All Thumbs [an excerpt from Born Without a Tail]

Neither Dalene nor I are what you’d really call “cat people”. Sure, we have shared our homes over the years with any number of feline companions, and I wouldn’t say we dislike cats, but we don’t go out actively looking for any new ones to adopt. I might go so far as to say that we are indifferent to cats. I’m certain that this must indicate a personality flaw, since we have three cats, and most people with cats really seem to enjoy having them around. To Dalene’s credit, I’ll say that it’s more the matter of her allergies that has kept her from forming close bonds with more than one or two felines over the years. For me, I think it’s much more a matter of impatience that has impeded my relationships with cats.

Cats operate on feline time, which basically means that they do whatever they want to do, whenever they are good and ready to do it. It’s impossible, therefore, to put a cat on any kind of a schedule. A cat will eat, sleep, and swing from the curtains when it wants to, regardless of any human’s wishes to the contrary. The word “cats” might just as well be spelled c-h-a-o-s, as far as I am concerned.

I would never presume to compare the intelligence of dogs and cats. Both species are nefariously clever, yet each is inherently different. Dogs understand boundaries, both yours and theirs. A dog that is taught to stay off of the furniture understands it to be a permanent arrangement. However, cats don’t seem to understand anybody’s boundaries but their own. For example, if a cat does not like to be picked up, you can pretty well engrave it in stone and God help the hapless human that doesn’t take the time to read and heed it. But if one’s own boundary is: “cats shall not walk on the kitchen table,” a cat interprets that message as: “I may not walk on the kitchen table right now, while anyone is looking, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t walk on the table later, or tomorrow, and by the way, I most certainly will.”

Some people claim that cats are clean animals. Clearly, these individuals have never scraped hairballs off of the kitchen furniture or shaken the errant cat litter out of their own bedclothes. Whether cats are clean or not, every human owned by one eventually comes up against the multi-faceted Cat Box Dilemma. Get one variable wrong, and one’s life can become a living hell. Then once you get it right, you’ve got 18 to 20 years of cleaning the filthy box. For those who are presently facing the dilemma, I offer the following tips to the most frequently asked questions:

DO WE PROVIDE THE CAT WITH A LITTER BOX, OR DO WE INSIST THAT THE CAT USE THE OUTDOORS? Try to remember that insisting a cat do anything makes it all the more likely that it won’t. If you are lucky enough to get a cat to use the outdoors, a whole host of additional problems arise. How angry will your neighbors be when the cat uses their garden or their child’s sandbox? What are the roaming laws in your community? How will the cat get outside when it needs to go? Will the cat walk on a leash, or will it become a furry rock if you put a harness on it?

WILL THE CAT USE THE BOX IF IT'S PLACED IN THE BASEMENT, OR DOES THERE NEED TO BE ONE IN THE UTILITY ROOM, AND/OR ONE IN THE SPARE BATHROOM OR (INSERT ROOM HERE) AS WELL? Wherever you prefer the box to be, the cat will most assuredly want it to be somewhere else. You might try reverse psychology, such as putting the box somewhere you absolutely don't want it to be, but I’ve never seen that actually work, but you might get lucky.

WHICH LITTER WILL THE CAT USE, CLAY OR CRYSTAL? SCENTED OR UNSCENTED? COARSE OR FINE? THIS BRAND OR THAT? Cats can be notoriously choosy about these variables, but make no mistake; a cat will tell you if you’ve erred in your selection. Usually the message will be conveyed by deposits made on the floor besides the box, or in unexpected places, like the bathtub or a handy potted plant.

IN A MULTI-CAT HOUSEHOLD, WILL THE CATS SHARE ONE BOX, OR MUST WE PROVIDE TWO OR THREE BOXES? Many experts say that a household should have one more litter box than the number of cats in the house. So, for instance, if you have two cats, you should have three litter boxes. I would like to know who these people are, what planet they come from, and whether or not they have a life! I barely have the time to clean one litter box per day. If each cat wants its own box, then I suggest that you get one of those so-called "experts" to come and clean them every day.

WILL THE CAT USE A LITTER BOX THAT HAS A COVER? WILL IT USE AN ELECTRIC ONE? Most cats will use a box with a cover, but if you think that’s going to cut down on the amount of litter around the outside of the box, think again. Cats can devise inventive ways to take litter out of the box, including gripping little pawfuls of it in between their pads and distributing it as they walk. The electric boxes I’ve seen have an optional tent cover accessory. Be advised that at some point, your cat(s) will want to lie on top of it. If it is stretched on a plastic framework, say goodbye to your tent, because they are not designed to withstand the repeated abuse. Electric boxes are great, but when we used one with our cats we discovered one drawback. The cats were too highly amused by the automatic operation of the box. All of our cats spent the first day with their new electric litter box, paws tucked safely underneath them, perched up high where they could see its every move. After a couple of days, they figured out that the operation of the mechanism was directly related to their use of the box. They spent much of the next two years gorging themselves and using the box three times more often than any previous box in history, just so they could watch the little rake make its journey across the soiled sand. The motor burned out in less than two years and I stepped back and looked at the litter box dilemma from a different angle. Now I use a disposable cardboard box, which I throw away in its entirety every other day and replace with a new one. It eliminates the hassle of using a litter scoop and of having to disinfect a plastic box. If one’s partner objects to this arrangement, I suggest that you impress upon him or her that unless he/she also cleans the box, he/she doesn’t get a vote.

HOW DO I KEEP THE DOG(S) OUT OF THE CAT BOX? The only way to keep a dog out of a litter box is to put the box beyond the dog’s reach. Use a baby gate, or wedge the door so it’s wide enough for a cat to pass through but too narrow for the dog. Be creative!


Whether we’ve liked it or not, Dalene and I have always had at least one cat. Since almost all of them have come to us by way of rescue, there has never been any picking or choosing between breed or gender. On the whole, both of us prefer male cats, because we have found them to be far more affectionate and sociable than female cats. Even so, when Dalene came home from work one day in 1999 to tell me about Max, I was less than enthusiastic.

Max is a huge, declawed, polydactyl ginger tabby with thumbs. He belonged to Sharon, one of the secretaries at Dalene’s workplace, and had a history of being unsociable, capricious and mostly unmanageable. Dalene and I had met Max once at Sharon’s home for about thirty seconds. He had been dragged out from underneath the bed hissing and spitting. Then he had scuttled away, a hairy ginger crab on scrunched legs, ejecting clumps of hair in his wake. Neither of us had been impressed. Max, we’d been told, had spent most of the three years of his life under the bed, coming out only to eat, smother Sharon with affection and to bite anyone who got in the way of either activity. Sometimes he bit Sharon - after all, every cat has a little streak of unpredictability. Now Sharon was moving, and she needed somewhere to temporarily ditch the neurotic cat while her life was in transition.

“It’s only temporary.” Dalene told me.
“Riiiiiight.” I said. How many times had I heard that before? If I had a dollar for every time someone had asked me to take an animal “temporarily,” I could retire in Cancun. As it turned out, I didn’t get a vote in the matter because Dalene had already assured Sharon that Max could stay with us until she was situated.

Nobody bothered to ask Max how he felt about being relocated and fostered by strangers. To say that he was upset would be a gross understatement. He was brimming with antipathy for everyone involved. He wanted no part of Dalene or me. He didn’t even want us to speak to him. Every effort we made to cozy up was rebuffed with airplane ears and yowls - and bites, if we got close enough. The most insulting cut of all, was that we had dogs. Max had never met a dog and he viewed ours with obvious scorn. He took up residence in my studio, self-exiled from the rest of us, who were all clearly beneath him.

A couple of months passed, and as I spent more time in my studio Max began to warm up to me. He was intensely interested in my work and would lounge on the drawing table as I drew, sometimes batting at my pencil or nipping me on the arm. Sometimes, he would get overzealous and nip too hard. Whenever that happened, I would respond with an “Ow!” and I would tap him on the top of the head with two fingers. It didn’t take long before he developed the comical habit of squinting and flattening his ears after he nipped, even when a tap on the head wasn’t forthcoming. I, of course, was impatiently annoyed by his presence. Anyone who has ever tried to read a newspaper or write a letter with a cat on the table surely understands the frustration. He draped himself across my work area and purred contentedly at me from beneath half-mast eyes.

“Let me know if I’m in your way.” I’d tell him with clenched teeth.

After about ninety days, Max began to venture out of my studio into the other rooms of the house. This was always accomplished in sleuth mode with sinuous movements on silent paws. He would stretch himself out to an unbelievable length, and sneak, crouched close to the floor. Occasionally he would come up against one of the dogs and he would freeze, taking in its measure. If a dog paid him any attention at all, Max would warn it off with a low, drawn out “reeyeow.” But the dogs were unimpressionable. Dillon, in particular, seemed to enjoy the sport of these encounters. He would respond to Max by crowding in closer to him and barking sharply in his face. The ginger fur-muffin would squint, recoil, and slink away in embarrassment, afraid to take any real stand against any of the dogs. The few times that his pride got the better of him and he lashed out at one of the dogs, it was to poke the offending canine in the eye with one of his clawless thumbs.

What Max lacked in courage in his encounters with dogs, he made up for in his encounters with other cats. We’d been fostering him for about four months when the weather dipped below twenty degrees and the kennel cats had to be brought indoors for the winter. I have no idea what he weighed at the time, but Max was longer and wider than any of our four cats, and he dwarfed them by comparison. He was completely offended by the appearance of other cats in the house, and when he got a good look at Pippin and Angee, I thought the ceiling was going to collapse. Max let out an earsplitting feline war cry that made the nerves in my spinal column reverberate.

We lived in a small house, so the cats were unable to avoid each other. Though Max learned to tolerate Oliver and Philip, any time one of the female cats appeared before him, we were treated to one of his jarring yowls. It was almost as though the very sight of them terrified him. Angee handled those encounters with her usual aplomb, walloping Max smartly in the face, while Pippin simply ignored him. The rest of us lived in a continual state of unpredictable hostility. It was a long, long winter.

By the time winter had worn down, Max was king of the studio. His personality was so markedly different from when he had first came to stay with us, that we were excited for Sharon to see him again. He had warmed up to both Dalene and me. His temperament towards us had softened considerably. That spring we hosted a party with Sharon as one of the attendees. Max stretched out on a chair in the middle of the activity with an air of indifference. Everyone marveled at his improvement. Still, Sharon didn’t have a set date for when she could take him back. That was fine with Dalene and me because we had become more and more attached to the ginger tabby.

Max had been with us for about a year when I set up an email account for him on the Yahoo network. His screen name was “his_orangeness”, and I sent Sharon an email from Max. It began with “Dear Mom, I am never coming home.” I knew that deep down; Sharon had moved on and didn’t really want the cat back. She wrote back to Max that she was glad that he was happy, and that she was more than willing to let him stay with us. I replied to her email by sending a photo of Max sleeping with three of our dogs on the sofa. Sharon was flabbergasted! The Max she had known had been terribly afraid of dogs.

Max is surely unrecognizable as the misanthropic cat that we agreed to foster all those years ago. He is extremely affectionate - even smotheringly so. He sleeps on the bed with us at night, staking out his claim as if he were one of the dogs. Should a dog encroach on his space, he growls his disapproval at the offending canine. But simply sleeping nearby is not enough for the ginger tabby, who typically will reach out a paw to make sure he is touching either Dalene or me as he sleeps. Much to my chagrin, he will often curl up on my pillow above my head, crowding me, a habit that has caused many a stiff neck. One morning I woke with him lying on my pillow, one sinewy leg draped over my head, his mitten paw between my eyes. As infuriating as that can be, I couldn’t be angry with him. He is a lover boy. Sometimes he will purr crazily with contentment, and when particularly overcome with affection, will gently take a convenient wrist or finger in his sharp teeth. These gentle love bites are a long way from the vicious nips he formerly inflicted.

Max is the most out-spoken of our cats, with a truly astonishing vocal range and a large repertoire of vocalizations. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that he rivals any Siamese worth its salt in that regard. But all things considered, Max is a poor excuse for a cat. He is clumsy, slovenly, and has no clear idea what to do with a rodent. During our second year in the log cabin, we began having daily visits from a chipmunk that lived in the pachysandra bed out back. He (or she) would perch on the windowsill outside the Great Room for hours at a time. The chipmunk was such a frequent visitor that I thought it deserved a name, and I began to call it “Neville.” When Dalene and I moved our computer desk to a spot in front of that window, Max, who often lounged on the table as I worked, began to notice the comings and goings of the striped rodent. He was intrigued, and spent many hours of the day watching Neville sun himself, eat, and cluck-call. Never once, did Max make a motion to bat at the little animal through the windowpane, and Neville remained thoroughly unconcerned by Max’s close proximity. The two of them still spend long summer afternoons keeping each other company on their respective sills.


Kept indoors his whole life, the fat ginger cat is as uncertain about the outdoors as he is about rodents. When Dalene noted the way that Max peered curiously through the screen door on warm days, she decided that she would take him outside. Although it seems particularly un-catlike to restrain a feline with a leash, there is a healthy population of coyotes around our cabin. We knew that if Max were to spook and run off it could be deadly. Since cats have seemingly liquid anatomies and are able to squirm their way out of the average small dog harness, we went shopping for a figure 8. As it turned out, we found an even better solution in a ferret and rabbit harness. The device is a net vest with Velcro closures and plastic snaps for extra safety. Dalene purchased one and we hurried home to try it out.

Max was conflicted. He was extremely unhappy about the harness, shifting his fat this way and that to hinder our attempts to put it on him. But, when we finally had the vest secured and Dalene carried him outside onto the front porch, he was fascinated. This was a new experience for the ginger tabby, who crouched low and took a few tentative steps. Max took in his surroundings with wide eyes, sniffed the breeze and rolled on the cement. He seemed to really enjoy the experience and took pleasure from three more subsequent outdoor excursions. Each time, he was quite content to be on the porch where the closeness of the house was an umbrella of safety. On his fourth excursion outdoors, I took Max up to the meadow and set him in the grass. This change in routine troubled him. The grass felt strange under-paw and he felt exposed without the confines of the porch around him. Any respectable cat would have savored the smell and feel of the meadow grass, but Max’s feline development had apparently been stunted. He looked around at the two acres of meadow stretching away from him in three directions. He looked at me standing beside him, then he looked at the cabin, only fifty feet away, and wailed in distress. He made no attempt to move or remedy his situation, but stayed rooted to the spot. He may as well have had a sign hanging around his neck that said “Coyote Lunch.”

“You’re traumatizing him!” Dalene called out to me from the porch.

I snorted at him derisively, picked him up and carried him back to the cabin where he was satisfied to stay within the semi-enclosure of the porch. He pranced happily.

“He is a poor excuse for a cat.” I said aloud, as much for his benefit as for Dalene’s.

“Leave him be.” She said indulgently, reaching down to stroke his head. “He’s just a baby.”

I digested her comment and let it slide. For now, I’m going to have to accept the fact that Max is a city cat with about as much sense and agility as a brick.