Marty Becker, D.V.M.,
is passionate about his work fostering the affection and connection between animals and people that he calls, "The Bond." Dr. Becker is regularly featured on ABC-TV's,
Good Morning America. He is a contributing pet-care writer for
Parade magazine, and frequent veterinary contributor to
The Martha Stewart Show. He also co-writes the award-winning weekly column on pets and their care, PetConnection, which appears in newspapers across the United States and Canada through the Universal Press Syndicate. Becker is also the host of "The Pet Doctor" on
PBS. He has been named Companion Animal Veterinarian of the Year for the U.S. by the Delta Society and the American Veterinary Medical Association, and also coauthored fourteen pet books that have sold over six million copies including
Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul, bowWOW and The
New York Times bestseller
Why Do Dogs Drink Out of the Toilet? Marty and his family enjoy life in Northern Idaho and share Almost Heaven Ranch with four barn cats, three dogs, and four Quarter Horses.
Gina Spadafori coauthors, along with Dr. Marty Becker, an award-winning, nationally syndicated, weekly column on pets and their care and is a contributing pet-care writer for
Parade magazine. She is a bestselling author of several pet books including the
New York Times bestseller
Why Do Dogs Drink Out of the Toilet? and
Dogs for Dummies. The first edition of
Dogs for Dummies received the President's Award for the best writing on dogs by the Dog Writers Association of America. She has served on the board of directors for both the Dog Writers' Association of America and the Cat Writers' Association of America. Gina lives in Sacramento, CA.
Carol Kline has been an animal rescue volunteer for over ten years. At present, she is affiliated with the Noah's Ark Animal Foundation, in Fairfield, Iowa, a volunteer effort that saves lost, stray and abandoned cats and dogs. A freelance writer, she has written for numerous publications and coauthored several books on a variety of topics, including the bestselling
Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul, Chicken Soup for the Cat & Dog Lover's Soul, and
Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul.Mikkel Becker has been a contributing author to Knight Ridder newspapers and
Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover's Soul, and has written for
Cat Fancy Magazine. She is the children's education coordinator for the Whitman County Humane Society in Washington State.
Introduction
Of all the animals who have shared our lives for generations, we know the least about the cat.
That doesn't mean we love them any less; in fact, the air of mystery each cat carries is one of the reasons we love them so much. Cats have never changed to suit our desires. They play by their own rules, and we love and admire them for their independence of spirit.
Cats started hanging around with us because we were useful to them. Our switch from hunter-gatherers to farmers meant that we attracted lots of fat, little rodents to our grain stores. The cat has been welcome in our barns ever since, and by our hearths as well.
Few cats have to earn their living today, and many now have lives that keep them completely indoors, hunting for little beyond a warm place to sleep. More than twenty years have passed since the cat claimed the title of number-one pet over the dog, and the gap just keeps widening.
The closer we get to our cats, the more we find to love about them. Their company offers warm companionship, endless entertainment, and soothing comfort. Even science has documented the benefits: Pets in general, and cats in particular, are good for us in countless ways. They keep us busy, keep us from being lonely, and even help keep us healthier.
Those of us whose hearts are in this book are unabashed animal lovers. Animals are our lives, and it shows in the work we have chosen—whether as veterinarians, writers, or photographers. We cannot imagine living without them. We love cats, from the purr of a new kitten's greeting to the last sad good-bye of an aged friend. We love the snuggles on the couch while watching TV, the silly games with a string toy or laser pointer, the sharing of a joke or a secret or even a little bit of our dinner. Our cats are always with us, in spirit even when they cannot be with us in person.
We know we are not alone in the appreciation of all things feline. Every cat lover knows cats don't care who you are or what you look like. They love us, regardless.
Cats teach us, heal us, make us laugh, and break our hearts with their passing. We understand the benefits of feline companionship because we live with cats, love them, and care for and about them. Our lives are about helping others to find better, fuller lives with their pets. The strength of the human-animal bond and the growing importance of pets in our lives is why we wanted to compile this book.
The very best experts—including top veterinarians, trainers, behaviorists—were tapped to provide expertise on all manner of feline topics, but we wanted much, much more. We knew cat lovers had stories of feline love, loyalty, laughter, rescue, and courage, and we knew we wanted to share them, along with pictures that captured their varied personalities, magnificent beauty, and irresistable charm.
From thousands of submissions of stories and photographs, we have chosen the very best—the ones we loved, and the ones we hope you'll love, too. Please join us as we celebrate the cat.
Love Pats
By Mitzi Flyte
It was the call I'd hoped would never come.
At 5:00 am, the phone rang. Rich, the man I was to marry, was at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital waiting for a heart transplant, and I was staying at a nearby hotel. Rich had recently had complications, so this early-morning phone call could mean only one thing. He was gone.
I'd been divorced almost seven years when I met Rich, a burly policeman. He'd had one heart attack years before and was not taking care of himself—he loved beer and could eat a hoagie while waiting for the pizza to bake. As a nurse I tried to encourage better habits, and for a while it seemed to be working. But the damage had already been done.
One heart attack followed another. The policeman who once weighed 230 pounds was down to 160. But his eyes still lit up whenever he saw me, and I hung on to that love.
When he finally became too weak to be at home, he was admitted to the cardiac care unit and given intravenous medication just to keep his heart working. There was only one option left: Rich would need a heart transplant. I papered his hospital room wall with a poster of a tropical isle—where we would honeymoon. We waited and waited. Then there were complications, and the doctors said that he wouldn't survive surgery. We would just have to wait until the complications cleared, and then he'd have his new heart.
But he didn't get better. There would be no new heart for my Rich.
I don't remember driving home from Philadelphia. I do remember walking into a house that echoed with emptiness. My daughter had left for college just a week earlier. A month before, knowing I would need to be with Rich during his frequent hospitalizations, I'd reluctantly found a good home for my beloved dog. Four months before that, my elderly cat had been put to sleep. Now I was completely alone.
For two weeks I was kept busy with the work and details that come with someone's death. And suddenly that safety net of busyness was all over. I went back to my job as a geriatric nurse, and every evening I came home to an empty house.
I missed Rich dreadfully. I missed sitting on the sofa holding hands. I missed holding him at night. And I especially missed cooking with him. Most evenings, we'd made supper together, each of us leaning against the counters of my old-fashioned kitchen, our hips sometimes bumping while we chopped, diced, simmered, or stirred. Every so often, he would reach down and pat my bottom and tell me that he loved me.
As time passed, instead of feeling better, I found that I was turning inward, happier in my memories than in the real world.
'You need a cat,' my sister said.
'You need a cat,' my daughter said.
'You need a cat,' my friend from work said, 'and there's a new litter of kittens at my daughter's farm.'
I gave in and visited the farm. There were several yellow tiger-striped kittens running around the living room. When I came in and sat on the sofa, they scattered—all but one. That one ran across the room, bounded onto my lap, and started to nuzzle my cheek.
'I guess I've been chosen,' I laughed. I think it was the first time I'd laughed since Rich's death.
My daughter, whose favorite rock band at the time was Mötley Crüe, wanted to name the new family member. That's how I started coming home to a Mötley greeting every night.
Mötley grew into a long, sleek, purring companion who followed me everywhere. He was playful and intelligent, letting me know whenever his food dish was empty and patiently escorting me to the cupboard where the cat food was stored. He curled up at the foot of my bed at night and in my lap while I read. He'd sit on the windows and chitter at the birds nesting under my porch roof. And when Ashley, a long-haired gray puffball, joined our family, Mötley accepted her as though she were his littermate.
One summer evening as I was fixing supper—chopping, dicing, simmering, and stirring—I felt a familiar pat on my bottom. Startled, I automatically turned, half expecting to see Rich. Instead I looked down and saw Mötley. He was sitting on a chair near the kitchen counter, one paw still suspended in the air. He had given me the pat! That yellow tabby stared at me with such love and devotion . . . and then he jumped up to the windowsill and started chittering at a bird outside.
I went back to fixing supper and wondered if someone had taught my Mötley a trick—someone who didn't want me to forget.
That was many years ago. Mötley's gone now. So is his companion, Ashley. But today my home includes Murray, Husker, and Miss Kitty. It's Murray who delivers the pats now, to my cheek, my arm, and sometimes to my bottom. It seems that someone still doesn't want me to forget.
As if I ever will.
George and Gracie
By Suzanne Thomas Lawlor
Gracie is known in my home as 'The Best Kitty in the World.' She is one half of a pair of cats that happily ruled my house in tandem for many years. Her brother, George (also known as 'Gorgeous George'), passed on not long ago and now permanently rests in his favorite sunny spot in the garden.
Gracie came into my life first. When my friend's cat had kittens, I asked my husband if we could have a cat. 'You can have a cat or a baby,' he told me.
I was indignant. 'I can have both,' I said.
But his comment turned out to be prophetic. When we broke up ten years later, we were childless; he got to stay in the house, and George and Gracie came with me.
It had taken me very little time to pick out my wonderful kitty. She was a tiny mound of gray-striped fur, nursing at the bottom of the furry heap, part of a contented feline clan. I lifted her up and held her to my cheek. When she nuzzled against me, I was a goner. George, however, joined the family a different way. It happened that a couple of weeks after I brought Gracie home, my husband and I went on a long-planned two-week vacation to the Grand Tetons. I was worried about leaving her alone, but she was just getting used to being in our house, and I didn't want to disrupt her new routine. So I asked two of my friends who had cats of their own if they would take turns feeding Gracie and also spend time playing with her. But even with some company every day, Gracie was lonely. Whenever anyone came to the house to feed her, Gracie wailed and made it clear that she was not happy.
Being adept problem solvers, my cat sitters hatched a plan. They decided they would get one of Gracie's siblings from the litter as a 'loaner kitten.' They visited my friend who had the kittens and picked out a little orange and white tabby, the one they thought was the cutest of the litter, and brought him home to Gracie. If he was going to be Gracie's companion, they decided this kitten must be called George (after comedians George Burns and Gracie Allen). When we got back from our trip and saw them curled up in the chair together, there was no turning back.
George let Gracie be the brains of their twenty-year collabo...
