When I was a kid, we had a calico cat named Mr. Munchkin. I’m serious. My sister and I named him despite protests from our parents, such as: “This cat is a girl kitty” and “No, really. This is a girl cat.” Even at the time (I was 11, my sister 8), we apparently felt that many traditional gender roles and terminology needed to go the way of the Model T. To appease them, we called her Munch.
Munch was an indoor cat (read: unfortunately she was declawed), but on occasion we’d let her outside in the summer, leaving the back storm door open a crack so she could scuttle back inside on a whim. So, one Sunday, my mother, father, sister, grandmother, and I sat on the back porch, chowing down on burgers and coleslaw, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed Munch slowly stalking toward a row of arborvitaes. She often did this, hiding as low as she could in the grass, her brown, tan, and white coat poorly diguised against the green; since cats ain’t colorblind, she might have been just plain dumb. The creeping continued for a couple of minutes as she made her way.
As those conifers exploded with a small flock of blackbirds, she did her best feline interpretation of Florence Griffith-Joyner, spritting back toward the house. The look one her face said: “What the f— were those? Why didn’t you tell me about those?” And who could blame her: the closest she’d come to a bird was the catnipped toys she got stoned on. Of course, instead of running through the opening in the doorway, she ran right into the door. I’m not sure I ever loved her more.
20 years later, I still adore cats, though I’m not one of those cat people. So, I’m intensely interested in organizations and projects that protect and assist our feline friends. Sure the ASPCA rocks. While a bit gungho, PETA’s at least got good and helpful intentions. But I’m quite concerned about cat overpopulation (hey, Bob Barker’s got the right idea), and the organization Operation Catnip is right up the progressive alley. This outfit performs “trap-neuter-return” with feral cats. By doing this, they reduce cat overpopulation, which is bad for the animals and the environment, since these cats lack natural preditors, and helps the overall heath of cat communities (called colonies). An additional benefit is that university vet clinics are used for the neutering and administration of vaccinations, thus given vet students an opportunity to work with living animals that don’t belong to anyone. If you’d like you can make a small donations here, and help cats, cities, and students. If you can’t afford to, we understand. Just knowing more about organizations like this one is part of progressivism.
