Chris Bohjalian's Blog - Posts Tagged "cats"
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, You really are a cat toy.
At some point this week, perhaps even today, I will stand a live fir tree in the bay window in my living room, my small way of buying my family’s six cats’ affection for another year. Trust me, there is no better cat toy than a Christmas tree. As much as my cats enjoy a rousing game of turd hockey and eating things that will cause them to projectile vomit, they love climbing the Christmas tree far more.
In another life, I wouldn’t mind coming back as one of my cats. Before I figured out how to lash an evergreen to the bay window frames as if it were a suspension bridge, twice my family’s cats managed to topple the tree.
When I was a boy, we did not have cats. We had dogs. Dogs really don’t care about Christmas trees. We had one mutt, Harvey, who was unbelievably loveable but so dumb that I had to demonstrate to him how to go to the bathroom outside. Not kidding. We got him as a puppy when I was twelve years old, and it must have taken us six months to house-train him. Finally, in desperation, I took him outside and started peeing on trees in our backyard to try and give him a sense of what we were after. That Christmas he did indeed take the hint. . .and he peed on the Christmas tree in the living room.
Ironically, it wasn’t a live Christmas tree. When I was a child, my family never had live trees. We had artificial balsams, one green and one white, and we had those classic motorized color wheels: Imagine a plastic wheel the size of a Frisbee, divided into quarters, with each section a different colored pane. Behind it was a small spotlight. The panes were blue, orange, red, and white. You plugged the wheel in and pointed it at your tree, and as the wheel spun, the tree (and your tinsel) would become the color on the wheel.
Except, of course, the color wheel only had the desired effect if you turned out all the lights in the room. Otherwise, you barely noticed the slight color changes. Also, as I recall, you had to seriously blast your Lawrence Welk Christmas album to drown out the thrum of the color wheel motor.
The tradition of bringing an evergreen into the house dates back to fifteenth-century Germany. I am guessing the Germans were looking for really big cat toys.
John Jensen, assistant manager of the Christmas Loft on Shelburne Road, says that even though his store is nestled snuggly in northwestern Vermont, they still sell a lot of artificial trees. They have faux firs that are chartreuse, silver, red, flocked white and green, and one that is bright yellow. My mother would have been in heaven.
Actually, my daughter is in heaven whenever she goes there. It was the first place we went when she came home from college for Thanksgiving break last month. She raced into what the store calls “Center Village,” a massive collection of lit trees, and said, wide-eyed, “This might be my favorite room on the planet.” This year, the Christmas Loft also has trees decorated along the following themes: Roaring Twenties (a black tree with gold and white ornaments), Bohemian Women (pinks and purples and blues), and Cleopatra (Egyptian glass).
Although I applaud themes, you will never see my family trim our tree with lit candles. I have friends who do, but they don’t have six cats. A little flame on a big tree is an episode of “Let’s Play Hindenburg” waiting to happen.
Nevertheless, I can’t imagine my living room this time of year without the magic of an ornate, majestically decorated tree. O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, how loyal are your needles. . .which, in a month, will be clogging my vacuum. In the meantime, I am off to trim a seven-foot tall cat toy. Bring on the color wheel.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on December 4, 2011. Chris's most recent novel, "The Night Strangers," was published in October.)
In another life, I wouldn’t mind coming back as one of my cats. Before I figured out how to lash an evergreen to the bay window frames as if it were a suspension bridge, twice my family’s cats managed to topple the tree.
When I was a boy, we did not have cats. We had dogs. Dogs really don’t care about Christmas trees. We had one mutt, Harvey, who was unbelievably loveable but so dumb that I had to demonstrate to him how to go to the bathroom outside. Not kidding. We got him as a puppy when I was twelve years old, and it must have taken us six months to house-train him. Finally, in desperation, I took him outside and started peeing on trees in our backyard to try and give him a sense of what we were after. That Christmas he did indeed take the hint. . .and he peed on the Christmas tree in the living room.
Ironically, it wasn’t a live Christmas tree. When I was a child, my family never had live trees. We had artificial balsams, one green and one white, and we had those classic motorized color wheels: Imagine a plastic wheel the size of a Frisbee, divided into quarters, with each section a different colored pane. Behind it was a small spotlight. The panes were blue, orange, red, and white. You plugged the wheel in and pointed it at your tree, and as the wheel spun, the tree (and your tinsel) would become the color on the wheel.
Except, of course, the color wheel only had the desired effect if you turned out all the lights in the room. Otherwise, you barely noticed the slight color changes. Also, as I recall, you had to seriously blast your Lawrence Welk Christmas album to drown out the thrum of the color wheel motor.
The tradition of bringing an evergreen into the house dates back to fifteenth-century Germany. I am guessing the Germans were looking for really big cat toys.
John Jensen, assistant manager of the Christmas Loft on Shelburne Road, says that even though his store is nestled snuggly in northwestern Vermont, they still sell a lot of artificial trees. They have faux firs that are chartreuse, silver, red, flocked white and green, and one that is bright yellow. My mother would have been in heaven.
Actually, my daughter is in heaven whenever she goes there. It was the first place we went when she came home from college for Thanksgiving break last month. She raced into what the store calls “Center Village,” a massive collection of lit trees, and said, wide-eyed, “This might be my favorite room on the planet.” This year, the Christmas Loft also has trees decorated along the following themes: Roaring Twenties (a black tree with gold and white ornaments), Bohemian Women (pinks and purples and blues), and Cleopatra (Egyptian glass).
Although I applaud themes, you will never see my family trim our tree with lit candles. I have friends who do, but they don’t have six cats. A little flame on a big tree is an episode of “Let’s Play Hindenburg” waiting to happen.
Nevertheless, I can’t imagine my living room this time of year without the magic of an ornate, majestically decorated tree. O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, how loyal are your needles. . .which, in a month, will be clogging my vacuum. In the meantime, I am off to trim a seven-foot tall cat toy. Bring on the color wheel.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on December 4, 2011. Chris's most recent novel, "The Night Strangers," was published in October.)
Friends (with four legs) for life
Among my boyhood dogs in Connecticut was a small mutt named Beauregard. How small? He came to mid-shin. He was so homely that one of my older brother’s friends insisted he was the offspring of a pig and a rat. But he was among the smartest and happiest dogs I ever met.
And every morning, usually when my brother and I were about to leave for school, a spectacularly handsome golden retriever – the kind that wins dog shows, the kind that becomes a movie star – would appear at our front door. His name was Buffy and he belonged to our neighbors, the Fentons, who lived about four-hundred yards away through the woods. We would open our door, Beauregard would race out, and the two dogs would disappear for hours – often the whole day. Invariably, sometime before dark, Buffy and Beauregard would return. Buffy would drop Beauregard off at our home before continuing on through the woods to his house. The two dogs were. . .friends.
I mention this because I came across a study this past summer that suggested dogs experience jealousy. The study, which appeared in “PLOS/One,” was conducted by Christine Harris and Caroline Prouvost. I first heard about it from WBUR’s absolutely terrific animal expert, Vicki Croke on “Here and Now.” (Croke also wrote about animals for “The Boston Globe” for nearly a decade and a half before joining the station.) The researchers, in a nutshell, “found that dogs exhibited significantly more jealous behaviors (e.g., snapping, getting between the owner and object, pushing/touching the object/owner) when their owners displayed affectionate behaviors towards what appeared to be another dog as compared to nonsocial objects.”
This study was, in some ways, groundbreaking – unless, of course, you’ve owned a dog. Or a cat.
I am always a little astonished when people contend that dogs and cats (or many other creatures) don’t experience what we like to believe are “human” emotions. Jealousy. Happiness. Sadness. Likewise, I’m taken aback when people contend that dogs and cats don’t have complex relationships with one another – such as friendship. In a blog post in August, Croke pointed out the verbal lengths to which some people will go to deny this reality:
“We humans seem determined to separate ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom, even if we have to cheat. And sometimes it does sound like cheating. Because while scientists continue piling up the evidence, documenting how much we share with other animals—emotionally, cognitively, and neuro-chemically—many humans still use outdated linguistic distinctions that put animals in their (allegedly inferior) place.”
I could regale you (or bore you) with dozens of the ways my five cats bond or battle with each other in ways that suggest the sorts of sibling dynamics that Louisa May Alcott made famous in “Little Women.” Among them? Jealousy. The desire to have my wife’s and my attention. The need to be appreciated – to feel special.
It was well over two hundred years ago that Jeremy Bentham said the issue we need to concern ourselves with when it comes to animals is this: “The question is not, ‘Can they reason?’ nor, ‘Can they talk?’ but ‘Can they suffer?’” My answer to that has always been a resounding yes – they most certainly can feel pain – which is why I am a vegetarian.
What is wonderful about this new study by Harris and Prouvost is that it provides a little more scientific heft for the idea that animals, in their own way, reason. They are more than mere Pavlovian responders. Clearly my cats are.
I have no idea how Buffy and Beauregard spent their hours together, but I will never forget one summer day when my mother and I were returning from my late afternoon swim team practice. We were in her white convertible, the top down. We were at least two miles from our home, when we spotted the two dogs near a stonewall at the edge of someone’s property. My mother slowed and the dogs – both of them – instantly recognized my mother’s car and sprinted across the street and climbed into the backseat.
It never crossed our minds that recognizing a vehicle far from home suggested the animals’ profound cognitive abilities. It was simply dogs being dogs.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on October 5, 2014. Chris’s most recent novels include “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands” and “The Light in the Ruins.”)
And every morning, usually when my brother and I were about to leave for school, a spectacularly handsome golden retriever – the kind that wins dog shows, the kind that becomes a movie star – would appear at our front door. His name was Buffy and he belonged to our neighbors, the Fentons, who lived about four-hundred yards away through the woods. We would open our door, Beauregard would race out, and the two dogs would disappear for hours – often the whole day. Invariably, sometime before dark, Buffy and Beauregard would return. Buffy would drop Beauregard off at our home before continuing on through the woods to his house. The two dogs were. . .friends.
I mention this because I came across a study this past summer that suggested dogs experience jealousy. The study, which appeared in “PLOS/One,” was conducted by Christine Harris and Caroline Prouvost. I first heard about it from WBUR’s absolutely terrific animal expert, Vicki Croke on “Here and Now.” (Croke also wrote about animals for “The Boston Globe” for nearly a decade and a half before joining the station.) The researchers, in a nutshell, “found that dogs exhibited significantly more jealous behaviors (e.g., snapping, getting between the owner and object, pushing/touching the object/owner) when their owners displayed affectionate behaviors towards what appeared to be another dog as compared to nonsocial objects.”
This study was, in some ways, groundbreaking – unless, of course, you’ve owned a dog. Or a cat.
I am always a little astonished when people contend that dogs and cats (or many other creatures) don’t experience what we like to believe are “human” emotions. Jealousy. Happiness. Sadness. Likewise, I’m taken aback when people contend that dogs and cats don’t have complex relationships with one another – such as friendship. In a blog post in August, Croke pointed out the verbal lengths to which some people will go to deny this reality:
“We humans seem determined to separate ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom, even if we have to cheat. And sometimes it does sound like cheating. Because while scientists continue piling up the evidence, documenting how much we share with other animals—emotionally, cognitively, and neuro-chemically—many humans still use outdated linguistic distinctions that put animals in their (allegedly inferior) place.”
I could regale you (or bore you) with dozens of the ways my five cats bond or battle with each other in ways that suggest the sorts of sibling dynamics that Louisa May Alcott made famous in “Little Women.” Among them? Jealousy. The desire to have my wife’s and my attention. The need to be appreciated – to feel special.
It was well over two hundred years ago that Jeremy Bentham said the issue we need to concern ourselves with when it comes to animals is this: “The question is not, ‘Can they reason?’ nor, ‘Can they talk?’ but ‘Can they suffer?’” My answer to that has always been a resounding yes – they most certainly can feel pain – which is why I am a vegetarian.
What is wonderful about this new study by Harris and Prouvost is that it provides a little more scientific heft for the idea that animals, in their own way, reason. They are more than mere Pavlovian responders. Clearly my cats are.
I have no idea how Buffy and Beauregard spent their hours together, but I will never forget one summer day when my mother and I were returning from my late afternoon swim team practice. We were in her white convertible, the top down. We were at least two miles from our home, when we spotted the two dogs near a stonewall at the edge of someone’s property. My mother slowed and the dogs – both of them – instantly recognized my mother’s car and sprinted across the street and climbed into the backseat.
It never crossed our minds that recognizing a vehicle far from home suggested the animals’ profound cognitive abilities. It was simply dogs being dogs.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on October 5, 2014. Chris’s most recent novels include “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands” and “The Light in the Ruins.”)
All in a spay's work: 78,000 and counting
The other day, a woman brought her cat into Dr. Peggy Larson’s Cat Spay and Neuter Clinic in Colchester. She wanted the animal spayed, but stressed that she was pro-life and did not want the cat to have an abortion if it was pregnant. Larson asked whether there was any chance of this, and the woman thought there was: She had seen the animal fooling around a lot with the intact tomcat next door. A few minutes later, one of Larson’s associates at the clinic reassured her that the cat wasn’t pregnant. It was male.
Larson, 79, has seen a lot in her Vermont clinic. And on reservations across the High Plains, where she pioneered and perfected the five-minute spay. And in her ongoing battles anywhere against animal cruelty – most recently in helping to shut down the Huntly Rodeo in New Zealand. Now, after spaying somewhere in the neighborhood of 78,000 cats, a couple hundred dogs, four or five dozen rabbits, and a handful of hamsters and guinea pigs, she is retiring. She plans to turn over the reins of the clinic to Dr. Becky DeBolt at the end of December.
“It’s time for someone younger to take over,” she said. And yet it’s hard to imagine Larson slowing down. The Colchester clinic she opened in 1991 is only one part of her professional life. She founded the National Spay and Neuter Coalition in 1993, a group that now boasts 350 veterinary and shelter members, all striving mightily to stop pet overpopulation through sterilization. In addition to being a veterinarian, she has a law degree and has worked in both the Vermont Attorney General’s office and for the Franklin County State’s Attorney.
But the endgame for all of her work is pretty simple: stop animal cruelty wherever she sees it or hears about it. She’s assisted police and humane officers in animal cruelty and neglect investigations in California, Utah, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah, and Vermont. And just as ex-smokers are sometimes the most passionate anti-smoking advocates, Larson, once upon a time, was riding broncos bareback in rodeos as a North Dakota teen. “Rodeos are inherently cruel,” she observes now, her voice – usually so chipper – growing firm.
Preventing animal cruelty is why she is such a fervent advocate for spaying and neutering. “I think the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done is starting that coalition. We now have spay and neuter clinics everywhere. We’re making real progress to stop animal overpopulation.”
Her clinic charges $50 to spay a cat. The two area animal hospitals I randomly called to compare the price of a spay charged $200 and $270. Larson can charge so little because they are such a no-frills facility. While Larson and her staff will “do anything surgical,” they focus with scalpel-like precision on spaying.
In addition to the cats that her clinic spays for area animal shelters, they also accept low-income referrals from animal hospitals.
“I’ve discovered recently that I’m more popular with veterinarians than I thought I was. Now that I’ve decided to retire, they fear they’re losing their safety net,” she said.
Although she will soon be leaving the practice, she doesn’t expect to stop working. She will continue to be part of animal cruelty investigations. And she might write a book about her experiences, especially animal use and abuse.
I hope she does, because she’s seen a lot – some of it a testimony to how horrible people can be, but some of it a testimony to how kind we are at our best. Or, yes, how silly.
“The focus of our work has always been on the animals,” she told me. “We’ve never done this for public acclaim. We’ve always done this for the cats.”
They have. And they’ve made a difference roughly. . .78,000 times.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on November 16, 2014. Chris’s most recent novels are “The Light in the Ruins” and “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands.”)
Larson, 79, has seen a lot in her Vermont clinic. And on reservations across the High Plains, where she pioneered and perfected the five-minute spay. And in her ongoing battles anywhere against animal cruelty – most recently in helping to shut down the Huntly Rodeo in New Zealand. Now, after spaying somewhere in the neighborhood of 78,000 cats, a couple hundred dogs, four or five dozen rabbits, and a handful of hamsters and guinea pigs, she is retiring. She plans to turn over the reins of the clinic to Dr. Becky DeBolt at the end of December.
“It’s time for someone younger to take over,” she said. And yet it’s hard to imagine Larson slowing down. The Colchester clinic she opened in 1991 is only one part of her professional life. She founded the National Spay and Neuter Coalition in 1993, a group that now boasts 350 veterinary and shelter members, all striving mightily to stop pet overpopulation through sterilization. In addition to being a veterinarian, she has a law degree and has worked in both the Vermont Attorney General’s office and for the Franklin County State’s Attorney.
But the endgame for all of her work is pretty simple: stop animal cruelty wherever she sees it or hears about it. She’s assisted police and humane officers in animal cruelty and neglect investigations in California, Utah, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah, and Vermont. And just as ex-smokers are sometimes the most passionate anti-smoking advocates, Larson, once upon a time, was riding broncos bareback in rodeos as a North Dakota teen. “Rodeos are inherently cruel,” she observes now, her voice – usually so chipper – growing firm.
Preventing animal cruelty is why she is such a fervent advocate for spaying and neutering. “I think the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done is starting that coalition. We now have spay and neuter clinics everywhere. We’re making real progress to stop animal overpopulation.”
Her clinic charges $50 to spay a cat. The two area animal hospitals I randomly called to compare the price of a spay charged $200 and $270. Larson can charge so little because they are such a no-frills facility. While Larson and her staff will “do anything surgical,” they focus with scalpel-like precision on spaying.
In addition to the cats that her clinic spays for area animal shelters, they also accept low-income referrals from animal hospitals.
“I’ve discovered recently that I’m more popular with veterinarians than I thought I was. Now that I’ve decided to retire, they fear they’re losing their safety net,” she said.
Although she will soon be leaving the practice, she doesn’t expect to stop working. She will continue to be part of animal cruelty investigations. And she might write a book about her experiences, especially animal use and abuse.
I hope she does, because she’s seen a lot – some of it a testimony to how horrible people can be, but some of it a testimony to how kind we are at our best. Or, yes, how silly.
“The focus of our work has always been on the animals,” she told me. “We’ve never done this for public acclaim. We’ve always done this for the cats.”
They have. And they’ve made a difference roughly. . .78,000 times.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on November 16, 2014. Chris’s most recent novels are “The Light in the Ruins” and “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands.”)
Five years on the turd hockey team -- and thriving
Not long ago, a reader stopped me on Church Street in Burlington, Vermont and asked, “Do your cats still play turd hockey?” I admitted that our five are a little older now, and have accepted the realities of age. “Now it’s more like shuffleboard,” I told her. And then she asked me about Funny Face.
Readers frequently ask me about Funny Face. It’s not merely that I post so many images of him on the social networks; it’s that his story touches something in anyone who follows turd hockey closely — or cares deeply about animals.
It was five years ago this month that I came home from a book tour to find that my wife had adopted another cat from Homeward Bound, the animal shelter in Middlebury. This brought our pride to five, four of which came from the shelter. That new cat was Funny Face.
The rap on Funny Face at the time was that he was, more or less, unadoptable. He was skittish — perhaps even certifiable. Didn’t play well with others in the sandbox. He was also a bit of a bruiser: 15 plus pounds of muscle and obstinacy. He had been living at the shelter for three and a half years, and he was anywhere from six to nine years old.
But my wife had a real soft spot for him. She has been volunteering for years at the shelter, working Tuesday afternoons with those cats most in need of socialization and human contact, and prior to bringing Funny Face home, she had spent a lot of time with him. For a difficult child, he seemed quite content to sit on her lap and drool. (Just for the record, he still drools when he nuzzles against either my wife or me.)
She had initially tried to find him a home other than ours. At her suggestion, I wrote a column about him, but there were no takers. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have begun the essay with an homage to cats in Lady Gaga wigs. Live and learn. And so my wife decided that his best chance for happiness was with us, despite the fact we already had four cats and Funny Face wasn’t supposed to like other animals.
The reality is that he wasn’t difficult at all and he liked our other cats just fine. He fit right in, joined the turd hockey team, and found his favorite spot by the woodstove. He figured out quickly the boundaries of our yard and our barn, and happily sprayed every single bush, tree trunk, and clapboard within two feet of the ground. These days, he lives in my lap for long hours when I write, drooling all over my sweatshirts. When the weather’s right, he makes his rounds outside, leaving out the front door and then coming to my library window — the other side of the house — when he wants in. He is, in short, a great cat.
And that is precisely why his fifth anniversary with us matters.
Shelters everywhere are filled with cats and dogs that are considered problematic. They are filled with older animals. Pets that have been returned.
But very often those are precisely the cats and dogs that make the best additions to a family. They can be profoundly grateful, deeply appreciative — and very, very loving. And a loyal pet makes anyone a little more human. (Good Lord, even the Grinch had Max the Dog. Dr. Evil had Mr. Bigglesworth the Hairless Cat.)
The fact is, there are a lot of animals in this world living in a lot of cages. My sense is that most of them are just waiting for that one person willing to give them a chance. My wife was that one person for Funny Face.
Happy anniversary, my friend. Very glad you’ve joined the turd hockey team.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on March 22, 2015. Chris’s most recent novels include “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands,” “The Light in the Ruins,” and “The Sandcastle Girls.”)
Readers frequently ask me about Funny Face. It’s not merely that I post so many images of him on the social networks; it’s that his story touches something in anyone who follows turd hockey closely — or cares deeply about animals.
It was five years ago this month that I came home from a book tour to find that my wife had adopted another cat from Homeward Bound, the animal shelter in Middlebury. This brought our pride to five, four of which came from the shelter. That new cat was Funny Face.
The rap on Funny Face at the time was that he was, more or less, unadoptable. He was skittish — perhaps even certifiable. Didn’t play well with others in the sandbox. He was also a bit of a bruiser: 15 plus pounds of muscle and obstinacy. He had been living at the shelter for three and a half years, and he was anywhere from six to nine years old.
But my wife had a real soft spot for him. She has been volunteering for years at the shelter, working Tuesday afternoons with those cats most in need of socialization and human contact, and prior to bringing Funny Face home, she had spent a lot of time with him. For a difficult child, he seemed quite content to sit on her lap and drool. (Just for the record, he still drools when he nuzzles against either my wife or me.)
She had initially tried to find him a home other than ours. At her suggestion, I wrote a column about him, but there were no takers. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have begun the essay with an homage to cats in Lady Gaga wigs. Live and learn. And so my wife decided that his best chance for happiness was with us, despite the fact we already had four cats and Funny Face wasn’t supposed to like other animals.
The reality is that he wasn’t difficult at all and he liked our other cats just fine. He fit right in, joined the turd hockey team, and found his favorite spot by the woodstove. He figured out quickly the boundaries of our yard and our barn, and happily sprayed every single bush, tree trunk, and clapboard within two feet of the ground. These days, he lives in my lap for long hours when I write, drooling all over my sweatshirts. When the weather’s right, he makes his rounds outside, leaving out the front door and then coming to my library window — the other side of the house — when he wants in. He is, in short, a great cat.
And that is precisely why his fifth anniversary with us matters.
Shelters everywhere are filled with cats and dogs that are considered problematic. They are filled with older animals. Pets that have been returned.
But very often those are precisely the cats and dogs that make the best additions to a family. They can be profoundly grateful, deeply appreciative — and very, very loving. And a loyal pet makes anyone a little more human. (Good Lord, even the Grinch had Max the Dog. Dr. Evil had Mr. Bigglesworth the Hairless Cat.)
The fact is, there are a lot of animals in this world living in a lot of cages. My sense is that most of them are just waiting for that one person willing to give them a chance. My wife was that one person for Funny Face.
Happy anniversary, my friend. Very glad you’ve joined the turd hockey team.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on March 22, 2015. Chris’s most recent novels include “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands,” “The Light in the Ruins,” and “The Sandcastle Girls.”)
