A Tale of Long Ago--our Cat

 

 A similar cat

Last night I had a dream in which I was supposed to record on an exam three types of cats.  Maybe some cat food ads triggered this dream; maybe a Facebook friend's photo of her cat.  I couldn't come up with the answer so I decided to fill in the space with my memories of our cat years ago.  When I woke up, I thought I could write about our only experience with a pet because it is quite a story. 

Jeff was four years old and very fearful of other people's pets.  We had an opportunity to get a kitten so we brought one home from a friend whose cat had a litter.  Jeff named him Grinto which was his misreading of the Spanish name for cat--Gato.  It worked!  Jeff immediately got over his fears and happily greeted a friend's very large wolfhound shortly after that.

Grinto was an indoor-outdoor cat.  He was quite territorial and there were fights in the yard.  He was also not very clever because when he saw that it was raining when he looked out the front door, he would try the back door for better weather!

Several years later we moved about a mile away to a larger house.  One day Jim and I went for a walk and Grinto followed us.  Suddenly he disappeared.  He was nowhere to be seen.  A few days later he showed up at our previous house. This meant he found his way back to his original territory--about a two mile distance! 

 We tried to get him to come home with us but it was like trapping a wild animal.  He would not get into our car and we couldn't catch him.  Fortunately our former neighbors were willing to feed him and keep him.  A few years later they moved but they tranquilized him and kept him inside. He managed to stay with them until he reached the end of his life.  I can't remember how he met his demise.

So that was our story of our only pet--with the exception of goldfish.  We realized that Grinto was not loyal to us, his family, but just to his own backyard.