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Dogs and cats teach humans a lesson in humanity.

This monthly column will be devoted to ponderable subjects, awaken beauty in unexpected places, explore the experience of mystical communication with animals, rupture violence, speak sweetly of cats and dogs.                                                            ...Barbary

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Book Review

DOG IN CAT'S CLOTHING Autumn has arrived, time for walks with Tommy in November woods,  scent of wetted leaves, then up through the meadow, past the pond, around the barn..................Then....then.... tommy flying past us downhill on three legs, his gimpy leg flung straight out behind him.  Tommy came to us three years ago in November.  And it wasn't long until we began to think of him, not as a cat at all, rather as a small orange funny shaped dog.  We'd lost our German Sheperd the previous summer, told ourselves Rusty would look down from heaven, and send us another dog in good time...we'd know the right dog when we saw him.  Russ must have seen Tommy wandering around in pain with bullets in him and said, "What the hey.  He needs them and they need him, not a dog but......"  Thus began our love affair with a big, funny shaped, orange cat, all eighten pounds of him.  Being a feral cat, Tom would not let us near him for the longest time.  We insulated a wood box with a crawl-in door and filled it with warm blankets.  He quickly converted from mice to dry cat food.  We could see he had what looked like an old injury, swinging his left hind leg far wide when walking. By now Tom would let us pet the top of his head, but no more.  Then one day we saw Tom back up against our white-washed cellar wall and spray.  What trickled down was pure red blood!  With some trepidation we tricked him into a carrier to see the vet.  He exrayed Tom and discovered not only his hip shattered by a bullet but a bullet near his bladder as well.  The hip had healed,  so it was decided not to operate on it. Tommy came home neutered  (He'd been serenading  neighbor ladies half mile away.) and with antibiotics and special food for his bladder.  Tom's amorous mind set hadn't caught up to the truth yet, so he still often stayed out all night.  One morning he was not at the kitchen door when we awakened.  Suddenly I heard the hunt-howl of a dog pack down the wooded ravine across the road.  I scrambled down the hill, screamed at the dogs, and they ran.  Still no Tommy.  Later that morning I stood in the road calling again for Tom.  I picked up a faint meow.  Down the ravine again, across the ice water creek.  There was Tom walking in circles, sodden, his coat sand-packed.  By now I had set in action an old spinal rupture in myself, so I crawled back up the ravine, pushing/pullingTom.  Tom and I spent twelve hours wrapped in blankets on a heating pads.   That was Tom's last night away from home, his choice.  Meanwhile, after several rounds of antibiotics and a second opinion from another vet we decided to take him to a Vet Hospital for exploratory surgery on his bladder.  With ultrasound the vet  found the bullet was indeed inside the bladder.  When Tommy came home with his expansive belly shaved and pitifully white he was now dependent on us.  That meant a comfy bed on the couch with a ramp to get up and down and watching him like a hawk for 10 days, listening to him squall to go outside, while his incision healed.  He'd lost three pounds and actually looked taller!  I think nothing brings us closer to our animal than an illness which we must nurse them through.  After he recovered completely Tom began to show us his gratitude and love by entertaining us.  Imagine this biggy cat rolling roly-poly across the floor, bouncing off the furniture in an effort to capture his cat nip mouse.  And Tommy has his own apron.  He snatches it from the peg in the kitchen and expects me to chase him with it.  All the while our  Emmy Cat  is not amused;  She has held reign as Princess of our house for 14 years now.  She, to this day, holds glare contests with Tom and screams when he takes up the challenge.   Of course, Tom does not help his cause by hiding behind door jambs and jumping out at unsuspecting Emmy.  Sometimes they  hold boxing matches with soft gloves, Em on her back and Tom sitting on top.  She has taken to saying a few words (good words we hope) from a high perch to Tom as he walks by.  Tom is extremely jealous because he cannot climb anymore.  One of the stranger "dog" things Tom does is track with his nose.  If one of us goes out and he doesn't, the next time he goes out he will backtrack the scent of our path to see what we were up to.  And he always comes when we call him, very uncat-like.  Did Rusty indeed influence Tommy?   Being an absolute skeptic once, I now find this concept lovely, whimsical and to my liking.

LITTLE BUDDY AND JAX Sandy Vrana We brought them in tiny four-week old orphans who hissed and spat, trying to frighten us as they were frightened. We, of course, just smiled admired their courage, their will to survive. Both kittens' eyes were infected. One of Little Buddy's was swollen three times its size, and sightless. We treated them with ointment, and dropped liquid anitbiotics into small cat mouths. Jax, the color of light oak wood, though LARGER than his orange-striped brother, tried to hide behind him, under him, anywhere he might become invisible. Nearly three years have passed and the kittens have relaxed into cats who know they are loved. Sometimes they streak through the house, blonde and orange blurs. Sometimes they sit on my lap, lick my hand for no reason. Or maybe Jax will jump into an underwear drawer when I open it. Or Little Buddy will tilt his head to better focus me with his one good eye, then lean to touch his nose to mine.

THE SILENT MIAOW                                    translated from the Feline                                                                              and edited by Paul Gallico                                 picture story by Suzanne Szasz Crown Publishers, New York 1964 Hardback  159 pp If you are very lucky you may find this delightful book at your library or a rummage sale or for sale on eBay.  I still have the original copy I purchased in 1964. The story is told in the first person by the cat, the silent  miaow, starting when she was six weeks old and alone in the world, but ever so clever: 'This  pair looked exactly like the family I wanted, so I jumped onto the screen door, clung there, and cried piteously.  They looked up at me from their breakfast.  I knew exactly how I appeared to them from the other side of the screen door.Irristible!  I pretended to lose my grip on the mesh and fell, and then climbed back up again, crying all the time. The woman said, "Oh look!.  The poor little thing, it wants to come in....." Just as I expected!  I had her.  All I needed was one paw inside the door and  -- However, it wasn't going to be that simple.  The man!  He began to shout, roar, scrape his chair and thump the table......' You can imagine how that little kitten exploits that poor man.  She says man is God the Thunderer, but , also, God the Father who can be maneuvered in the twinkling of an eye by a clever cat.  Some chapter titles are Going To The Vet, Christmas, Motherhood, Two-Timing.  This book has unique black and white photography, well over fifty pictures, which follow the story line perfectly. THE SILENT MIAOW is interesting on another level.  You may well be fascinated with the 1960's sophistication of the author, the man.  And Paul Gallico is the author of another book, one of my favorites of all time, THE SNOW GOOSE.