Two weeks ago or so, Aurit, my wife, was again looking listless and disturbed. Was it another acquaintance that passed away due to Covid? It’s been a month of one sad news after another.
I found out that, indeed, one dear to her was seriously sick—a female cat in our backyard named Chingkee—and seemed barely breathing. We had taken her to the vet only a week ago and we had been giving her the prescribed antibiotics and vitamins. These past few days she seemed to regain her appetite and was up and about. I examined her and it was clear she was already at the point of death, too late to bring her back to the vet.
Less than an hour later, she was gone. We buried her in a special space in our backyard where several feral cats and a dog were buried. It now serves as a kind of pet cemetery.
In grief, my wife posted Chingkee’s death in a chat group of cat lovers. Lo, in just a few hours, her post got over 700 expressions of sympathy!
Since we moved to our present residence more than 30 years ago, stray and feral cats have been coming here. They just appear and then leave, subsisting on our leftovers. They use our yard as a feeding place and then spend the night prowling around.
Some cats stayed. One of them, a female cat we named Tonee, made our backyard her enclave, producing offspring. She was not the caring motherly type, however. After delivering her kittens, she would let a few of them suck her milk for a few short moments and then would walk away. No wonder only a handful of her kittens lived. Strangely, during the pandemic lockdown, the said prolific kitten factory simply vanished. We somehow miss the little mewing sounds of her newborn kittens.
It was 6 or so years ago when my wife and daughter got the cat fever from my son, who got it from his erstwhile girlfriend. All three of them are now full-fledged cat lovers and for some time now we’ve had two pet cats being properly taken care of in a big cage, separate from the freely roaming stray cats in our yard.
I’m not really a cat lover. I have a Buddhist-like attitude of non-attachment to living and non-living things, so I don’t have any personal fondness for any cat or any pet for that matter. What I have is a deep respect for all animals as fellow creatures. I detest humans who abuse or inflict pain on animals.
I admire cats because they are superbly designed in many aspects. Because I am a writer by inclination, my appreciation for them has been mostly on the literary level. Cats have enjoyed an admirable run as literary muses in children’s books, poetry, and novels, including mystery novels. Although many of these literary works are supposedly about cats, one would note that they are really about what it means to be human.
In 1939, T. S. Eliot published Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, a book of light verse, which was the inspiration for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s highly acclaimed and popular musical Cats.
Speaking of “practical cats,” one of the reasons I allow cats to stay in our yard is to keep rodents away. Once in a while, we see a dead rat on our front step. We take it as a gesture of gratitude from one of the cats. That’s what I liked best about the late Chingkee; she was a skilled rat catcher.
Aside from discouraging rats and mice from venturing into our home, it is said that cats absorb the negative vibes in and around our house. In Japanese folklore, cats have protective powers and symbolize good fortune. Today, businesses put mini statues of “maneki neko” (beckoning cat) in front of their shops, in the hope that the moving paw will bring in customers.
I observed that cats are solitary and independent creatures. They don’t depend on each other. In fact, there is not much organization in the feral cat society around our place. It is said that the strays are dominated by a “boss” —strongest tomcat. I don’t know about that but I have yet to see a tomcat lording it over in our yard.
The cats in our yard tend to keep others away from their space. One aggressive male cat in our front yard chases away all other strays. According to experts, that’s because cats are territorial. They even mark their “territory” by pissing. For example, one cat in our yard sprays his piss on our car cover as his way of claiming his right to sleep on top of our vehicle.
Some of the cats became an intolerable nuisance that we had to take them to a faraway place and lose them. One was noisily climbing up our screen doors and windows. Another was liberally littering our backyard with her smelly feces.
No two cats are alike. Each has a different personality: endearing, irritating, dumb, dull, distant, fearful, suspicious, pesky, elusive, untouchable.
Most of the cats I have encountered are not friendly. Some would even hiss or growl when they are warded off. Our cats have scratched me several times. One bit me, probably because I accidentally stepped on him. Our two pet cats fight regularly and ferociously. But it’s mostly a sonic fight. Probably they’re just releasing pent-up energies for being caged too long and unable to roam like normal cats.
This behavior observed in cats is probably why we have the word “catty,” which refers to spiteful, deliberately hurtful comments. Someone who’s catty is mean and nasty. If you act catty, you’re malicious or snotty towards other people.
There are certain cats that elicit feelings of fondness and endearment and have found their way to our hearts. We’ve had cats that didn’t resist chin rubs. A few would rub their whiskers on our legs. Some would purr in response to affectionate baby talk.
I have seen some of them transformed after staying in our place. When they first appeared, they were the typical unkempt strays with a haunted look, wide-eyed, wild expression. Now they are “pettable,” with softer expressions, willing to be touched, and responding to you when you call them by name.
Oreng, an orange colored cat ingratiated himself to our household by rubbing his thin body around my legs the moment he suddenly appeared at our front yard. I shooed him away many times but he would not go away. So that’s how he came to stay and is now in a specially made cage as one of the family pets. He is an energetic and endearing full-grown cat. Maybe even a sensitive and compassionate cat because my wife observed that when Chingkee was in the throes of death, Oreng was restlessly reaching out to the sick cat with his paws from his cage and letting out some mournful sounds as if in sympathy.
Shumi, a gray cat with white patches, was a stray we found outside a mall after a flood. Taking pity on him, my son took him home. He turned out to be a smart, agile and well-behaved cat. At times he can appear to be entitled because he is the only feral we allow to get inside the house. Every time he walks in, he would just recline on the floor in a Cleopatra-like pose, waiting for us to lead him out by offering a piece of meat.
One thing to keep in mind. If you are taking care of stray cats in your yard, enjoy them but don’t get too emotionally attached to them. Most of them, after enjoying your hospitality, will just leave you. It’s nothing personal. Cats are simply like that.
Whatever their quirks, eccentricities and peculiarities, annoying as well as endearing, the cats in our yard have taken the boredom and monotony out of our daily routine, especially during the long pandemic lockdowns.
To Chingkee, Logins, Tonee, Chin-chin, Shumi, Cleo, Oreng and Sirius and all the countless cats in our yard, those that have stayed as well as those that came and left, thanks for the company and the memories.
In a little while, another stray is probably on his way to our yard.