POOCH SAYS

      No, I'm not Andrew Lloyd Webber, but I do know a thing or two about cats! (Read no further if you are a "fish" person or enjoy caged birds in your home.)

      Cats are easily spooked! I once brought home a cat from a shelter and he did an acrobatic act the moment he caught sight of the dog. Tom took a leap to the kitchen counter and another to the top of the refrigerator where he crouched for 36 hours while deciding what his next move would be.

      Sometime during the 2nd night in his new home, Tom disappeared. He was nowhere to be found! Hopefully, he had discovered the cat-sized opening at the top of the stairway to the basement because his food, water, and litter box were in the basement.

      Yes, Tom was alive and well. It was about a week later that he was finally found happily ensconced atop a heat duct beside the furnace. Only his eyes reflected the light from the flashlight.

      It was four months before Tom came to the top of the basement stairs during daylight. We exchanged stares, decided we could be friends, and we lived in harmony ever after.

      Cats are jumpers! Tim enjoyed jumping through open car windows and sleeping up against the rear window. More than one visitor had to drive back to my house and return the cat with wanderlust.

      Tim almost met his maker one Easter Sunday. He made a mad dash through an opened car door next door, bounced off a lady's Easter bonnet on his way to the rear deck, and caused panic!

      The lady next door learned to keep doors firmly closed after she discovered Tim sitting in her kitchen eyeing her canary.

      Cats are bossy! Smokey was a night cat. When he'd finished his prowling, he'd jump up on a brick ledge below a bedroom window and he's scratch on the screen until you awakened, got up, and let him back in the house.

      Cats are playful! Smokey loved crouching on the bottom shelf of a coffee table. The dog would run around that table and Smokey would stretch out and bat him on every lap around that race track.

      Cats are resourceful! Boots showed up on the doorstep one day and insisted on being adopted. She was obviously someone’s pet for she was very healthy. So healthy, in fact, that several weeks after her arrival she had a litter in the basement on the underside of an upended marble-topped coffee table stored there!

      Need a companion or two? Try a funny, frivolous, furry feline! (But keep the cover on the butter dish.)