Schnickelfritz -- the untold story

Unlike Tink, who is the best excuse I know for anybody who isn't sure they like cats to swear off the species forever, Gord is quite the opposite -- even people who don't like cats seem to like him. And what's not to like, if you don't have to live with Loverboy? He's sweet-tempered, affectionate, funny ... all things that translate to an amusing cat, once he warms up to you. If you don't have to live with him 24/7.

Mostly, I'm kidding. We love Gord -- he has all the equanimity, sweetness, eagerness to please and easygoing nature the other cats don't. He's an inveterate lap wart. He grooms us as if he thought we, too, were his. He's courteous enough to wait until he's sure we're awake to start bellowing to be fed, in the mornings.

It's the bellowing and the lap wartyness that can be trying at times, though. Gord has very firm ideas about when he is to be fed; which, generally, is constantly. The only time he is courteous about it is when we're asleep. If our eyes are open, and Gord is hungry, you can bet your sweet butt he's hollering about it nonstop, for as long as an hour or two, until he finally gets his food. He was always like this, but he's even worse since I started measuring his food and feeding him less. Now, he never seems to think he's had enough to eat, and we get to hear about it. Frequently.

Additionally, however haughty Tink may be, she trusts us. She doesn't wrestle if we have to give her medication; she doesn't pitch a fit if we take her to the vet; she's quite confident that, even if we are doing something to her that she doesn't like, at least she won't be harmed. Very likely due to the fact that Gord spent some time on the street, at the mercy of people less kind and well-meaning than his foster or the people at the animal shelter, he has no such confidence -- even after two and a half years. When one of us picks Gord up, he immediately begins attempting to fling his weight into unbalancing gyrations; he won't bite, but he will dig his claws in and shove. Both Tony and I have scars to prove it.

Gord has to go into a carrier to be taken anywhere beyond the front door -- he hates to leave the house. For a while, he liked to go out into the yard on a leash and harness, but late this summer (2002) he decided it wasn't fun anymore -- suddenly, it was frightening. We don't know exactly why -- once he caught a mouse, and we made so much noise about it he dropped it, frightened, and headed for the door. Another time -- the last time he really seemed to enjoy it -- Tony had Gord, I had Doodle on her lead and I was making noises by blowing on a blade of grass I had pinned between the heels of my thumbs. Doodle was intrigued; Gord nearly shat himself, and headed for the front door. Ever since, he's acted like he was being suspended over a pot of boiling water any time we took him out.

Not that it's a bad thing, overall, for a strictly indoor cat not to pine to go outdoors. Doodle is the only one who lurks at the front door, and I would have to suspect -- from the way she's acted when we've taken her out on her lead when it's cold -- she wouldn't stay long even if she bolted out the door. Gord would, I supsect, wail at the glass until let back in.

All in all, Gord's a good fellow. Because he never answered to the name he brought home from the shelter (Flame), we renamed him Gord -- but he never really answered to it, either. As part of the usual process that will occur any time a cat shares your household for more than ten minutes, Gord has picked up another name -- we took to calling him 'Schnickelfritz,' and then shortened it to 'Schnickel' or ' Schnick.' This, in fact, he will answer to -- I think it's like with Doodle, whose original name was 'Punk' -- that's his real 'second name.' I believe it was Ambrose Bierce who theorized that cats have three names -- the official name, the real name the cat tells you, and a third name that only the cat knows. Maybe so -- he's the second one whose name grew out of nicknames based on his behavior. 'Schnick' works as well as any, and if he'll turn around and look when called, it will make it easier if we ever have to call him for something.

Gord is not a beautiful cat, in the way that Tink is beautiful; he's not pretty, the way Doodle is pretty; he's not adolescent kitten coltish-cute, as is Squeek. Gord resembles nothing so much as an orange tabby Norwich terrier. His legs are short; his belly is round; his ears are too big for a head that's inflated all out of proportion to his body; his tail is stubby and prehensile. He looks like he was put together out of spare parts in the back room of the cat factory. He's bullish, not terribly graceful. He knocks things over, bounces off the walls when he corners. But the expression on his face when he flops down on your lap, or beside you on the bed, and you rub his jewelry-box velvet ears between the tips of your thumb and forefinger, is one of the most beautiful things you'll ever see on a cat, no matter what its lineage or how much it cost.