What do you call an eccentric, fiery orange cat with a chink in one ear? Van Gogh. What else? On his first trip to the vet, as she examined him, she turned to us and said, “Wow, he’s purring.” The vet, who also turned out to be Dutch, thought he was remarkably large, and said that while all cats have different personalities, he was “a great cat.”
And he lived up to that every day.
He mastered our patterns in no time—meeting us at the driveway when we returned from our daily swims, joining us for drinks on the patio at 5:00 p.m. While the vet suggested he remain an indoor cat, he had other ideas. Since we coexisted with bobcat, fox and coyote, we decided to bring him in at night. Every night, he came when called. A devoted homebody, he kept time better than we did. Inside he was just as discerning; even though we often could not remember which cupboard held the tuna, he knew. He would sit next to the correct cupboard to remind us. And wait.
His demands were few—please don’t disrupt my nap and bath times. When workmen arrived, he would slip a paw under a lower kitchen cupboard, pull it open and dive to the deepest, darkest corner out of reach. “Hey what was that?” the workmen would ask as the cupboard door slammed shut. If he saw us wheel out our suitcase before a trip, or his cat carrier before a vet visit, he would dive into the cupboard quicker than we could grab him. On those occasions, we’d lash the cupboard shut with rubber bands around the doorknobs. Luckily, he didn’t hold a grudge, and was quick to forgive.
He hunted everything. The birds bothered me the most. I decided to put a collar with a bell on him to at least give the birds a warning, but he always returned home with no collar. We should have named him Houdini. After three collars, I gave up. The garden was littered with collars.
Van Gogh’s methods and manner of stalking his prey were both distressing and astounding. He would corner full-grown rabbits on the patio, patrol the stone wall for chipmunks from above so they couldn’t see him, and spring into the air when anything flew by. He was so diligent at keeping the chipmunk population in the neighborhood under control that one spring, following a chipmunk orgy, a neighbor asked; “Could you please send Killer over?”
Every morning when I would let him out, he would head up the back steps above the stone wall and survey his vast territory. One morning I saw him hauling his 16 pounds up an eight-foot trellis after a newly fledged robin. I intervened. If a hummingbird visited the bee balm, he’d leap into the air and attempt a takedown. Once, he followed me inside to the basement and pounced on a cricket. By the way, crickets are crunchy.
The week before he became ill, a friend warned me that his personality would change. But it never did. Right up to the end he lifted his head for one last chin rub. We dutifully complied. After all, he chose us, and we will always be grateful.