You can teach an old cat new tricks

This is about the oldest cat at my house: Piggy, almost 20 years old. He was one of 3 kittens born at Easter, 1989, in my oldest son's closet...and according to an old video of his kittenhood: he was the first to purr! I showed his mother the closet a few days before she gave birth and I always thought it sweet that she took my advice and produced 2 boys and a girl~just like I did!!!

Somehow we ended up keeping all three kittens and even added one more (Coati, who is about to be 19,) but this is a story of Piggy in his dotage. (I'll get to that part in a moment~)

Piggy was a handsome boy, sleek and black. When he was born he had a fat, round nose like a snout--thus his name. I always said it made him easy to call because I could just yell, "Piggy! Here Pig! Here Pig! Pig!!! Soouu EEEE!!!"

He didn't care for it AT ALL when we had him altered.  He was furious! I guess it was why he punished us there after by whizzing "Maleness" all over the house.  He was always being admonished and thrown outside.  He loved us anyway...and we loved him.  He also loved visiting neighbors.  I was at a wedding once when a woman I didn't know was telling about a black cat who suddenly appeared in her kitchen while she was on the phone and scared her to death by rubbing against her leg.  I didn't have to ask, "Where do you live?"  I knew.   When we moved a few blocks away the new owner called me up to say our big black cat was trying to get in his new house.  He held the phone down to him and said, "Piggy, your mother wants to talk to you.  She says come back home!!!"

He also had a thing about cars: Our contractor once drove a few miles only to discover Piggy sitting in his back seat.  Sometimes he took his mother with him.  No one left their car windows open in our yard for long!!!   I attended an evening funeral during Halloween week with a friend who really dislikes cats~(Now, how could she be my friend?)  She nearly drove off the road when she realized she had an unwelcome passenger~~and a black cat at that!  Her van came screeching around the corner:  Open door!  Exit Cat!!!

Its a shame that pets get old,  too.  He might have aged pretty well if it weren't for the fact that when he was about 17 he accidentally got run over in the driveway. (Still hanging around cars~but not to his advantage.)  Luckily, it was a pretty light car~ but it did squish his hips together and make him more than slightly crooked when he walks.  I don't know how he ever recovered at all, but I guess it was the morphine.   The main problem was that it made him even more incontinent.  We really couldn't let him run roughshod around the house anymore.

So, in order to allow him to come in, Fax turned a plastic storage tub on its side so that Piggy could stay in it and have supervised visits.  Except that he didn't want to stay in it.  And we'd forget he was there and he'd jump down, fall over...and have an "accident."  It was depressing that we couldn't get him to stay in the tub, but he really didn't care for it.  Plus, if you picked him up and held him...and he started purring...that often made a whole lot of trouble to clean up all across the floor or even on your clothes!!!  It was becoming a big catsize disaster!!!  What to do???

This winter, though, he seemed to catch on.  Maybe because it was a very cold winter he decided to cooperate.  He has an electric heating pad to sleep on in the garage, and a heater, but he still wanted to be inside...and we like to see him, so he began to not give us any trouble about staying in the tub.  Fax usually will say,  "Piggy is coming in. He knows the rules...he has to stay in the tub." I shake my head and say, "He doesn't seem to know the rules." Fax replies, "Piggy knows the rules." (We have deep conversations like this all the time.)  The other morning Fax brought in the tub, put it in a chair with a view and then brought in Piggy.  Just as they got to the chair Piggy jumped from his arms and settled into the tub!  I was surprised..and impressed that Piggy could even jump anymore...and into the tub of all things!!! A little while later I took the dogs out to walk and get the morning paper. I suddenly remembered that Piggy was alone in the house!! Oh Drat!!! I rushed back in but~ too late!   There was Piggy already in the middle of the kitchen floor!  But how about this:  As soon as he laid eyes on me he reversed face and did something that resembled a crab scurrying sideways.  He managed to hurry right across the room and jump back into the storage tub on the chair all on his own!!!  Proving~~ that he not only knew the rules,  but also~ that you can teach a very old cat new tricks!!!