I’d probably shred anyone who suggested in my hearing that Clayton isn’t as smart as other cats. Whenever Laurence says something to that effect—when he tells me, quoting an old Carol Burnett Show episode, that “Clayton’s got splinters in the windmills of his mind,” or, more succinctly, “Clayton’s a little doofus”—I deny it vehemently. “You’re just saying that because he’s so affectionate and outgoing,” I argue. “Only a cynic thinks that being friendly and trusting is the same as being unintelligent.”
But even I—privately, in my deepest, innermost heart—sometimes have to acknowledge that maybe . . . just possibly . . . Clayton is . . . well . . . perhaps not quite as bright as he could be.
Like many cats, Clayton likes to knock things off ledges or tables and watch them fall. Sometimes the thing he knocks over is, say, a drinking glass from the kitchen table, which then shatters on the ground. That’s an irritation, although arguably I have no one but myself to blame for leaving an unattended glass within reach. And, again, it’s something lots of cats do. But how often does a cat then proceed to walk around, blithely unconcerned, in the broken shards? Thank goodness that Clayton, docile as a stuffed animal, is patient enough to let me tend to his paws with tweezers and peroxide as I pull the glass splinters out.
There’s an old truism that a cat might touch a hot stove once, but after that he’ll never touch any stove again. That truism doesn’t apply to Clayton. If I’m boiling a pot of water, I have to sit next to it and guard it the entire time, because Clayton—despite having singed his fur once or twice—will insist on walking on the stove whenever one of the burners is on, seemingly mesmerized by the pretty blue flame. I’ve considered the possibility that maybe Clayton doesn’t feel pain—that his nerve endings might not reach all the way to his skin, or something of that nature—but he yelps when the vet gives him a shot, or when I pull the glass from his feet, or when he gets close enough to a hot stove to burn himself. He just appears to forget immediately afterward. He doesn’t seem to learn.
Most cats have two canine teeth. Clayton has one and a half. He lost the other half chewing the ear off a cat-shaped wooden footstool that I found at a flea market one day—and ended up having to put out with the trash that night. Clayton gets a high-quality moist food, daily Dental Greenies for healthy teeth (although it’s tough to see the point in vigilant dental care if Clayton’s just going to chew his own teeth off), and plenty of fresh potted cat grass and raw catnip—so it’s not as if he lacks for fiber in his diet. Still, he’ll insist on chewing on wood (I’ve seen him go after the very doorframes on occasion), on plastic, on the metal base of a slender desk lamp while it’s lit and hot to the touch. He’ll eat—or try to eat—fluff and dust that he finds on the ground, feathers that have shaken free of pillows, long pieces of string, serrated metal bottle caps, Popsicle sticks, bits of plastic shrink-wrap torn from newly opened DVDs, peanut shells, staples, paper clips, the cloth husks of toys he’s chewed to pieces, small thumbtacks I didn’t even know were there and that have spontaneously dislodged themselves from the undersides of furniture . . . I’ve become vigilant as a hawk in surveying the floors of our home, scouring the terrain for any random detritus that might find its way from the ground into Clayton’s mouth. Still, on a semi-regular basis, Laurence will rush to the top of the stairs upon hearing me yell, “No, Clayton! Drop it! DROP IT RIGHT NOW!” and find me wrestling with Clayton, my fingers down his throat, as I pull the latest hazard from his gullet before he can finish swallowing it.
I’ve seen cats through late-stage cancer, chronic renal failure, liver disease, blindness, diabetes, high blood pressure, hyperthyroidism, a heart murmur, colitis, sprained limbs, infected wounds, major and minor surgeries, and mysterious colds and fevers that took their appetites and required me to force-feed them through a syringe.
I can honestly say that I’ve never had to work this hard to keep a cat alive.
We have friends from Tennessee who visit us a few times a year—fellow animal lovers who live on a large hobby farm with ten rescue cats of their own. There are far more interesting things to do during a long weekend in New York than pass time at our house, hanging out with our cats. Still, they insist on spending a full day in our home whenever they travel north. Clearly, it’s because they adore Clayton, lovingly tolerant as he intrusively head-butts and nose-burrows his way into their armpits or wraps his whole body around their feet (Clayton being a foot fetishist as well as an armpit aficionado), enraptured by the exotic cornucopia of smells they bring with them. Sometimes, I suspect that Clayton is the real reason they head up this way as frequently as they do. And even they—perhaps after the third time that visit when Clayton has tried unsuccessfully to bring the heavy, well-secured andirons next to the fireplace crashing down onto his own head (WHY?! FOR WHAT POSSIBLE REASON?!!??!)—will eventually look at him with a kind of affectionate pity and murmur, “Bless his heart.” Which, for those not conversant in Southern-speak, is about as damning an accusation of unintelligence as a well-bred Southern lady will allow herself to express.
These days, I fret constantly whenever Laurence and I go out—whether it’s for a few days or only a few hours—about what would happen if someone were to break into our home and the cats got out. Break-ins, of course, have always been a hypothetical possibility wherever I’ve lived—and, on one memorable occasion many years ago, my South Beach apartment actually was broken into. But I’ve never worried as much about what might happen to my cats if they got out—not even my blind cat, Homer (and I worried about him a lot)—as I do now about Clayton. He’s microchipped and, thanks to my cat books, I have a large-enough reach among cat rescuers online that he stands a better-than-average chance of being found and returned to me. Plus, knowing Clayton, he’d probably throw himself at the first human who walked by—and hopefully that human wouldn’t be inhumane enough to leave a desperately affectionate, three-legged cat to fend for himself. Still, my deepest fear is that Clayton couldn’t take care of himself for even a day if he suddenly ended up alone on the streets.
Which is why, when Clayton taught himself—taught himself!—to play fetch, it wasn’t just that it was cute at first. Or even cute-but-also-maybe-sometimes-a-little-annoying. It was a revelation. It was a game changer. And he’d taught himself so quickly! Could even the cleverest cat have picked up the rudiments of fetch any faster than Clayton did?
I felt relieved—and also more than a little vindicated. See! I wanted to shout to any and all naysayers. Clayton is smart! He’s VERY smart! I always knew it! I knew it all along.
* * *
Having accomplished this one feat of learning—teaching himself to play fetch—Clayton quickly followed it up by mastering an entire brand-new set of associated skills. There was no particular challenge in getting me to take on a round of fetch when I was already alert and paying attention to him. Clayton, however, soon became an expert at getting me to play fetch even when I was deadset against it, and at the least-convenient times.
You can always tell which of Clayton’s toys is his favorite at any given moment, because the more Clayton loves something, the more gleefully he abuses it. A few years ago, someone sent us gifts for the cats—two versions of a toy rodent called Rosie the Rat, made from real fur. There was a black-furred Rosie and a tan-furred Rosie. Truthfully, I didn’t love that they were made from real fur, and was tempted to either toss them or donate them to our local cat shelter. But Clayton and Fanny went absolutely wild the second I pulled the Rosies from the envelope they’d been mailed in, which settled the matter; I couldn’t bear taking away anything that made them so happy.