The Backyard Zoo

by Jim Dunlap

"Cats"

Unless I am at least one-hundred miles from home I am not, nor do I profess to be, an animal behaviorist. I have learned many things from animals through experience, so I can usually summon enough evolutionary precedence to figure out why an animal does something and even occasionally predict an action. I must admit that my underlying philosophy is based on the Harvard Law of Animal Behavior, which states that even under the most controlled circumstances, an animal will do as he darn well pleases.

I have told you stories of my indoor cats, Sissy and Priscilla, that as of this moment, have joined me on the couch and have expressed a desire to help me type. I want to tell you of my outdoor cats, Tiny, Milo, and Javier. Although they belong to my neighbor, I feed them a dry food breakfast on my back porch every morning. Much like many different animals that exist in groups, these cats have a feeding order. Javier is first as dominant male and Tiny dines next. He is actually twice as big as the other two, but he knows his place in line. Then there’s Milo. He will sit quietly on his haunches a paws length from the bowl. While one of the others has his head in the dry food, Milo will very deftly slide his paw over the bowl’s edge and removes a single morsel. He quietly eats that one and then repeats the process.

What is that? This overweight hairball is not starving. He is not concerned that the others will eat all the food because there is always some left. He does the same thing when he is the only cat on the porch. Could no head in a bowl be a case of kitty claustrophobia? Does excess testosterone affect his table manners? Did he miss the memo about pecking order?

Evolution arose out of the merging of progressionism with the natural philosophy of uniformitarianism and deals with the progress as well as the development of differences between modern animals and their ancestors. Knowing that, and with all my many years of study and experience in animal behavior, I have come to one conclusion. This cat is goofy.

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