Of Cats and Cars

Today I got to meet my best friend's new dog. His name is Sam and he's very cute. He liked me from moment one and I, of course, loved him to pieces. I may keep cats these days, but my first pets were dogs. I love dogs, though they are not really practical for me to try and keep as pets. Dogs take a lot more work than cats do and are no where near as independent. I kind of need an animal in my life who mostly likes to keep to herself . . . the cat on my knee notwithstanding.

I do love that dogs will ride in the car with you. They're even happy to do so. Most of the cats I have owned over the years have loathed being in the car. Some just sulked and whined for a while, though eventually they got over it. Others screamed bloody murder the whole time. When you have a cat like that, there is absolutely not one thing you can do to please them about the car ride, other than take them out of the car.

My cat Rhiannon is one of those who views being in a vehicle as a nightmare. She has created a whole series of noises that she reserves for just that occasion. They sound like a cross between someone being murdered, someone being tortured, a bassoon, and the lowest pit of Hell. Once she is in the car (it does not have to be moving), she will begin to make this noise, over and over again, until she is taken from the car and put into the house.

Which leads me to one of my and my roommate's favorite jokes about our last move. We'd taken almost everything from the trailer, except for the cats. We wanted them to come into the house with practically everything inside. That way they'd be less freaked out . . . as if there is a way to make cats LESS freaked out about a move. Cats hate moving almost as much as they hate cars.

We had Rabbitkiller and my grandmother's truck packed full of stuff. My roommate said he was taking the cats out (Rowan and Salem were in one carrier, Rhiannon was in another). I thought he'd put them all in the truck with him . . . until I got outside and heard MMMMRRRROOWWWWOOOHHHHH from the car. No, he took Rowan and Salem, but left Rhirhi for ME to deal with. Sigh. It's less than a block to where we were moving but it felt like it took 51 days. She just would not stop making that noise.

Needless to say, spending the day with a happy, grateful to be in the car dog was a nice change. He just wagged his tail and looked excited to be there. No howling. No threats. No cursing in a language only cats can understand. It was awesome . . . until he would breath on me. Then it was less awesome.