It’s been said that cats don’t travel well, and moving them to a new home can be fraught with anxiety. For owners as well as cats.
My daughter Betty’s orange tabby has always been the exception to all accepted norms of feline behavior. Starting with how he saved his two siblings from certain death at about two weeks old. Hence the name, Hero.
It seems the mother, a feral cat that had moved into a seldom used cold shed adjacent to the ranch house, disappeared leaving her three kittens to starve. One night, Betty heard a horrible commotion in the backyard, grabbed a flashlight and ran out to see her three dogs barking and snarling at the fence. On the other side, his newly opened, still blue eyes wide, this scared but defiant little kitten, determined to get help, refused to back off. Good timing. Another day and all three kittens would have been goners.
Some groceries, a lot of TLC and a bit of training and six weeks later, Hero and his brother, Hogan, made their movie debuts in “Buddy.” Actually, Hogan doubled for Hero, the two being mirror images of each other. Neither, however, was destined for stardom. Hero became Betty’s house pet, keeping the place free of rodents and Betty entertained with his antics. I don’t remember what became of Hogan.
Anyway, we all set out last week for their new home in Bozeman, Montana. Betty’s almost 4-year-old daughter, Sutton, and her stuffed “Fat Cat” and “Flat Cat,” and a herd of dolls with really bad hair, plus a DVD player, took up the second seat of the Dodge Durango. Hero in his cat condo-furnished with bed, water dish and litter box- was wedged among our suitcases, picnic basket and cooler in back.
The first day went well, Hero was a trooper, Sutton watched endless reruns of “Aristocats” and we made it to Provo, Utah by 8 p.m. (Mountain time), found a decent motel with a side entrance through which we smuggled the cat and his condo. Delighted to be free, Sutton jumped on the beds and flung her dollies to the ceiling by their really bad hair. Hero batted a tiny white mouse around the carpet, crunched kitty kibble and scratched in the litter box, all without making a sound. Then he disappeared.
I had gone down the hall for ice. When I came back, Betty was frantic. Hero was nowhere. Not in the condo, not in the bathroom, the closet, the suitcases. Nowhere. Finally, I lifted up a corner of the bedspread and there he was, curled up happy as a clam, completely ignoring our “Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty.” Cats get their kicks making humans feel foolish.
We arrived in Bozeman the next afternoon. The house was beautiful but, of course, not quite finished. Electricians, plumbers, tile sealers, telephone line installers came and went. Hero was to stay in his condo in the laundry room with the door shut until they all left for the day. But when nobody was paying attention, Sutton let him out. Now, losing a cat in a motel room is one thing. Losing a cat in a 3,000-square-foot house is a different deal altogether. In the house of a thousand cupboards and a hundred half empty packing boxes, Hero had a definite edge. This time, he crawled under the floor-vented gas range (the bottom panel had fallen off in Betty’s hand when she pulled on it thinking it was a drawer for pans). Hero was hiding behind the vent where a tiny hole left a cat-sized space behind the adjacent cabinet. Coaxing, teasing with the white mouse, kitty kibble, nothing would budge him. Once we realized he couldn’t get from there into the crawl space below the house, we just waited him out. It took awhile. Finally, when things got quiet, he waltzed out, so pleased with himself having made us all look foolish again.
Over the next two days, he disappeared himself beneath hanging clothes in the back corner of the master closet, behind boxes in the attic office, under a stack of bubble wrap in the pantry and behind the recycle bag under the kitchen sink. At one point we heard knocking in the foyer and thought someone was at the front door. Nope. It was Hero in the display cabinet. We never saw him go inside, but after the door closed on him he would knock, never scratch, till we let him out.
Wherever he hung out during the day, at dusk he came out and sat in the living room window watching birds-magpies, owls, hawks-and white-tail deer, two does and two fawns, browsing their way to the creek about a hundred yards behind the house. We watched the sunsets, Hero watched the wildlife. I hope it’s a while before he gets out there. No telling how many bizarre places he could hide.