Can Cat People Become Dog People?

The Safeway cashier has stopped scanning my groceries. She stands staring just past my right shoulder at nothing. Her eyes are filled with tears.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

The cashier nods absently, but mostly she remains paralyzed by a memory that clearly weighs heavy on her.

“She saved my life,” she tells me again,”I’ll never forget how she saved my life.”

There was no one in line behind me, I figured I had some time to probe. Delicately, because if she started wailing it wouldn’t look good. For either of us.

“Which cat was it?” I ask softly, “Ms. Pebbles?”

She shakes her head no. No, it was not Ms. Pebbles.

“It was Trix,” she says, still staring off in the distance.

A few years back I made a huge, life changing decision. I decided I was going to be more “present” during everyday encounters with people. I was no longer just going to say, “hi” and “thank you.” I was actually going to stop listening to my podcast on how to be a better person, and be a better person. I was going to take off my mammoth stereo headphones (earbuds give me the willies and I don’t understand how I’m the only one on that, and also I’m too old to care about looking like a dork) I was going to make solid eye contact, and I was going to beat employees to the punch by asking them how their day was going first.

This decision was for sure an, “I’m turning into my dad” thing. But since moving to Alaska, it was also an “I have no friends to talk to” thing. So there’s that.

But the plan wasn’t to make anyone cry.

My daughter appears at the check out, out of breath. Visibly relieved to see she’s not too late, she throws down a box of Cheezits. Then she notices the distraught cashier.

Tatum looks at me as if to ask, “what happened?”

What did happen?

There are “cat people” and many of them happen to work behind the register at the grocery store. I know this because the sight of our cat food on the conveyor belt usually compels them to announce themselves.

When this cashier saw the cat food, she asked how many cats I had. I told her I had two. Given my new rules of engagement, I went on and said they were named Albert and Georgie, and they were getting used to their new home here in Alaska.

And then she said that she used to have two cats too, Ms. Pebbles and Trix, but that she had to give them up because her step-son is allergic. She said she gave them to a shelter and she has a feeling they didn’t find homes. I responded saying I was sure the shelter placed her cats into very nice homes. But she shook her head “no,” and explained again that she had to give them up even though one of them saved her life. And then she started to cry.

And now here we were. The two of us and now the three of us. And I really want to know, how had Trix saved this woman’s life?

Of course maybe it was an emotional kind of “save”, but my mind started scripting out what I hoped was the actual story. I had a vision of Trix saving this woman’s life by body blocking an attacking grissly bear.

It would be a lot like what this cat did to protect a kid from a dog (viewer discretion advised) only, in my version it needs to be bear.

I was about to ask the big question, but Tatum gives me a look. She senses I’m about to say something that might escalate the woman’s emotional state, and I know she is worried that somehow her Cheezits might not get scanned.

“What a good cat,” I say, simply.

“She was, she was a good cat,” the cashier agrees. She takes a deep breath and then returns to scanning the remainder of our items, including Tatum’s Cheezits. Tatum snatches her Cheezits the moment the box passes successfully across the scanner.

Then that was it. The cashier was back to her cheerful, professional manner as if nothing had happened. She handed me my receipt and let me know how much money I had saved.

“Why did you make that lady cry!?”  Tatum asks me in the parking lot.

“I didn’t make her cry,” I say, as I enter the names Mrs. Pebbles and Trix into my phone.

“What are you doing now?!”

“I’m putting in the cat names so I don’t forget.”

“Why?! Mom, oh my gosh! You’re so weird!”

I wondered how Trix was spelled. My first instinct that it was spelled like the cereal, instead of like magic tricks. But was that because I heard the name in a grocery store? Ever since I decided to blog I have been making notes. I wasn’t exactly sure why I was making one now though. It might have something to do with the idea that with our new move, we might also want a new pet, and for the first time, a pet that isn’t a feline.

Should We Get a Dog?

I guess I was just excited by the idea of a hero cat, because there are so many stories about hero dogs. I never grew up with dogs, we have always been a cat family. So, I’m a little defensive about cats.

That being said, for the first time in my life, I’m considering adopting a dog. A hero dog preferably. Everyone here seems to have a dog. Along with trucks, RVs, and guns, dogs appear to be a key part of the last frontier lifestyle.

And if We Get a Dog, What Breed?

A Few Good Suggestions:

1: Australian Shepherds

“Get an Australian Shepard!” yells Todd, one of my husband Mark’s ex-coworkers.

This is after I had yelled at him a list of reasons why we might need a dog in Alaska. At the top of that list, of course, was that dogs could help protect us from bears. By this time, just two weeks out from our move, I had already seen all those videos of dogs chasing off bears (I ignored the one where a dog just made things worse.)

“They’re great dogs!” Todd is turned towards me, but his eyes are fixed on Mark who is a third of the way through the French Canadien National Anthem.

We are at a “going away” work party for Mark which is being held in the back room of a small Denver Sushi restaurant. It is a room designated for karaoke. So far it has pretty much been a one man show. Mark blew through all the Willie Nelson and John Denver songs and is now off playbook singing (acapella) the French Canadien National Anthem.

“Ton histoire est une épopée! Des plus brillants exploits!” Mark belts, then pauses to speak into the microphone, “feel free to join in everyone.”

Todd somehow manages to tear his eyes from the spectacle in order to pull out his phone and show me photos of his Australian Shepherd.

“He’s so cute!” I yell. I like that he’s not too big, but he’s not so small as to be eagle bait. Chiwawas are not the dog to have in Alaska.

Todd shouts out a bunch of reasons why Australian Shepherds is the perfect dog. And after another shot of sake, I’m 100% convinced that’s the dog we will get. I feel so relieved to have finally decided.

“Protégera nos foyers et nos droits!”

But, as Mark brings home the final verse of the anthem with his trademark flourish I worry about the part about Australian Shepards being high energy, task oriented, and needing a lot of attention.

Cats don’t need that kind of of attention. Cats are easy.

2: Sled Dogs

“How about a husky,”” Mark suggests, “or an Alaskan Malamut?”

We were in Willow, Alaska for an afternoon of dog sledding. Willow is the official starting location for the Iditarod each year, and at this dog sledding lodge, these dogs were retired from the great race, but still begging to run.

Tatum doesn’t know much about dogs, but she was sure dog sledding was “mean,” and she started off the day as a reluctant participant.

I asked her afterwards whether she thought dogs were happy or not, and she agreed that these dogs looked very happy. They certainly looked ecstactic to be pulling our sled. Whenever we stopped they’d bark their heads off demanding to know why.

As with any treatment of pets though, it just comes down to the owner.

Tatum is in the sled in front of me, her dad is the musher (dogsled driver)

Tangent Time: The Iditarod 2020

If you don’t know (because you didn’t watch the Disney movie “Balto”) the Iditarod commemorates the”Great Race of Mercy.” In 1925 there was the diphtheria epidemic and when pilots couldn’t make it to the remote, snowed in town of Nome due to a blizzard, a dog team was sent with the serum. Against the odds, they made it.

Known as “The Last Great Race on Earth” the Iditarod an is important tradition here, and that’s why they are making changes in the wake of controversy to keep the dogs safe for example vets travel with the teams, and dogs are able to be subbed out (which wasn’t originally the case.)

It’s not like the Broncos are playing down the street, dog sledding is one of the only sports around. And this year, it was pretty much one of the only sports still happening in the world as everything started to shut down due to Covid-19.

We were at the Iditarod’s ceremonial start in Anchorage on March 7th. The finish line in Nome didn’t have anywhere near this crowd just days later as the state starting shutting down with the rest of the country. A few towns on the trail didn’t allow the mushers to even pass through as they have traditionally in the previous 47 years.

My final thought on getting one of these dogs – while sled dogs are fun and tough enough to scare off a bear, I don’t know. I worry that moving to Alaska, starting a blog about the state, and then adopting an Alaskan Husky or and Alaskan Malamut might come across as being too “on theme.”

Also, like the Australian Shepard, I suspect these dogs might be too much for me to handle. Any dog that can run the Iditarod is likely to be unimpressed with an owner who whines about speed walking a block.

3: Corgis

“I love Corgis” gushes the man in the MAGA hat sitting at our kitchen island. I see another glimpse of the pistol that’s strapped to his belt as he reaches in his back pocket for his phone. He then shows us a video of his corgi barking at a squirrel he managed to trap in a cage.

The man is Henry, and we just met him on our door step 3 hours ago. He showed up at our door with 1/4 pound of moose meat from a previous year kill. I put the moose meat in the freezer as Mark invited him to sit down for coffee.

As I brewed a pot, it occurred to me that I have been too harsh of a judge on people who innocently welcomed into their home strangers, only to end up dead.

I pull out Mark’s favorite mug simply because it is the biggest mug, but I pause when choosing a mug for our unexpected guest. Maybe I should give him one of the disposable to-go cups instead? That might seem rude. Instead I select a mug we bought at the gift shop in Mesa Verde’s national park. It is the smallest mug we own.

Three hours and multiple Mesa Verde cups of coffee later, Henry is now telling us about his Corgi. By then I had decided to “lean in” to his visit, however long it might be, and I was appreciating it. It was just very interesting. At the very start of his visit, as if to address the elephant in the room (MAGA hat) Henry brought up all that is great about Trump, as we quietly listened. I have a brand new rule: Don’t discuss politics with anyone who is armed.

So we moved on to trips around Alaska, and guns, and finally, dogs. Which is ironic, because this whole meeting came about with a discussion on cats.

Possibly in retaliation of this ongoing deciding-if-we-want-a-dog process, we have doubled down on being cat people. My friend helps at an animal rescue shelter and I offered to foster a litter. So now, we have Albert and Georgie, and five foster kittens.

Henry’s wife had come by earlier that day to look at our kittens, and she selected one. Then we got to discussing Mark’s bbq prowess but that he had never bbqued with moose meat and she went and told her husband, and he came over with the moose meat. Sweet.

When I held up the kitten she wanted, Henry shook his head. “We can’t have a cat. We are living in our RV until we get back to our dry cabin, it’s just not practical.”

I knew his wife was from California, and she chose to move to freezing/bordering on the Arctic Northern Alaska to live in a dry cabin (which is a home that doesn’t have any plumbing much less a computerized system that notifies your plumber with issues) after she met Henry on-line.

Really, that is a true “poking the bear” move and she’s the one who should be writing this blog.

One last Cashier with a Cat Story:

I was at the area’s one Walmart buying double the cat food now that we added a litter of kitties. Times have changed since my last cat convo with a store cashier.

This cashier is wearing a mask, and there is a plexiglass-glass partition separating us. I was just starting to wonder if there would ever be a day post-Coronavirus when I would be invited to engage in banter about cats when….

Seeing the litter and cat food, the cashier looked up and asked me, “do you want to hear a funny story about cats?”

“Yes!” I shouted.

The cashier went on to tell me how she was in the shower one day, listening to the radio, when a commercial for cat food came on. In the radio commercial there was a cat meowing. As the commercial ended, the cashier still heard meowing. Confused, she got out of the shower, and found her neighbor’s cat running around her apartment. The cat had come through her bathroom window looking for the cat that was meowing on the radio.

I laughed much louder than intended. But what I was trying to say with that laugh was, “that’s right sister, we’re not going to let masks or this plexiglass divide divide us by preventing us from chatting about cats!”

The mask I happened to be wearing was one of my son’s ski masks, although he never wore it, and I like that it is light t-shirt material. I still wear it sometimes as I keep losing the other masks. If I looked a little scary laughing in this mask, the cashier didn’t let on.

And speaking of cashiers, I thought of the one who worried that the animal shelter didn’t find Ms Pebbles and Trix homes (and hopefully they did) because two of our five foster cats were just adopted. To very nice homes, I think.

And it’s not hard to see why these kittens went fast.

Look at these faces. I’ll bet they could even turn dog people into cat people.