In the kitchen, on the floor next to the cookstove, Yandro finds his food. Before this pale orange, furry little being came here to live, he sat on a stool at a dining table, on which he was allowed to put his front paws, and only his front paws, to eat from his bowl. He was often treated to little bites from his doting mistress’s plate.
Yandro has come down a peg or two from those halcyon, spoiled-cat days even though I love him and his unbelievably soft fur, his annoying companionable ways (like walking on the computer keyboard), or when he climbs onto my lap in the evening as I knit, twitching his ears in irritation as the yarn flicks over his head.
Johanna, sadly deceased, spoiled him very much and even in this house, where one of the operating principles is “Don’t disturb the cat,” as in, if he is sleeping on an unmade bed, I don’t push him off in order to make it, he still doesn’t get all the privileges he was used to.
If nothing else is available, he’ll finally drink out of the bowl next to his food dish.
Feeding him, of course, ends up being a kind of exception. My former husband who worked in veterinary hospitals told me once that even though owners came in with their cats and the cats’ preferred food, the cats would actually eat whatever crunchies the hospital doled out. I suspect we cat lovers feel a surge of smug pleasure when little Muffy laps up whatever we have chosen for her because we know dogs will eat anything, unlike our more discerning pets.
We are, of course, aided and abetted by cat food makers who know how to nudge us into our choices with words like “paté” instead of ground up paste, or “shreds” for undistinguished fragments floating in “gravy” which is some kind of thickened water, and even using the word “grilled.”
Seriously? As if the cat food company has a whole bunch of barbecue grills in its backyard. Hey, Yandro, want some ketchup with that?
One I saw picks up human desire for good health with the line, “Plus the gravy for cats provides plenty of moisture to help keep your pal hydrated.”
Yandro, whom I trust to know when he is thirsty, likes exotic water. He’ll leap into the bathtub in hopes that someone left the faucet dripping. He finds a pitcher set on the floor with water intended for houseplants very appealing. He’ll sneak into the cellar to sip from the sump pump basin. If nothing else is available, he’ll finally drink out of the bowl next to his food dish.
Whatever did cats, who’ve kept humans company for millennia, do to keep fed before canned cat food? Well, mice of course, and other small creatures. Scraps of fish or meat from human hands.
I’ve heard of barn cats who knew how to drink milk shot into their mouths by the person milking a cow. While watching Ana Bush Craft, a YouTube video made in southeast Asia filmed by a tough and determined young woman, I observed her mix up fish and rice for her cats, the same dish eaten by the lady herself.
Yandro is remarkably uninterested in my dinner. Some cats in my past relentlessly circled my feet when I cooked, entranced by the smell of cooking meat. One learned how to knock over a milk carton to spill some out; he’d also jump on a table to dip his paw into the cream pitcher and lick it clean.
Yandro’s exception is Philadelphia cream cheese (he doesn’t like the store brand) for which he will actually let you shake his paw.
Like a lot of islanders, I suspect, I order cat food from a famous internet pet supply house because shipping is cheaper than a ferry ticket and buying large quantities is handy. After one shipment, I received an invitation to review my purchase experience. One question asked me to rate the quality of the food.
Excuse me? How would I know! I’m not the one eating this stuff, a point I entered in a comments box.
That elicited a concerned query about how they could improve my experience. I suggested they figure out how to survey cats, which eventually devolved into a sincere hope from them that they could finally help me with my problem.
When I responded that it wasn’t me with the problem, I ended up with an offer in my inbox to review the quality of their help.
Maybe I’ll send them a picture of Yandro with his nose in his food dish, happily hydrating himself from a serving of ocean white fish shreds with tomato. In gravy.
Sandy Oliver is a food historian who gardens, cooks, and writes on Islesboro. She may be contacted at SandyOliver47@gmail.com.
