12—Old Cats...New Tricks

Within minutes of entering Safeway, I’d filled my cart with all the organic tea, beans, soy milk, whole-grain pasta, tomato sauce, brown rice, oats, buckwheat, quinoa, and other staples not likely to be found in a village with a grocery store whose three-foot by four-foot produce cooler lay in the back corner behind the wine, cracker, candy, and cupcake sections. With provisions enough to hold a vegetarian special-forces unit for a month, I rolled my cart into the first-aid and hardware sections where I selected items for coping with every physical or automotive crisis not requiring a surgeon or mechanic. I then picked out a set of storage containers to keep my purchases orderly and dry during transit. Secure in my preparedness, I felt my confidence mounting—until I stepped into the pet-supply section.

Both my cats were such confirmed homebodies that driving a mile to the vet took us to the brink of meltdown. After adding a blue travel-sized litter box to my cart, I began to imagine what 1,300 miles in a car and two over-nights in a motel would do to them. 

cd 

MITTS

But then as fate would have it, words of hope sprang out at me from the magazine rack in the checkout line:

Tips On Traveling By Car With Your Cat 

by Dr. Samantha Waverly

Veterinarian, Cat-Lover, and Travel Aficionado

I plucked the magazine from the rack and paged quickly through to the article. Begin, Dr. Sam counseled, by buying your cat a new carrier. This will remove all associations with the vet and arouse your pet’s curiosity. Next, place treats, toys, and the cat’s favorite blanket or bedding items inside the new carrier. Then leave the carrier in a primary living space so your cat will be encouraged by the familiar environment to play inside. After allowing several days of casual play, sit on the floor beside the carrier and speak reassuringly yet confidently to your cat while offering extra treats. When your cat is comfortable, gently guide it into the new carrier, and, voila, you and your cat are ready for your first short practice drive.

Well, the whole thing sounded like a bunch of newly aged catnip to me. First off, my cats didn’t play. They would manipulate, demand, whine, and retaliate. But they never played. Unless, of course, it was with a tack or glue stick which if ingested would lead to vet bills in excess of the annual budget for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources. And while my cats were often subtle, they were never casual. 

Still, there was that pretty Dr. Sam, so young, blue-eyed, and confident. And on either side of the smiling veterinary specialist—her cats—the Egyptian Mau named Bastet and Berkeley the Lavender Persian. Both felines were regally brushed up and sublimely at ease as they peered out of the open doors of their respective carriers. 

I pictured myself, a small, graying, and reclusive poet flanked by her pets—cd, a chronically disheveled tortoise shell who resembled a fifteen pound meatloaf, and MITTS, a petite tuxedo cat with high anxiety and polydactyl paws shaped like mini catcher’s mitts.

I didn’t care what the expert said. Hauling these cats over three states was madness. But as I waited there in the checkout line, Dr. Sam’s happy travel chemistry began to bubble up in my imagination until all the uncertainties of my faded middle-aged reality had morphed into untold possibilities of adventure. On the way home, I picked up two airline-approved Deluxe Pet Porter carriers and a variety of treats and new toys. 

Back at the apartment, I peeked in the door with excitement bordering on thrill. As always, the cats were napping in their spots at opposite ends of the sofa. “Hello, sweethearts,” I crooned. “Guess what I have for my little travelers.” 

MITTS sat up wide-eyed, every hair on her shiny black coat alert, her furry white bib ruffled up under her white mustache, her long white whiskers shooting out from her black face like exclamation marks glistening with alarm. The instant I began nudging the carriers through the door, she darted into the study where in times of stress she wedged herself deep inside the carpeted cat condo. 

cd, short for civil disobedience, remained curled up. Opening an eye, she checked out the carriers through the Cubist convergence of black, tan, and orange tortoise-shell markings that were her face. She then stood up, stretched, dropped down to the floor, and following a brief stop at the snack bowl, leapt to the top of the cat condo where she hunkered down into her no-nonsense position.

I set down the carriers in front of the TV and after filling them with toys and treats called, “Come and see how nice everything will be for your trip.” 

But nothing has ever been so unresponsive as a cat in hiding from the power of positive thinking.  

Next: “Against All Experts”