Kitty Kudos

I really like cats. Growing up, my family always seemed to have one around and I learned their language over the years. I also learned to respect them.
Many people claim that dogs are actually more intelligent and loyal, but I honestly believe that is because they just haven't taken the time to understand cats. I also think that those who say these things have had bad experiences with them. Which is a shame, cause cats are really neat.
OK, now that we've established that, let me tell you why I think this way.
Primarily, I admire them for their loyalty.
When we were first married, we adopted two different cats. First Naomi, who was a Tabby-Siamese mix and then, Amber, whose mom was an Abyssinian and dad was - who knows? The owner's daughter bred Abbys and one of her females got outside one time and bred with a tom who just happened to be passing through the neighbourhood. So she was giving away this batch and her mother was one of the first recipients, only to discover she was allergic to cats and could not keep it. That's where we came in.
Naomi had been with us for a couple of years, so she was sort of our first born. You know the type. More like the adults; all serious like. When Amber came along, she mothered the younger kitten for awhile until Amber decided she was going to be the new boss in our home. Amber, being part Abyssinian,  was dominant by nature and lorded it over Naomi, who outweighed her by about 10 pounds. If I sat too close to Naomi, Amber would spit at her and Naomi would take the hint and move further away from me. With the establishment of this new pecking order, you'd think things would be tense in our household. But, each evening, we'd still see them cuddled up together somewhere and Naomi grooming the smaller cat.
They were, admittedly, strange bedfellows, but it soon became clear they had a deep, albeit, unusual bond. A couple of years into Amber's fast paced little life, she disappeared one autumn day. We were heartbroken and began our search for her in the neighbourhood, all to no avail. There was no Amber to be found. On the first day of our search, I got this zany idea to actually ask Naomi where Amber was. So I did. My husband was skeptical, but went along with it. I don't know who was more surprised, hubby or me, when the older tabby started across the street and into a neighbourhood we figured the two cats just never visited. My husband followed her until she came to a stop on a curbside next to a busy street. I guess she just sat there and looked up at him with her big, green eyes wide open. He didn't know what to do so just picked her up and carried her back home.
What a waste of time that had been. Of course, Naomi could not understand what we had asked her and had just lead us on a wild goose chase.
Or so we thought until, two days later, we had just about given up looking for Amber and, on a lark, he decided to go, once again, to the spot where Naomi had taken him. While he was there, a man came walking with his dog and saw my husband searching along the road. He stopped him and asked him if he might be looking for a small, grey coloured cat. My husband said, "Yes." The man told him he had found the little cat, obviously our little Amber, who had apparently been hit by a car on that first rainy day. He examined her and, finding she was dead, buried her on the side of the road, close to the spot where Naomi had taken my husband earlier.
And that wasn't the first time Naomi amazed us. She was smart, too.
Before Amber joined our family, we lived in a small, attic apartment in the west end of Halifax. Because the apartment was on the top level, we overlooked a flat roof that covered the other two apartments our landlord had added to the side of his house. Our bathroom and living room window gave us a full view of that rooftop. Which wasn't so bad because we were surrounded by old trees whose foliage gave the impression we lived in a tree house. For some reason, our bathroom had no screen on its window, so, in order to have a cross breeze in the hot summers, we had to keep that window open, despite the lack of protection from insects. As a result, Naomi would sneak out through that open window and onto that rooftop where she'd snoop around, no doubt, watching birds and passersby when they least expected it. Because we were two stories up, she was at risk for injury or even death, if she fell, so I knew we had a problem.
Leaving the window closed was simply not an option. So, as soon as I knew she had escaped, I began to tempt her back in with tidbits of her favourite foods. Bacon and cheese were on the top of her list. It got so she would come running as soon as I said the words. I often wonder what the neighbours thought whenever they heard me calling, "Naomi. Bacon. Cheese," in the tops of those trees. Perhaps that was the real reason we didn't get invited over for tea and crumpets.
In the meanwhile, I came to the conclusion that Naomi understood English. I tested my theory by calling out other words, like, "donuts," or "applesauce," using the same tone of voice I used when saying, "cheese," or "bacon," and she'd just stay put on that roof, looking at me as if to say, "Are you kidding me?"
Eventually, that screen appeared on the scene and, some years later, Naomi eventually went the way all cats do. But I shall never forget how that cat got savvy to get a tasty snack.
Yup. I really like cats.