Wintering Cats
Wintering with Cats
As Dane stumbles over a cat tunnel with a sleeping cat inside, he quips, “It’s a constant fight for survival around here!”
I shrug. Winter is like that.
Our cats have a cushy life (three cat towers, numerous cat houses, a ridiculous number of cat beds, and plenty of toys for us to trip over), but they earn it all in the warmer months by keeping the rodent population down. And judging by the carnage they leave behind and the grisly gifts they leave at our doorstep, they do their job well: mice, shrews, moles, voles...although they never manage to catch a rat.
You're guaranteed a healthy rodent population when you have outdoor animals like donkeys, ducks, geese, goats, and a pig. All that feed, no matter how tightly you think you store it, is like a 7-Eleven neon light saying, “We’re open—come on in!”
Well, we weren’t born yesterday. We realize that sweet and shy Maurice and hide-under-the-bed Salvador aren’t doing their fair share of the work. But what can we do? Fire them? Hold back their pay of endless bowls of kibble with real tuna treats?
I’m afraid not. They have our number: 1-800-Cat-Fool.
Leo the Lion is the most recent addition to our feline family. In hindsight, there was a reason he was alone in a cage at the shelter and kept getting passed over despite being the tiniest kitten there. No one wanted Leo because he'd bite and scratch when the kind volunteer brought him out for a snuggle.
Nevertheless, we welcomed him into our family. We tease that he’s our feral cat living with our house cats inside our home. Loving Leo has taken some work, and we love him, but what a stinker!
Instead of taking bites of food from the enormous bowl on the counter (we can’t have it on the floor or the dogs would each weigh over 200 pounds and we’d be broke), he uses his paws. One paw swipes the food out of the bowl, scattering it on the counter (or on the floor, where the dogs vacuum it up), while the other paw jabs and punches at whatever other cat is trying to eat peacefully.
Leo is fascinating to watch, unless you're one of the other cats. He’s ambidextrous, swift, and cunning. Before Rupert even knows Leo is in the room, Leo pounces, grabs below Rupert’s chin, and then uses both back legs to pummel Rupert, who had been dreaming peacefully until that moment.
Leo is famous for interrupting my online Zoom classes. He starts by affectionately rubbing against me. The students are undoubtedly thinking, “Aww, what a sweetie.” But they can’t see as clearly when Leo, after his fill of sweetness, takes a chunk out of my hand or uses his needle-sharp claws to pierce my inner thigh.
I try hard not to cry out on camera, but sometimes I fail. Owww! My shriek triggers Leo into a pounce reaction. He wraps his wiry body around my arm and attacks my hand with his hind legs, like he does with Rupert’s head, while hanging on to my shin with his sharp teeth.
It’s not only Leo that makes winter here, as Dane would say, dangerous. He regularly steps on a hard plastic ball with bells inside and cracks it, stumbles over (or into) one of the many boxes left on the floor for the cats to play in, or shuts a cat's tail in the door and just about falls over when they screech!
Bedtime for us signals let ‘s-start-playing-time for the felines. While we lie down, adjust covers, get comfortable, and start to read our books, Leo bats around a mouse toy on the floor and chases Rupert up and down the steep staircase, or we hear a loud crash from something they’ve knocked over.
But winter is also the perfect time of year to reflect on why we are cat lovers—even with all the shenanigans we are!
A quick internet search, along with years of experience as cat owners, tells us that cats help reduce stress levels. Some studies even claim petting your cat will lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease. It makes sense for all families to have at least one snuggly, lovable cat.
Owning a cat is also said to improve one's sense of purpose, dispel loneliness, and brighten one's mood. I hope everyone reading about these benefits will run to their local shelter and give a cat a home.
Leo the Lion will earn his keep here come springtime. For now, we won’t be adopting any more cats—with seven, the inn here is full.