Cats in the Boonies

On the ridge where we live, there are currently three dogs and two cats. I've written extensively about the dogs and have hardly said a thing about the cats. I suppose this is probably because the cats have their own world. They occasionally come share ours for a few minutes, but we're never invited to share theirs.

I was warned, upon coming here and telling some acquaintances that I like cats, that cats in the desert usually have a short life. They're only about halfway up the food chain and tend to disappear mysteriously in the dead of night. One fellow I know claims to have lost over forty cats in twelve years. He keeps getting more not from a neurotic desire to feed the coyotes, but because a motivated cat can be terribly useful for keeping the rodent population more polite. Raised in cities myself, I'm more used to thinking of them as pets and it was off-putting to think that by getting a cat for myself I'd just be contributing to the local cuisine.

But my friends on the property had a pair of cats, sisters, who had been around for years. They were very enthusiastic ratcatchers, and apparently quite accomplished at avoiding that "down the throat" fate other acquaintances considered inevitable. I wondered how they did it, and decided to study their habits for a while.

First, they never left the ridge. The dogs have long since established a deal with the surrounding coyotes: The dogs get this ridge with all its slopes, and the coyotes get everything else. Stick to that, and they can leave each other alone except for the occasional shouting match. Second, unless we or the dogs were right there, the cats never paused for long on open ground. They seemed comfortable under the cover of a juniper or vehicle, but rarely crossed the yard at less than a run. This indicated some problem with birds that I had not yet seen. Kind of ironic, the thought of a bird hunting a cat, huh? Well, this is the desert. Everything that isn't a predator, is prey. Sometimes they're both.

About a year and a half ago, while I was still working in town, a lady came into the shop with a box full of kittens. I chose for my new companion a tiny gray tom with green eyes, who reminded me of one of my all-time favorite cats from many years ago. He settled into life in the lair very quickly, and became my little buddy Butch. As he got older and began exploring the world outside the lair, it became clear that he had more immediate problems than the predators: The girls despised him. Since they were skilled hunters and very experienced with violence, I worried that they might take an unacceptably direct approach to expressing their displeasure. But they limited themselves to laying down an iron law: The kitten could frolic all he wanted in the yard immediately surrounding the lair, but if he set a single paw in their yard there would be hell to pay. Of course Butch violated this law regularly, and it became fairly routine for him to come streaking to his little door with an outraged cat hot on his heels. Later this turned out to be life-saving practice for him.

Butch grew quickly, as kittens do. As tomcats do, once he started getting some size on him he developed his own blasphemous ideas about territory. He grew tired of being picked on by mere females, but these were no ordinary housecats. If he wanted to establish himself here he was going to have to fight for it, and the fights would be no mere rituals. "Show me your scars, big boy. Don't have any? Here: I can help you with that." And they did.

One sunny afternoon Butch came running into the yard with the biggest sister right behind him. But instead of disappearing into the lair, he turned at the door and issued a challenge. She was fine with that, and they rolled and slashed and screamed at each other for quite a long time. They'd fought before, but this was getting serious; he just wouldn't let it go. Most of the fur in the air was his; he was clearly getting the worst of it. But this time he wouldn't submit; he kept coming back for more. At last the fight reached the stage where the cats face off like statues, trying to decide who just won. Sometimes the battle resumes, but usually this is the end; whoever slinks off first is the loser. And that's when the female made the second biggest mistake of her life; she turned and slunk off home.

Butch the kitten was a feisty little SOB, but Butch Triumphant was a holy terror. For some reason this one fight changed the entire dynamic between the three cats and from then on he did the chasing. He even made the mistake of going into their home and stealing their food - at which point he learned that there was a fourth cat - a huge, ancient Himalayan male who did not care what went on outside but promptly explained some hard, cold facts about who ruled the inside. Butch didn't try that again for quite a while.

Then one night, while I slept, Butch met one of the local predators. Every night of his life since he came to live with me, Butch spent part of the time on my bed. What he did the rest of the night, of course, was his business. I'd grown used to him being there when I woke, and as soon as I stirred he'd always walk up my body, curl up by my chin and purr. But that morning I woke, felt him lying behind my knees, and though I called him he didn't move. This was so unusual I knew right away something was wrong. I got up and checked him out, and there was a bloody tear on his left side. There was another one on his ass, just behind his leg. Butch was in pain; dull-eyed, reluctant to move at all. He got worse all that day and the next; hydraulic pressure had to force him outside, and he walked slowly and stiffly when he walked at all. In just a few days he lost all his kittenish plumpness and became rangy and thin. But by the third day, having avoided infection, he started to mend. In less than a week he'd resumed his life as if nothing had happened.

We speculated about just what had happened. His wounds didn't look like the marks of teeth, more like something had hooked a talon on either side of his hind leg and tried to pick him up that way. So we decided that he'd run afoul of one of the huge owls we see from time to time. Of course that's really not the way to pick up a scared cat, and I've often wondered what the other guy came away looking like. Either way, though he now had a brace of very manly scars, Butch had passed the only test that mattered. He got away, and he survived.

Meanwhile two of the other cats did not. Shortly after the death of my best friend and landlord, the Himalayan was killed in a bizarre accident the details of which I hesitate to relate lest you call me a liar. The Himalayan was my friend's special cat friend, and those who suggested that he committed suicide weren't entirely joking. Last summer my landlady rented a house in town for a few months and brought the girls with her. The girls had survived more than four years in the desert, but less than six weeks after moving to town the biggest and most adventurous of the two disappeared and we never learned what became of her. It's very unlikely she chose a new home; she just never learned how to live with the dangers of a town.

My landlady moved to the city and Click, the last of the sisters, moved in with me and the dogs. For a while after her return Butch was inclined to chase her away every time he saw her, but the dogs put a stop to that. The dogs love and protect the cats; as puppies they were literally raised by the Himalayan, each in their turn, and he ruled them with a paw of iron. Though they grew to be many times his size, they never lost the habit. They don't like it when somebody pushes one of their cats around; even another cat. They put up with Butch's antics for a few days, and then stepped in. Every time he would corner Click, the dogs would get up and surround him. They never offered violence to him; they just made it clear that this was unacceptable behavior. Once inside the lair I watched Fritz the Shepherd put his nose between the cats where they were facing off over the food bowl and gently shove Butch away from Click. Then the big dog walked the tomcat the length of the lair till the cats were on opposite sides, and then he went and lay back down. He never growled or showed a tooth. He just said, That's enough of that. I thought I was going to laugh myself sick.

And that's where things stand now. Of course the only constant is change, and that's never more true than around here. But for now, our little family is secure and - relatively - peaceful.