And now for something completely different: this is Callie the Wonder Cat. She’s from San Luis, Colorado, which ought to tell you something, except it won’t unless you live here. For well over a year, she was my wife’s “studio cat” next door, a role she undertook quite willingly after having been enticed half-starved from out in the cold. So Callie’s been places and seen a thing or two.
When we first found her, or was it the other way around, our neighbor at the time thought the name was spelled “Kali” instead of the more obvious appellation for a calico cat. (Ah, Taos.) She’s an independent animal and almost never meows, employing a ridiculously endearing “prrrrt” sound instead. Maybe that goes with the breed, whatever it is. She doesn’t much like to be picked up, but loves to be scratched. Accordingly, we developed a trick.
My dresser in the bedroom is an old chest-high model that belonged to my grandmother. One day I saw Callie sitting on the floor beside it looking up. “UP, SIMBA!” I commanded, in the manner of the old lion-tamers in the circus, snapping my fingers over the dresser — and right away she leaped, WHOOSH, all the way to the top! That deserved recognition, so I performed a little ritual I invented when we first brought her over to the house and she was scared and frightened. It consists of my scratching her along her back from her head to her tail while she walks back and forth, this repeating over and over until I’ve finished this song:
“Callie-Wallie*, Callie-Wallie
Callie-Wallie, Callie-O
Callie-Wallie, Callie-Wallie
Callie-Wallie, here we go!
Callie-Wallie, Callie-Wallie
Callie-Wallie has big fur
Callie-Wallie, Callie-Wallie
Callie-Wallie, we like her!”
Which drives her nuts. (I know. By now it’s probably driving you crazy too, but in a different way. Sorry.) But this is how you train a lion. She got very, very good at this, too. I could snap my fingers and get her to jump up on chairs, to the top of a bar stool, back down to the coffee table, and then up to the bar stool again. Each time I had to give her an abbreviated version of the routine, of course. And the dresser thing with full ritual went down every night.
I’ve lost control, however, and it isn’t pretty. She doesn’t respond to finger-snaps any more. Instead, she positions herself on the floor beside the dresser and waits for me to walk past. If I hesitate for a millisecond in mid-stride, she makes that “prrrrt” noise and jumps up on the dresser, whereupon I have to sing the stupid song and scratch her until it’s over. How can I not?
Damn cat’s got me and won’t let go!
* Pronounced with hard “a,” as in “Sally.”
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
you really thought YOU were training HER??? no no no no no, with cats it’s always the other way around – they let you think you’re the one in control, but that’s just to lull you into complacency while they gradually brainwash you.
Well, it did seem to work for a while! I had her hopping all over the place. Made me want to get a red jacket and a whip.
And where, pray, did you learn to tame lions?
My cat Kasha has a similar fetish. She likes to sit on the ironing board which we keep in our bedroom near a window. I can’t remember how it all started, but a ritual developed whereby I give her 60 strokes in one direction and 60 in the other. It’s hard to believe she can actually count to 60, but if I shortchange her she lets me know … LOUDLY. Every morning and evening, or after I’ve returned from an outing, and frequently during the day (depending on how stressed she’s feeling) she insists on having her ‘rub’ (she knows the word too). Often she spends the day on the bed so she can catch me when I go into the room. I try to sneak in without her noticing me, but, like all cats, she’s psychic. No other place will do either… it has to be on the ironing board. I don’t mean she won’t accept being stroked in other locales, but these are considered ‘as well as’ rather than ‘instead of’.
Luckily, I had the sense not to accompany the ritual with a song
I just can’t come up with a snappy comeback to that brilliant final sentence.
Sure you can