A Eulogy for a Cat

Dear Gentle Readers,

It often puzzles me that some pet owners are so concerned about cats being able to live and roam because to keep them confined would be a cruelty. Imagine how frustrating it must be for a cat not to be able to wander freely.

Equally odd, is how the same courtesy isn't extended toward dogs so often. Of course, there are owners who do allow their dogs to roam and breed without a thought about tomorrow's puppies, piles of doggie doo in the neighbors' yards, terrorized cats, home/yard invasions resulting in dog fights, dead rabbits or guinea pigs or even dead or mauled children.

Yes, in the case of a cat, one only has to worry about spreading feline leukemia, cat scratch fever, arousing sleeping dogs at all hours of the day and night to bark their heads off, yowling cats breeding noisily in a serenade that no neighbor really loves and neighbors finding cat poo in their favorite flower beds. Yes, indeed, a roaming feline is nothing to worry about and not a trouble to one's neighbor as a dog would be.

Yet what I write about tonight is a eulogy for a lovely, well-fed gray cat. The cat was large and escaped becoming coyote appetizer. Instead the cat was hit by a car yesterday evening, sometime before 7 p.m. My secretary, on her way to pick up something, passed over the cat and, seeing its open eyes circled back.

The body was intact except for the strange twist of the spine that left the hind legs facing the opposite directions of its forepaws. Positioned just right in the number two lane, the cat was passed over by car after car. The body was not yet stiff and when my secretary was able to get a man living nearby to deposit the body in a box, it was still supple and warm. There was no collar; no owner shall be notified.

If you have never seen, or for us canines, smelled, an animal that has been hit by a car and squished messily over the road, you are lucky. It is a sad and doubtlessly painful way to die. For the tender-hearted person who might accidentally hit the animal, it is heartbreaking. Then one should curse the owner who indulgently allowed their pets to roam. Unless one can teach a cat to properly cross streets, do not let your cat roam outdoors. Perhaps you don't care about the kind of nuisance a loose cat is in any neighborhood, perhaps you don't care if your cat becomes a nibble for a coyote, but you will may never now how many auto accidents or near accidents your cat may cause and even more sadly, you may never know how and where your cat dies.

Is that love? I think not.