How to catch a cat

I dashed into the laundry room. Our old tom cat woke up, looked at my guiltily and jumped off the blue jeans I was after. I opened the back door, “Scat!”

He left.
I yanked on the jeans, smoothed my hair and rushed out the door to visit a friend.
She greeted me at the door. Behind her two sleek, well-groomed cats nervously prowled. They refused to be cuddled. They ignored us as we sat down and she told me about them.
“Shortly after I moved here,” she said, “I decided I wanted a kitten. I saw an ad for free kittens. I went expecting to choose and pick it up after I had time to purchase cat supplies.
“The kittens were not healthy. They looked so miserable that I told the people I would take them both. I left them at the vet’s with instructions for him to do what he could I did not expect them to live. I did not want to see them die.”

“They survived. A week later, the vet called. He told me to come get them. With medicine, time, food and love they’d live.”
When they stopped their nervous prowling, I was amazed to see them lay on the towels placed on the couch and chair.
“How did you train them to that?”
She laughed. I didn’t. I put the towels where they slept.”
I shifted to look at the one sleeping at the end of the couch where I sat. It opened its eyes looked at me and got up to leave.
As the cat passed my legs, it whiskers twitched forward. The cat looked up at me, started to move away, sniffed and did a feline double take. It inched towards me.

Step by step, whiskers alert, the cat came closer and touched its nose to the leg of my jeans. It stayed there, sniffing and walking around, looking at me, but not moving away.
As it sniffed me, the other cat quit playing with its ball and came over to warn it away. The second cat did a double take and began nosing my jeans.
Their mistress watched, laughing in amazement.

“You should have seen the last visitor. She loves animals. She has a couple dogs and horses. She worked the whole time she was here to get them to come to her. They ignored everything she did to entice them.”
“Probably the smell of dog on her clothes scared them away.”
“Maybe, but they are always cautious around people. They never seemed to get over that home where I got them. What is your secret?”

I shrugged. I was amusing, but I really did not know quite what to do with two cats moving in close ad sniffing my legs thoroughly.
“Wait a minute. I bet I know what it is. We have a male cat who has developed a strong odor. Sometimes it is almost like living with a skunk. I keep him outside now, but the kids let him in this morning. He sneaked into the laundry room and was sleeping on my pile of clothes when I went in there to get this pair of jeans. Those cats aren’t attracted to me, they are attracted to his smell left on my jeans. I probably smell faintly as bad as he does.”

She politely said she had not noticed any smell.
As I left, I told her, “Tell the animal lover, next time rub up close to a tom cat before coming. It seems to be a sure-fire method with your cats.”


Posted

in

by

Tags: