I once went to some friends’ house to pick up something they had left me. They had left a key for me, so I opened the door and marched right to the kitchen, grabbing what I needed. As I turned around, I saw one of their cats standing between me and the door. Neither of their cats ever cared much for me – the feeling was mutual – as they perhaps sensed that I had been a lifelong fan of the canines rather than felines.
The cat wasn’t looking for a leg to rub against, or even a pat on the head. (Do you do that with cats?) Instead, the furry feline was acting as a guard cat. It stood in the doorway meowing with an attitude at me as if I was, pardon the pun, a cat burglar. It looked right into the whites of my eyes. I tried intimidating the cat into moving along, staring right back into the yellow of its eyes. Didn’t work.
The cat didn’t appear to be hungry or looking for affection. No, this one looked a little, well, steamed at my presence. After a few anxious minutes, the cat finally got bored and wandered off. I seized the opportunity to bolt as if I had grabbed valuable loot.
Many of my friends have cats, and no more than a couple out of hundreds over the years have ever warmed up to me. I saw a couple of cool cats recently that were very large and very laid back, the kind I would prefer if I ever did get one, but when one of them yawned, I saw fangs not unlike those you’d see on an African safari. All I could think about was rolling over and seeing those face-to-face one morning. I’m just not sure the heart could withstand it.
And now, I learn that cats can bark. Yes, and there are YouTube videos to prove it. The craziest of which comes from lifeslittlemysteries.com, where a cat sitting atop an opened window sounds like a beagle chasing a rabbit until it breaks into a more familiar meow. Talk about creepy.
Barking for a cat is a secondary emotion, according to Nicholas Dodman, a veterinary behaviorist and professor at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. “The arrangement of the cat’s larynx, trachea and diaphragm is similar enough to a dog’s that if they operate the machinery in the right way, it will produce a noise that’s like a bark,” Dodman said.
Who knew?
Then, just last weekend, I’m visiting another friend’s house, and we were enjoying a great evening on the deck when the family cat, Irwin, decided to set up about five feet in front of me. The fact that the cat was black didn’t concern me. As the song says, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.” But the cat had its tongue stuck out at me as if to say, ‘I don’t want you here.’
I get the hint. And I remain a dog person.