My Father, the Cat Person

My father will tell you he is not a cat person, doesn’t even really like cats. He’s a dog person, a horse person, but not a cat person. He’s lying.

My father is a pet person, an any creature with four legs and fur person.

Beelzebub died 26 years ago. My father has never had another dog. Other dogs have lived at his house, but my father has never had another dog. And he no longer lives somewhere with room for a horse.

The strangest years were the years my father didn’t have any pets. Instead, he had the squirrels in the back yard, and the birds that needed to be fed, in that sense, growing more like his father every day.

Then he and my step-mom got Kiki, a pretty little Persian gray cat. She had some allergies and skin conditions. Right at the time she had to stop getting all of her yummy treats (because they caused rashes) a new tortoiseshell kitten was brought home, named Taz.

It took Kiki and Taz a while to get along. After all, Kiki associated Tazzie with the stoppage of yummies. But they got there.

And my father, the person who doesn’t like cats? He plays tag with Taz every morning under the bathroom door. She sticks her paws in, searching for him, and he reaches out and touches her with a toe. She pulls back, and he puts his toe under the door until she swats it with a paw. Repeat.