A Cat, a Dog, and a Reflective Chain-Link Fence

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Wanda Gág's 'Siesta', or 'Seven cats taking a nap near a woodstove'. (1937)

Ying wasn't the most nervous cat I've known. That'd be Twitches, a cat my oldest daughter had, some years back now. She tells me Twitches was even twitchy in her sleep.

My folks got Ying at the pound in Fargo. This was many decades back now.

We'd decided that we wouldn't get a male cat, since they're even more prone to kidney problems than their female counterparts. We wouldn't get a Siamese, given that breed's reputation for being loud. And we wouldn't get a longhair because of all the shedding.

That's the day we got Lady: a big, quiet, calico cat. She'd been at the very back of her compartment, tucked into a catloaf. We might not have seen her, if she hadn't been so large and had so much long white fur. As it was, I could only tell which end was her head — because that end had a nose.

We also got Ying: a male Siamese. He had a crew cut, the last bit of his kitten coat — and was at the very front of his compartment, reaching out to us through the mesh. He was exactly the sort of cat we'd decided we wouldn't get....

More at A Catholic Citizen in America.

(Ying, a high-strung Siamese cat, tore through several yards and bounced off a chain-link fence. Loving animals, within reason, acting the way humans should.)

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