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Confessions of a Reluctant Cat Owner (and other reluctant confessions...)

I am a somewhat reluctant cat owner. I’m not really much of a pet person in general. I have had pets in the past; I had a dog growing up, and two different kittens during my 2 years at Southern Illinois University. But I can easily admit that these days I am lazy enough that taking care of myself and my family is pretty much all I want to do, and adding another animal to the mix isn’t something I went looking for. However, here in Cambodia it was pretty much a choice between the rats and mice or getting a cat, so we went with the cat. Actually “we” isn’t exactly true; it’s more that my wife Lisa and our two boys went for the cat. I had steadfastly said “no pets,” but one day I came home and there was a scrawny kitten in our house.

That was a few months ago. The cat, named Hobbes by our boys (in honor of their favorite cartoon strip, Calvin and Hobbes) is now well filled out and giving me a run for my money in the lazy and overweight category. And, I have to admit, it has been interesting to watch the way he has fit himself into our home. He has a pretty good idea where he fits in the “pecking order”. For example, he pretty much realizes that I’m the boss (which leads me to think he may be part corporate weasel, because he is always trying to “suck-up to the boss”). On the other hand, he doesn’t always see his role so clearly with other family members. With Lisa it’s an ongoing struggle that Hobbes hasn’t given up on completely. Then there is Alex, our youngest boy who is 7. Hobbes has pretty much decided that he ranks well above Alex on the dominate family member scale. A favorite family activity is watching Hobbes chase Alex through the house and launch himself through the air whenever he thinks Alex is cornered (it’s more fun than reality TV).

The one thing I have realized is that I definitely like cats better than dogs. Cats seem to be a lot more independent, and not nearly so needy. And in general they don’t seem to be quite as smelly. There are, of course, exceptions to that. Like the time Hobbes ate a two or three foot long string and a few days later, when the string “passed,” it got hung up in “mid pass”. The end result (no pun intended) was a cat spinning in circles chasing a string that was hanging half in and half out of his lower digestive track, and in the process slinging the fully digested remains of other things all around our kitchen and dining room! Not that given the opportunity a dog wouldn’t have done the same thing, but I haven’t actually witnessed any similar K-9 activities (please feel free to let me know if you have). But in general, I find myself to be more of a cat person.

Being any kind of “pet person” is not something I expected. I guess I see myself as more of a reluctant, and some cranky (Lisa would probably add “crotchety”) pet owner. None the less, Hobbes is here, so we need to make sure he is taken care of properly. For example, there are a lot of cats around our neighborhood. But these aren’t your run of the mill house cats. Both dogs and cats have a bit of a different pet role in most Cambodian homes. Yes, they are the family pet, but they are usually allowed to roam free, especially at night, when they more closely resemble something you might have seen Steve Irwin wrestling on Animal Planet. In the past we have literally had a pack of “neighborhood” dogs kill and eat a pig outside of our house (trust me, that’s a sound you don’t want to wake up to in the middle of the night). And these days, or more precisely, these nights, it seems the tin roof over the shed of our next door neighbor seems to be the sight of the world championship of “Ultimate Cat Fighting”. Hobbes, on the other hand, is an indoor cat (or so I keep telling everyone). I figure that if he is out roaming the neighborhood, who is keeping the rats away? Most days we do let him out some, but we try to make sure he is back inside well before dark. Then there are days like today.

Sometimes he does end up getting left outside. The first time that happened I had to chase a big cat away with a stick that had Hobbes by the throat, and typically that’s the way it goes; Hobbes gets into some fight and is generally the loser. Then we spend twenty to thirty minutes trying to get him off the roof and back in the house. Tonight I was just sitting down to write this post (although, what I was going to write about probably wasn’t as interesting as this) when Lisa came in to say Hobbes was outside and she could hear some cats going at it. So we went out to try to find Hobbes and there in our front yard he was going at it with a black cat we had seen around that was actually a bit smaller than Hobbes, so for once Hobbes was winning. My first thought was “Hey, that’s great, go get ‘em Hobbes!” But, I knew we had to get him back inside. So I succeeded in getting the black cat chased out under our gate, and then it was just Hobbes sitting there. Here is where I got really stupid. I picked him up.

At this point, some of you are probably saying “yeah, so what’s the big deal?” A few hours ago I probably would have been one of you. But now I’m in the camp of all the other people who are reading this and saying, “boy, that was really stupid.” See, Hobbes didn’t realize fighting time was over, and he proceeded to lay into my hands and arms! He went for one of those kind of death grip bites on my arm and wouldn’t let go! By the way, have I mentioned that he has never been de-clawed (how would he catch the mice and rats?)? I think, all in all, I turned out to be louder than the cats when they were fighting by themselves.

So now I’m typing this post wearing a ripped up and blood spotted t-shirt with an ice-pack on my arm, which, by the way, smells like hydrogen peroxide. Do you see why I don’t consider myself a pet person? Apparently Hobbes never heard the bit about not biting the hand that feeds you.

But seriously, I realize he was caught up in the moment, and did something that was probably against his better judgment, and attacked someone who was trying to protect and care for him. Sounds kind of like me sometimes. I can’t count the number of times I got caught up in the moment and said or did something stupid that only hurt those who were trying to help or protect me. Whether it was my parents, a brother or sister, a friend, my wife or God, it’s happened more times than I like to admit. Sometime later tonight or tomorrow I know Hobbes will come and hop up in my lap while I’m watching TV or working on the computer to just sit and be there with me (I’m the only one in the family he does this with; I guess it’s kind of our thing). And we will be fine; I don’t hold this kind of a thing against him. He’s just a cat, and cat’s make mistakes (like eating string in the first place, but I digress). Thankfully, God doesn’t expect us to be perfect either. How do I know? How else do you read the prodigal son? He is ready and waiting and longing for us to come back, even when we have lashed out at Him, hurt Him or run away from Him. So when we come back, things will be ok, too.

It’s funny the things you notice with pets…

posted by Troy In Cambodia @ 10:08 PM