the conclusion that the two cats waiting on him were his girlfriends. One of them got in the backyard with the dogs and Rascal sacrificed himself to save his girlfriends. Whether it happened that way or not, that is my story and I am sticking to it!
A little while later, my wife said that we needed a new cat. We lived in the country and had a small mouse problem. My wife found a kitten on one of the pet sites on Facebook. We drove across town and picked up our new black and white kitten. My wife named him, Marco. My wife would holler for him yelling “Marco? Marco?” and I would yell back “polo, polo”. Again, I was back to worrying about if the dogs were too rough with him or if would crush him when I would be asleep and roll over.
Marco turned out to be a brat. He used to get out and get on top of the roof and cry for a rescue. Once, my wife heard him on the roof and went out back to try to get him down. She saw him come to the edge, so she went inside to get the broom and a chair. A few minutes later, she was in her robe, standing on a chair on the edge of the house with a broom trying to coax a cat down. But she couldn’t see the cat. Suddenly she turned around to see both of our dogs and Marco himself sitting next to each other just watching her. I thought that Marco would die at the hands of my wife that day. I even wrote about Marco getting caught and tangled up in a fly trap. Yes, that was exciting trying to give him a bath! About a year ago, we went out of town. Our daughter was to come and feed the animals while we were gone, Marco had gotten out, which was not unusual, and a stray dog came by. The stray dog killed Marco and two more cats that lived on our block. That was the final straw. I would not get another cat, no matter what.
Can you guess what happened? Yep, we picked up another cat. This one we got on Veterans Day. So his name is “Sarge”. Again, I am stressed out on trying to keep him inside, spending more money to feed him and buying more kitty litter, and hoping that I will not crush him while I am sleeping. Most of all, I make sure that the dogs do not get too rough with him. It turns out I don’t need to worry at all. Sarge has gotten out twice and ended up in the same tree on the same limb until I was able to get him down. He really doesn’t want to go outside much. He will sleep on the edge of the bed when he does sleep with us, but he is usually curled up with the 110 pound Hunter the Dog. Sarge is an orange cat and when he is asleep with Hunter, you cannot see him. It kinda looks like Hunter has a tail growing out of his side.
As for the dogs being too rough? I don’t think that will be a problem. Sarge is just as tough as his name sounds. Suddenly, out of nowhere, an orange ball of fur is trying to bite the dogs. Never in my life I thought I would be yelling at a cat, “SARGE! LEAVE THE DOGS ALONE!”.
I do have an exciting household. My lovely wife that helps keep my sanity, a grandchild that brings laughter to the house, and two great loyal dogs to protect us (sometimes three dogs when we are dogsitting for our son). And that damn cat that chases the guard dogs!