Concerning Cats: The Ownership Myth
BY: BG EDITOR
Oct 20, 2018 — GREENWOOD, BC (BG)
Having had a walk through Greenwood's history with dogs, today we appeal to the dog lover's other half: the cat lovers. It seems apt that the topic of cats should appear side-by-side with an article about drama, one being so expressive of the other… Following is an well spoken editorial that's as true today as it was when written, in 1910 Greenwood:[1]
"One of the most fatuous beliefs that ever afflicted mortal man is that he owns a cat. No man has ever enjoyed or ever will enjoy that distinction. He may be giving temporary shelter to an indifferent, saucy and sometimes irascible quadruped to which he vainly tries to offer friendship with a lisping "Kitty, Kitty;" but if he thinks on that account he owns a cat, he is much, ah, muchly mistaken
A man may own a dog. Or he may own a horse. Particularly a dog. He may get this faithful animal out in the fields, throw a stick and his arm out of joint simultaneously, and experience the doubtful pleasure of seeing the noble creature bring back the stick covered with nice, enthusiastic saliva. The doctor will bring back the joint. But did you ever ask a cat to perform that feat of skill and friendship? No, sir; she would open one eye wide, and ask you if you detected an emerald tint therein. That's her. That's the cat.
Pussy, as she is called by the careless, who know not what they do, and rush in where experienced cat owners fear to tread. Pussy likes to lie by the fire. For that reason you pick her up tenderly from her seat on the doorstep, and put her down, together with part of your necktie, in front of the warm radiator. Does she thank you? Not at all; she hustles back to the doorstep, there to commune in the light of the moon with kindred spirits from down the street. Then, at the hour when she is due to be placed out on the doorstep, she comes in and lies down in front of the radiator.
However, when the cat wishes to be amiable, I doubt if there is any artifice or dissimulation lacking in her repertory. When you have snuggled down in your favorite chair, with your book properly adjusted on your knees, and have reached the keyword of the paragraph, the cat will hop gaily up, put two soiled feet on the book, and two against your collar, and breathe a medley of calf's liver and fish into your face. To share even the odor of food is the most boundless generosity on the part of a cat.
Of course you stroke the dear, soft pet, and pull her cars (for which offense she would have you drawn and quartered, if she could). Then you rub her fur the wrong way to hear it crackle. Pussy dearly loves that; but she refrains from destroying your eyesight, because she wants you to be able to see the proper food for her in the ice box. Then you lift her up in your arms and rub your face against her silky pelt, and she jumps down.
There is a limit beyond which the cat will prefer to starve. And as she sits there on her haunches, looking up with eyes that may mean much or little, perhaps you imagine that she is admiring your physique, or your Vandyke, or is rapt with amazement because you are a member of the school committee or a corporal in the nearest regiment. Very well, if you like to think so. But listen: After several years of experience we conclude that Pussy is cursing like a pirate bold, only stopping to say to herself, "I wonder when the old dub is coming across with a hunk of mutton?" That's the cat."
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