Paw Prints on the Heart

the carbohydrate-happy cat who let herself in, permanently.

some folks prefer digital means while others might enjoy sunbeams reaching through a wide-window to mark the beginning of the day. more effective, for me, is a four-legged, wide-eyed and swishy-tailed tumble of fur. when it comes to alarms, there’s nothing more punctual than a cat.

when i was a baby, a stray silver-brown tabby wandered into the family acreage and “adopted” my parents. they called him Remington Steele (Remy for short). he lived up to his namesake with an instinctive and loyal nature. he had brightly alluring green-yellow eyes. people rarely believe it when i tell the tale of him rocking my cradle nightly or keeping watch like a guard-dog as i grew older. he might have been reduced to family folklore had i not watched him lull my siblings to sleep, granting them equal protection and entertainment.

Remington was hot on my heels always, whether i taunted him with a good ole game of string or not. he is one of the first creatures i remember befriending. a bit like the Velveteen Rabbit, he refused to go before being entirely worn out. he even continued to walk my dad around the property in his final days, disappearing into the treeline with only the happy curve of his striped tail flicking side-to-side expressively.

from fosters to foster-fails, to the season of 20 dogs living in our exceptionally tiny kitchen, i could write endless stories about the ties that bind with critters. they all have unique personalities and stories. truthfully, the overture is the same: they come in and rearrange the furniture, leaving sizeable imprints on the softest parts of the soul.

Remington was a class act and an absolute pain; a ripe moral out of a good Marley and Me chapter. he was incredibly special. in the same way a well-set alarm dings at the opportune moment, animals have an intuitive sense of timing. they tend to “show up” unexpectedly, precisely when they’re needed. this is, at least, how both Remy and the cat-who-came-after entered our prairie abode.

the first summer of lock-down, a stray brown tabby made herself ever-present around the footfalls of the house. she spent the daylight hours clinging to the window screens, peering inside and leaving trails of beheaded grasshopper bits. soon, she was trading out remnants of legs and wings for treats and small appearances from her favourite hiding places. in the night, she could not resist communing with the indoor cats. they yodeled loudly in a manner unsuitable for choir practice and perfect for alerting mice that purgatory was, indeed, real. there was no denying that this kitten had a curious, mischievous personality.

my dad built a conTRAPtion he titled ACME 777-Zoom from plywood pieces, complete with a door trigger and a rest area filled with tuna and cat cookies. this kitten was clever. however, we did not expect to catch every stray adult farm cat in the neighbourhood while she stepped over the switch, light as a nymph, and gorged without consequence. after several days of laughing at the gall of this petite beast getting full off the fat of the land, my dad wrote her rather seething commentary on the back of the 777-Zoom door in jet-black Sharpie. he adjusted the sensitivity and generously doubled the treat count. the kitten was safely inside by morning. i still have the recording of my dad dancing in celebration.

in the beginning, i don’t think anyone expected this cat to stay. in hindsight, the beginning i remember feels utterly delusional.

everyone knows naming is the first step in the inevitable downfall of pet adoption. for her ridiculous grasshopper binges and midnight singing sessions, Cricket seemed like a perfect fit. i sacrificed the skin on both arms for the sake of a rapid-fire sink bath, toweled her off and brought out the string game that never failed to build rapport. she learned to curl up while i read or seeded plants. she also began her love affair with carbs, begging for pieces of peanut butter toast at every opportunity.

in the same stretch of months, my then-partner’s mom (whom i loved dearly) was told her second round of cancer was moving. i didn’t know how much i needed a wing-man to process the dreary, lingering conversations. that summer, she rapidly lost weight and her appetite. she carried on, often talking about the joys of ice cream with the smiling, strong way she faced the world. the visual, however, told a different angle of the story. for a woman who fully reveled in the delights of the kitchen and never ceased to feed everyone around her, including strangers, it was heartbreaking.

some say animals lack the ability to read a room, but Cricket was a reliable confidant who never judged anything that escaped under my breath. while my best friend was consumed in his grief, Cricket never failed to show up immediately with her signature head-butt for moral support.

it hasn’t been sunshine and roses teaching a feral kitty to love the indoors. vet clinics closed off their spay/neuter programs to rural areas throughout the pandemic. Cricket, with her impeccable timing, also escaped out of the house for a week. when the ACME 777-Zoom was running for its second round of cat-catching, she was already pregnant. sadly, in the end, her kitten did not survive. we tucked Mushu fondly into the earth, and i cuddled my runt of a cat a little tighter through her own grief.

there were more escapades out of doors— much to my dismay—but Cricket has never been able to shake her love of flavoured Temptations or stray too far from the sound of the toaster. there’s also the manner of some rather large finger to palm length teeth marks she gifted me on her eventual spay date. i believe she thinks she has made amends by affixing herself opposite the mixer and thieving strands of Christmas gingerbread throughout the whole of the past two Decembers. i still wear the scars, but what’s a full heart without grace?

it’s marvelous to watch Cricket scheme and (mostly) get away with her plots. she knows how to tilt her head so you’re tricked into thinking she’s never once stolen tortilla shells, teabags, scrambled eggs or hot garden peppers straight off a ceramic plate. the first time i heard her growl at another stray cat, she was actually louder than our late 150lb Newfoundland dog. every morning she is, without fail, the first to jump up and ‘chirrup’ cheerfully at the door.

sometimes i wonder if Remington passed his guardian baton forward to the most ridiculous, obnoxious, carbohydrate-savvy bundle of little-striped-lady cat in hopes that she would one day help us know, as he did, that we are regularly fooled and fiercely loved.

i think she’s more than well on her way.

Remington makes his mark.