By Tom Robotham
When I was a child, I longed for an animal companion: a horse, a dog, or at least a cat.
A horse was unrealistic because our suburban yard was too small, and—let’s face it—they’re expensive to care for. Plenty of our neighbors had dogs, on the other hand, but my mother wouldn’t hear of that either. Too messy, a lot of work, and they bark all the time.
How about a cat?
Nope, though I don’t recall any explanation.
Eventually, she agreed to let me get an aquarium with tropical fish, and that was ok, but not wholly fulfilling. After all, you can’t play fetch with a guppy, or cuddle with a neon tetra.
For years thereafter, I had to satisfy my animal-loving instincts by occasionally playing with friends’ dogs and cats. After college, I grew especially fond of a dog named Trina who belonged to a girl I was dating. Unfortunately, it was a long-distance relationship, so I only got to see the two of them on weekends. That said, it was satisfying. Whenever I would pull into my girlfriend’s driveway, Trina would go crazy with excitement. At one point, she even stayed with me for a few days while my girlfriend was away on business, and I have fond memories of taking her on long walks in the woods of Staten Island. Her delight in the smells on the ground, the rustle of fallen leaves, the skittering squirrels, and the endless paths where she could run free delighted me.
Still, I wanted a pet of my own. Then one day, in 1983, I finally got one. I was a newspaper reporter in those days, and one afternoon while I was visiting a police station, the desk sergeant asked me if I wanted a kitten. When I expressed interest, he led me to the basement where the station-house cat had given birth to a litter. One of the kittens, a mere four weeks old, looked up at me with an intense gaze, and I was smitten. I immediately took her home.
The thing was, I knew nothing about taking care of cats. She was adorable at first, but as she grew, she became more rambunctious. I remember one moment when I was reading the newspaper, and she suddenly came crashing through it into my lap. She also liked to tear across the apartment, run straight up the fabric on my large stereo speakers and do a backflip before zooming off somewhere else. Since I loved my stereo, this stressed me out. Nevertheless, I was committed, and Titania—as I’d named her—remained with me for the next 15 years, through six moves, a marriage and the birth of my two children, before she finally died.
In 1992, my wife and I also got a puppy, whom our young daughter named Spice. It felt liberating. At long last, I was a grownup, with my own family, and my mother could no longer deprive me of what I wanted.
I soon realized, though, that I knew no more about taking care of puppies than I’d known about kittens years earlier. And Spice was a handful—part golden retriever, part border collie, which meant a bundle of energy. Occasionally she’d escape and run out into the road with no apparent car sense whatsoever. Most of the time, though, she was as sweet as could be.
A few years later, we also got another cat, whom we named Lucky. He quickly became an indoor-outdoor cat and would disappear for hours and sometimes even over night but would always return home—sometimes with a dead bird in his jaws, strutting with pride, as if to say, “Look what I brought you!”
Perhaps because he burned off so much energy in the “wilds” of suburbia, he was always super chill at home, and I appreciated that.
That was nearly 20 years ago. Since then, I’ve lived without a furry friend—that is, until recently. Last summer, a friend’s cat gave birth, and in November, I adopted one of the kittens. I named her Ella because my friend and I had been listening to a lot of Ella Fitzgerald.
I’d been thinking about getting another cat or dog for a long time. Though I’m more of a dog person, I’m aware that they require more care than cats, and the idea of venturing out into a cold winter rain at 6 a.m. to let a dog pee and poop is daunting. A cat seemed like the more practical choice, especially one that I’d known almost since birth.
Since then, though, it’s been a very mixed experience.
For the first few weeks, Ella was very calm in her new environment. When I’d go to bed, she’d just curl up in the living room and let me sleep through the night. About a month in, though, (she was six months old by this point) she started jumping into my bed after I’d gone to sleep. I’d have no objection to her sleeping with me, but that was not her immediate agenda. Playtime was—at midnight. One shift of my leg under the covers, and she’d pounce, as if attacking prey.
In response, I started shutting her in my spare bedroom around 10 p.m.—and for a while, she seemed to accept this routine. A few weeks ago, however, she got antsy and managed to open the door. Though I like the name Ella, I’m wondering whether I should rename her Houdini—or Tas, short for Tasmanian Devil.
The latter fits because much of the time she’s tearing through my apartment at 60 miles an hour. The other night she ran so hard into a wall that she knocked my modem plug clear out of the electrical socket. She’s also knocked over table lamps, pulled a curtain rod off the wall, crawled into my fireplace, and used every piece of furniture as a scratching post. Early on, I got her one of those cat towers with scratching posts and platforms, and she uses it quite a bit. But apparently, she doesn’t like limits: why restrict oneself to designated areas, after all, when there are so many other surfaces to shred and so many counters and cabinets to climb on?
And yet in spite of all this, she’s yet to do any serious damage. And the truth is, she can be very sweet at times, as when I’m watching TV in my recliner, for example, and she jumps up into my lap and curls herself into a furry, purring ball. Sometimes she even reads my mood. A few weeks ago, I lay down for a nap because I was feeling sad, and she climbed onto my chest and literally patted my heart, as if to say, “It’ll be ok.”
Still, I wonder: was my mother was right? Are pets too much trouble? I don’t know. The truth is, if Ella ever destroys anything of great value—a cherished antique or an expensive piece of electronics—I may have to find her a new home. But then I ask myself, how do you put a value on those pats on the heart?