Our Cat Spook

When I saw the blog topic about a favorite pet, I knew exactly which one I would write about.  I love animals and all of our pets have been great, but there is definitely one that stands out in my mind.  I never considered myself to be a ‘cat person’, until our cat, Spook, came along.  When I was about 10 years old, my Grandma Lee got a tiny little Russian Blue kitten.  She wasn’t quite sure what to name him, but after several incidents in which he scared her two dogs and even once, where he scared himself, she settled on the name Spook.  I fell in love with this cat immediately and loved playing with him when I would visit her house.  He quickly went from being a tiny kitten to an increasingly large cat.  A few months after my grandma had gotten him, she passed away.  She had two cats at this point and they needed homes.  My aunt and uncle took her other cat Molly, who weighed about 7 pounds and my parents and I took Spook, who was about 20 pounds at the time. 

Losing my grandma was extremely difficult for everyone in our family, but in a way, we still had a piece of her spirit in Spook.  I grew up babying him and often pushed him around in a stroller, which he didn’t object to.  He quickly became my cat and tolerated much more from me than anyone else.  It has been 10 years since we inherited him and he is still alive and well.  He still weighs in at about 21 pounds, but the vet says he is extremely healthy. 

Spook is anything but an ordinary cat and often acts as if he is either a dog or even human.  He gives a whole new meaning to the phrase large and in charge and is definitely the boss of the household.  Even our 60-pound border collie/ lab mix, Suki, knows he is in charge and does what she can to stay out of his way.  It’s like he realizes her fear of him and can often be seen doing things in order to intimidate her or show her who’s boss.  He often sits on her bones and even attempts to chew on them in front of her until she squirms and whines enough for someone else to take it from him.  She has never tried to take it from him, just in case he retaliates.  He has also taken over the dog bed in my parents’ bedroom that is made for a large breed dog, and Suki has moved elsewhere.  His most recent entertaining story was when I was home for Christmas break and I was feeding them both.  They were both sitting in the room, when Suki took a drink of water out of Spook’s bowl.  The cat then proceeded to use his paw to dump the water out of the floor until I took it to the sink to empty and get him new water.  My mom says that this has been happening a lot lately whenever Suki tries to drink out of his bowl.  It’s as if he wouldn’t dare to drink out of the same bowl as the dog. 

He is extremely entertaining and intelligent and I miss him a lot when I am at school.  I love when my mom calls me with stories about our animals and lets me know how they are doing.  I feel like one of the things I miss about home is being able to have animals to come home to, which you can’t do here in the dorms.