Why I Like Cats

Over the past week, Acidman endured the Mother of all Catbombings.

The MOACB strike was skillfully flown by Da Goddess, who artfully launched a diversionary strike to take up Rob's attentions upon the sunny beaches of Jamaica.

Battle Damage Assessment reports showed multiple on-target hits, with a devestating 98% rate of accuracy.

Sadly though, collateral damage did occur. In a regrettable, "friendly fire" incident, Rob, the Acidman himself was splattered with shrapnel random hairballs and kitty litter.

While Acidman is expected to make a full recovery, he sent this dispatch from the front, and swears to avenge this real Pussification of the Southern Tall Dog.

But as your Unfair and Imbalanced Reporter, I find it my duty to investigate all damages claimed. So, here's my report from the No spliff Spin Twilight Zone:

Indented paragraphs from Rob's post, and all replies are mine. Send all compaints to People Eating Tasty Animals. I've also taken the liberty of catching a few of my blogpappy's *gasp!* spelling errors.

1) They have the loyalty of sewer rats They don't want you. They want what they can TAKE from you.

You get out of any animal, just about the reciprocal of what you put into it. If all you put into a cat is your boot, you deserve nothing less than it's claws in return. I have two cats. Littermates, a brother and sister. (Harley and Ariel, respectively). They'll be nine years old this May.

They're both loyal, but Harley defies the definition of "cat" in this respect. Think in terms of a three year old child with seperation anxiety. One of his nicknames is "velcro cat". If that mushball had his way, he'd live eighteen hours a day on my lap, or riding on my shoulders.

When I come home from work, he's always at the companionway to greet me, and when I come below into the cabin, I really can't function until he's had his ten or fifteen minutes of licking my face, wagging his tail, making odd "bmruffmrrrow: noises and just generally letting me know he's happy that I'm home. I describe him to people as a mix of Garfield, Marmaduke, Dennis the Menace and Ferdinand the Bull. When he's happy (which is 95% of the time) he "thuds" his tail on the cushion, just like a happy dog.

Ariel is loyal, too. She's pretty much a one-person-cat, and I'm that person. Don't be fooled by how cute she is, though. I've seen her take down an eighty pound labrador and send it running with a shredded face.

Stupid dog made the mistake of burrowing under the backyard fence at the former marriage domicile, and when I opened the backdoor to go out and take it home by the collar, it made the mistake of lunging at Ariel, who was at the door by my ankles. She didn't back up one inch. (She's always played above her very considerable weight.) Rather, she launched like a rocket and hit that dog so damned hard, it went ass over teakettle with her attatched to it's face like a four-legged paper shredder.

Only two or three seconds of contact, and that dog took nineteen stiches to sew up. He never came under that fence again, either.

2) Buy a cat a really nice scratching post

3). The cat will take one look at the post and go claw your sofa to shreds.

Aboard the New Dawn, I have two cardboard scratching boxes. They're about 12" wide by 20" long and 2" deep. Inside, is tightly packed corrugated cardboard, laid on edge so that you can see the corrugations. Sprinke a bit of catnip thereon, rub it in a bit, and voila! your cat is instantly trained in the fine art of scratching where desired. You can buy those at your local Wally World.

4) Give a cat a litter box. The males will spray some of the most raw, foul, gut-bustinkimg vat funk you can imagnine.all over the house. The females climb up and shit in the potted plants.

With a new cat, all you have to do is dribble a few drops of your own into that new box. The cat will know right away what that box is for. I've been around countless, tiny kittens who took to the box at the very first introduction because of that trick. They're hard-wired that way.

Getting a former outdoor cat to convert to the box isn't as easy, but it can be done. Just find a cat-bomb of it's very own from outside, grab it with a paper towel, and drop it into that new box. Again, the cat gets the clue, 90+% of the time.

And if you spay or neuter your cats, escpecially to neuter the male before they sexually mature, you won't have a spraying problem. Ever. For the plants? Sprinkle some Red Cayenne Pepper onto the soil. Believe me, that'll end that!

Just by leaving out sufficeint food and water, I can leave my cats aboard ship, completely unattended for up to three days. And still, I'll come home to only a full litterbox and nearly empty food and water bowls.

And to two cats who show overwhelming joy at my return. Really, you can't tell 'em apart from a "happy dog's" welcome for all their enthusiasim and "all over me" attention.

5) Cats kill birds for no good reason. Just to be killing.

They're predators by nature. Oddly enough, many studies of cats show that the mother cats have to teach the kittens not only how to kill, but that the prey is actually food!

Cats which have been raised on kitty food might still have the killing instinct, but they're just not quite sure what it's for. Same as an egg-suckin' dog that gets into the henhouse and runs amok. I've noticed this though; the feral cats around the marina never kill for play. For them, it's all about dinner. They're damned efficeint, too.

I've sat in the cockpit here several times, and watched as one of those grey tabbies stalks it's prey over a space of fifty or more yards, before pouncing. Crocodile hunter my ass, I've got a real, live nature show just off of my bowsprit.

6) Cats crawl up on your chest at Night and try to suck the soul right out out of your bodywhile you sleep. Goddam vampires.

First, let's unmix the metaphors. Vampies suck blood. Ex wives and their lawyers suck the soul right out of your body. That ain't the cats fault.

Cats are by nature, snugglers. My two tend to sleep at the foot of the master berth until morning, when my accursed alarm intrudes upon my blissful sleep. Harley then moves up, snuggles up against my chest inside the crook of my arm, and enjoys my persistent horizontal state as I struggle with the snooze alarm and the wiles of the nefarious blanket monster. Ariel curls up against one leg or another, and patiently waits for me to arise and run their fresh water for the day.

But here's a newsflash which none of you have known until now. Eighty percent of the time I'm at home aboard ship and at the keyboard, I have a fifteen pound yellow cat on my lap. He's my editor, I think.

And women do appreciate a skilled snuggler. And I don't mean just the cats, either.

For a bonus, I've got two of the most obedient cats anyone's ever seen. They're trained to never jump from the boat onto the dock, and they never do. That is, I can actually leave, drive to the store and come back an hour later, without worrying about them leaving the deck. They also come when I call or whistle. They get "down" when I say so, and they know what the word "no" means.

Contrast that with the former Tomcat in Cheif, who didn't even know what the word "is", is. Asshole, giving tomcats a bad name.

But I digress.

I like dogs, too. Quite a bit, actually. I've seen dogs live aboard boats, most, very successfully. But the worst I've ever seen a boat trashed was from an unattended dog with a real case of seperation anxiety.

That thirty pound pooch chewed and shredded absolutely every settee, berth, cushion and scrap of bedding he could find. Moreover, he also chewed to splinters thousands of dollars worth of (formerly) beautiful teak joinery in that boat's cabin. Not to mention his wanton pissing and shitting on every square inch he could get into.

In my opinion, the arguments of "cats vs. dogs" isn't even a valid concern.

Not to anyone with a heart and who loves their pets.

Comments

[Da Goddess]

Cats, dogs, men, and women...each possess the potential to be as good or as bad as you think them to be.

[Rivrdog]

Cats are the perfect liveaboard pets, for all of Jim's reasons, plus THEY WILL KEEP RATS FROM BOARDING THE BOAT. Once you get rats, you have a real problem on a liveaboard. You can't shoot at them (hell, you won't see them very often) and they make a mess out of your lockers and they will chew wiring, messing up the way the electrons are supposed to flow to and fro.

All of my boating friends who have dogs have a very time consuming ritual to perform in walking the dogs, and teaching the dogs to hold their waste until you get them off the dock to the pet area is a difficult job. Most boat-dwelling dogs are very protective of their boat, and when the next slip has a party, or folks stroll the docks looking at boats, the dogs drive everyone nuts with their barking.

On balance, cats make the best four-footed shipmates. My cat loves the boat, but hates it when I run engines, so I leave him at home mostly when I cruise locally, but he's fun to have aboard when we're docked.

[Rivrdog]

More cat lore: My daughter, retired and sailing the world at age 35, got tired of the cat litter routine for her cat Squiz (for whom their boat is named, see http://www.squizfloats.com )so she trained the cat to use a piece of astroturf instead. After the cat had soiled the scrap, a line was snapped on and it is rinsed overboard or trolled in the wake for a time until clean.

[wes jackson]

RINSED OVERBOARD? WTF! Can't wait to swim around that barge.
Just darling to find a nice sweet cat loving blog.
where's that hot sauce when you need it?

[SwampWoman]

Jim, I thought you were an incredibly funny poster on the blogs I visit. It wasn't until your post at the A-man's about blog readership that I realized that you were a blogger (hanging head in shame). Okay, I'll be visiting here from now on.

[SwampWoman]

Your comments about the cats are absolutely correct. Cats are loyal and easily trained. (I've had cats that I taught to fetch those little whiffle balls--big mistake! They can be more enthusiastic about fetching than a lab.)

I used to have a lot of mourning doves here in the barns. I wished the cats would have cleaned them out, but they didn't. When the hawks moved in and started raising their young, the mourning doves disappeared. Heh.

A visitor came up one day and one of the mama bantams spotted me and came running up with her 12 or so teeny little chicks. They were running around me, and running around the cats and dogs, lookin' for me to throw 'em some corn. "How come yo' cats ain't eatin' them lil chicks?" "Because they've been raised around little chicks and don't know that chickens are food plus I would spank them." "How come them dawgs ain't eatin' them?" "Because them's MY chickens and I don't allow it."

If you can't train your animals, your children probably run wild as well.

[Anne]

Jim's right -- I've always had cats, and currently have three indoors and help a neighbor with a managed feral cat colony (trap, spay, neuter, shots, release, feed occasionally).

The wild cats do not play with their prey at all -- Marlon Perkins could have devoted an entire show to the subject.

In addition to the predator issue, I am starting to believe that well-fed, domestic cats kill for nutritional issues, and simply do not eat their prey because they are well-fed. I don't know if you followed my allergic reaction to the cats, which turned out to be related to their food, but since then I have been seriously messing with their diet -- in addition to a high-protein, low-corn food, I have been supplementing them with fish and table scraps. The incidence of mangled bodies has decreased significantly . . .

Most litterbox problems are usually related to cleanliness. The three monsters will not use a foul litterbox -- it must be changed daily -- and a line forms to be the first to use the fresh box.

For the record, our last dog was an 80-lb. chow/shepherd mix, and she hunted mice (coyote hop) and other small animals with the best of them, depite being extremely well-fed.

The cats wait outside for me to come home from work, and I get escorted in with my own personal Greek chorus of "meows" and waving tails.

[SwampWoman]

You're absolutely right, Anne. The folks that complain about cats killing (wild) animals abviously do not know what their dogs are up to when they're not around. (My dogs will kill foxes, possums, squirrels, raccoons, armadillos, whatever gets in the barnyard.) The doberman was death on mice and moles. She did that coyote hop to perfection.

I have tried to warn new neighbors about their dogs killing my livestock, but I always got the "not my dog!" response. So, now I just shoot the livestock predators and hang 'em on the fence. They can claim the body if they want, and pick up the bill for damages while they're at it. (And at approximately $400/registered ewe PLUS $200/each for registered lambs, one dog can easily rack up a bill for several thousand dollars in an hours' worth of play.

[Linda]

I have two inside cats as well. I wouldn't trade them for dogs, for nothin'. My cats also greet me everytime I come home. They love to cuddle and they are very loyal to me, (except for one special visitor, who they seem to claim everytime he's here)
When I am sick or depressed or not feeling well, they curl up on my stomach and sleep.....BOTH of them, and one of them ain't too small.
Cats are definatly special critters :)

[Indigo]

I've always felt that Acidman was probably raised on a farm. Without exception everyone I've ever known who was raised on a farm considered cats as necessary pests to keep the barns free of rodents, my husband included. Also, those with the mindset never WANT a pet cat to learn what a cat is really like. Thanks Jim, Riverdog, Anne, and SwampWoman for your comments that could shine a lot of light on the B.S. surrounding felines. Every single point you made is true. I sleep with 3 cats and a Rottweiler - crowded, of course. They are not only compatible, but protective of each other - AND ME!

[Valerie]

Wonderful post Jim. I laughed so hard at some lines I had to stop and catch my breath.

I had never been near a cat until 17 years ago when we found a pathetic little scrap of fur mewing outside our house. My husband immediately made moves to get "that damn cat" some place else and our of our bathroom. He did. She's curled up sleeping on his side of the bed as I write this. She was but the first feline friends to grace our home. He became the man who couldn't say "No!" to strays. Whether bringing them inside or feeding them outside. When one of the foundlings developed diabetes he cared tenderly for it until Mr. Noirpassed away. Far outliving the years the vet pedicted he would have. It had to be from the loving care. I knew I married a good man.

Smooth sailing to you and your faithful feline crew!

(And women do appreciate a skilled snuggler! Yes, we do!)

[Marcus]

Whether wrong or right in your views,THIS is the kind of writing you do that I like to read!

[dragonfly jenny]

Great entry. Your on-board four-legged pals sound like the cats meow!

[Raging Dave]

I've got a big black cat that curls up on my chest at night and purrs me to sleep. She's a snuggler as well. Loves to ride on my shoulders and couldn't be happier than when I'm petting her.

I'm a dog man, but I still love cats as well.

[Pompa]

Rivrdog: rats don't just show themselves. If you actually see one, you've got a real infestation.

[Jim]

Just more proof 'bout well-trained cats.

I got home tonight at about 8 pm, from a weekend of generating massive plumes of burnt cordite out in deep Southeast Texas.

My neighbor John had checked on the cats at about two hours earlier, and had called me on the cel to let me know he'd leave the companionway open for fresh air.

When I got home, I didn't have the first two bags out of the car, before Harley was up on deck, hollering and meowing at me. He knows the sound of my car, and always is up and ready to greet me when I come home.

I was gone from Friday PM till tonight at eight. Then, the cats were left on an open boat, for two hours, unattended and still, Harley did not jump onto the dock. Hell, Ariel just stayed in the cockpit.

Who says cats can't be trained. *heh*

Jim
Sloop New Dawn
Galveston, TX

[Cindaroo]

So true about the cats. Their companionship and loyalty is beyond words. I am a "mother" of three. My oldest and only male cat, Michie, is a momma's boy and that's fine with me. He is never farther than three feet from me except when I'm in the shower. My oldest female, Tomasina, is daddy's girl. Even when she is comforting me and sitting on my lap, she knows exactly where my husband is. Our youngest female and newest addition, Boo, always insists on wrapping herself around my neck at night, even though she is getting considerably bigger.

As soon as they hear the garage door open ALL three of them are patiently waiting by the door to greet me and mine as well come when they're called.

The ONLY reason why we don't have dogs is because we live in a townhouse without a fenced-in backyard. It just wouldn't be fair to the dog to ALWAYS have to be on a leash.

[LYNN]

Smoke on the water ....loved this story and following posts. I have cats and some bigger than others They are my bestfriends....I lived with a cat on a boat for a year once he was great,lost him at 17 years...miss him....thanks for sharing I enjoyed all
Lynn

[Sally]

Hi, Just after your advise if you dont mind..? I am currently thinking about buying a narrowboat, but have two 6 month old kittens...could you give me any advise on how i could safely live with them on this boat??

Really grateful for any advise

Many Thanks

sally