I’ve been wanting to write this piece for some time,
mostly about my cat Angel Leon. But the
story from Bakersfield last week about the cat who attacked the dog who was
attacking her little boy – that story brought my thoughts into greater focus.
Her
name is Tara. I forget the family’s name
as well as the little boy’s, and who knows what the dog’s name was. We can sympathize with both families, for the
dog is likely history now. In the video we
saw the neighbor’s dog appear nonchalantly from behind the car parked in the
driveway, where the 4-year-old boy was unskillfully riding his bicycle. Suddenly the dog grabbed his leg and began
shaking him like a rat. Within 2 or 3
seconds the cat streaked through the frame, hitting the dog like a rocket,
which sent the dog running instantly.
The cat chased the dog around the car before giving up.
People
who haven’t lived with cats and dogs together were astounded the cat was so
brave. I’ve had both, and know my black
lab mix was never a match for my calico Siamese. Everyone, including me, gave her wide berth,
especially when it was hot. I named her
Heather for her soft-colored coat, not remembering it’s a fairly prickly
shrub. The name was perfect.
What
astounded me, watching the video several times, is how quickly Tara responded. Was she watching from the bushes near the
porch? Or was it simply hearing her
little boy’s cries and the dog’s growling?
She was there before his mother by 5 or 10 seconds, fast enough to limit
his wounds to stitches, not reconstructive surgery. The dog never knew what hit him.
My
story about Angel Leon is sorta the flip side of Tara’s. AL got the tip of his tail caught in the
backside of a fan last June 4th and thought something had attacked
him. For the next 6 months, every time
his damaged tail nerves twinged, he attacked with ferocity and soon got a taste
for his own blood. Trying to keep him
from cannibalizing himself took everything I had and a little more, with
copious help and support from everyone at Lindsay Vet Clinic. Finally his nerves healed and now he’s his
normal angelic, regal lion-like self.
But during those long 6 months I saw the carnivore roots of my domestic
felines like I’d never seen before.
Our
metaphor of “Pavlov’s dog” has become a way of saying something is stupid,
easily trained to slobber at the sound of a bell. Pavlov’s experiment was actually more
profound than that, understanding the strength of natural instincts in response
to their environment, something we could benefit from understanding
ourselves. In the case of Angel Leon,
all the love I felt and doctoring tricks I’ve learned, in conjunction with
Jamie Wilson’s surgical skills and drug treatments, could not convince that cat
his instincts were wrong. It took time
and healing and constant surveillance – and finally it took ignoring the
problem to make it go away.
In
Tara’s case, her instincts were right, shaped by the love in her household as
well as the hands that feed her. What
shocks me most about the story is that people were so surprised. Protective love is not a purely human
emotion.
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Trudy Wischemann is an animal lover who writes. You can send her your heroic pet stories c/o
P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.
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