Cats

Among the many offensive characteristics of cats, surely sucking the breath out of newborn babies in an attempt to kill them in a fit of jealous rage is the most nefarious. Once the stuff of Medieval Legend - not to mention much acrimony amongst the Cat loving community - it is now borne out for all to have a large measure of truth.

In a newspaper article a couple of weeks back, Drs. Berry Braxelton and Joshua Sparrow admonish Cat owners not to allow their cats around their infants, nor even contact with the pregnant female, so replete are these creatures with diseases, petty jealousies and ill intentions. The good doctors give credence to the ancient legend about Cats stealing a baby's breath, recounting "Cats....actually do attach themselves to human caregivers, that they have been known to be jealous of new babies as if the new arrivals were siblings", and that "some cats will seek out the babies' mouths and noses and lie on them to smother them".

While they do take pains to describe the Cat's motivations as being caused by human emotions, in this case affection for the human adult, that is little comfort, nor any sort of justification for one of their prescriptions to prevent said attempts at infanticide by the cat: "keep them out of the baby's room.....find some sort of strong, safe netting to attach firmly across the top of the baby's crib if they do manage to sneak into the baby's room".

As we all know, it is not a question of if the cat will sneak into the baby's room, but when.

There are other solutions, of course. You could simply take the cats to the Pound. If you have kids old enough to miss the cats, you can deploy the Old Reliable "we took them to live on a farm" excuse, allowing their youthful minds to fill in all the blanks of a life replete with Rural Virtue, plentiful food, recreational opportunities aplenty as they chase chickens across the barnyard, and then to the hayloft for a peaceful four hour nap. Later, perhaps, the Spurned cat will catch a mouse.

Ah yes. Cats - their few small virtues aside - can occupy in the minds of men the same moral space as Pit Bulls, for all that the two do not have in common. Where Cats are sneaky, Pit Bulls are forthright. Where Cats are finesse, Pit Bulls are power. And while both of them can turn on strangers - not to mention their owners - without so much as a cross stare beforehand, only Cats are known to kill their human baby siblings out of jealousy. A Pit Bull might chew off the child's foot, mistaking it for a toy, mind you, but they are not predisposed to kill them out of jealousy's sake, and are generally quite protective.

That said, they both are fairly useless in the pantheon of pets, right up there with Little Dogs, boa constrictors and, well, any other reptiles.

I suspect Cat Owners keep their cats because - all their excesses notwithstanding - cats can be tolerated beyond those excesses. The relationship is nothing so forthright as the shining, uncomplicated love that a dog will bestow upon their master for even the smallest of kindnesses. Let's face it: dogs make Dog Owner's feel good about themselves because dogs love their Owners. Cats make Cat Owners feel good about themselves because it publicly and graphically demonstrates the Cat Owner's ability to endure rejection and hardship, which makes them appear virtuous and increases their self-esteem. It's not quite on the same level as letting your mother-in-law move in upstairs in lieu of the Old Folk's Home, but a reasonable facsimile thereof.

See, Cat's are nothing if not self-righteous enablers of their Owners' sundry pathologies. Surely not all the time, and maybe not even most of the time, but arguably the plurality of the time.

Full disclosure, I am myself a Cat Owner, and in fact have owned nothing but cats for over twenty years. It started out innocently enough: a stray bruiser that I eventually named Buddy was accosted by my German Shepherd on the street, and fought her to a draw. I forced them both to neutral corners, and after that, they were friends, with Buddy coming over every afternoon to be fed out of my side door. A couple months after that, the neighbors who "owned" him moved and left a message with my next door neighbor that I could have the cat, since I seemed to be feeding him.

I must admit Buddy had nothing of the Baby Smotherer tendency that apparently afflicts other cats, and in fact was a trusted presence in the bedrooms of several of my nieces and nephews, placidly guarding their cribs as he dozed underneath them, ready to fend off dogs, noisy adults or any other critter - real or imagined - that he suspected might upset either the baby's peace, or his own.

That, more or less, is how all future cats my wife and I have owned have come into our lives. Jesse was inherited from one of the kids. Seems frat parties and the apartment life didn't suit him too well. He wasn't the most affectionate of pets, but was arguably the most entertaining. He had a four year running battle with a bluejay (or succession of bluejays, who could tell?). The Bluejay would sweep down from the trees in the front yard, always from behind like some aerial attack by an Axis power, and attempt to disembowel the cat. Jesse would flip in the most fantastical and unlikely manner, attempting to disembowel the Bluejay. This might go on for 30 minutes every morning in the spring, right around egg-laying time, and it was worth feeding and caring for him the rest of the year, just for the privilege of a ringside seat to this spectacle.

Fraidy was flown from Detroit by my sister, who as it turns out, was allergic to Cats. She owned two at the time, and retained one who remained an indoor cat. Apparently two indoor cats pushed some hypo-allergenic envelope. I can relate. Sixteen years later she is still with us (Fraidy, that is; my Sister is still around too), dividing her time between sleeping, eating, the occasional stretch outside, and complaining to us about her sorry conditions. Fraidy's ingratitude - while endearing - is monumental. It is also her most redeeming trait.

Idgit - so called because he was immune to all of my Yosemite Sam-like admonitions to "whoa" - just showed up one day and never left. Yes, the name Idjit has only the slightest, albeit affectionate removal from "Idiot", as in "Knucklehead", as in "Obstinately Stupid". Idjit, so many years later, parks his large self at the side door five to six times per day, waiting to be allowed into the house. He never is. I step on him twice per week. I step over him. I trip over him. I boot him towards the garage door ever-so-gently, and he hisses. He leaves. He comes back. He sits by the door. Repeat.

So, my own personal experience has been one good Cat out of four. I've got friends who have had worse luck with spouses, so maybe I should consider myself lucky.

And so far, no attempts at Baby Smothering.