Cat Compendium – A Brindle and an Oversized Long Hair

I have known many cats in my lifetime. They fit my criteria of a perfect pet except for one small thing – they have fur.  I wouldn’t mind the fur if it stayed stuck to the cat. But it doesn’t, and there are few things in life that I dislike more than living in a house that has fur all over everything (and the inedible parts of mice left in the hallway).

That hasn’t stopped us from having cats, however. We chose one cat ourselves – the rest just wandered in when someone evicted them from their previous domicile. Our chosen cat was a Tabby that we named Brindle. She was more aloof than many cats, quite independent and curious. She preferred to drink water from the faucet, was an excellent mouser and truly only cared about one person in our family – our youngest daughter.

Cats can be intuitive and compassionate, and Brin would show that in the way that some cats do. She would glue herself to the person who needed some “Fuzz Therapy”, and she would stay stuck there until the crisis had passed.  Her finest hour, which actually stretched into months and months, was the care she gave our youngest child during the cancer battle.

The only other cat that has lived at the Red House for an extended period of time is Mooch. Mooch was a stray, and though he is a beautiful looking, 13 pound, long haired something, he never won me over enough to gain full time access to the inside of the house. So The Car Guy installed a dog door into the garage (Mooch was too big for a cat door), and Mooch came and went as he liked. This wasn’t good enough for Mooch, however, so he begged the nearest neighbours to let him in, and they eventually adopted him. That doesn’t stop him from visiting us frequently, and begging for food. He was a mooch.

There are also hundreds of quotes about cats- here are just a few:

The cat sitting at the keyboard of the computer explains to the cat watching: “So far I’ve discovered I was in a litter of eight and my mother’s name was Fluffy!”
– Author Unknown – comment about Genealogy Research –

If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.
– Mark Twain –

Sometimes cats are Pesky Critters, not because they want to be, but because of people who make them that way. Specifically these are the people who bring their unwanted cats out to the country and leave them to fend for themselves. A few of these cats are adopted by local farmers. The rest become meals for the coyotes.