Once our cats are gone, we're taking a break from having pets...or at least that's what we tell ourselves.

We owned all of these guys at one point. Now only the two on the left remain.

We currently own three cats: Ginny (11 years old), Molly (9), and Cheddar (age unknown, but probably 8-ish?)

I love them all. They're affectionate – each in their own way – and they cause minimal damage to our house.

Actually, they cause zero damage as long as Ginny is on her meds. A year or so ago she started peeing in places she wasn't supposed to, so the vet prescribed some Happy Cream. Every night we rub a small dab of the cream inside her ear, which keeps her both content and continent, if somewhat zoned out.

Apart from that, all three are pretty healthy felines, at least for the moment. We've been down this path several times before, so we know in a few years they'll start declining.

It will be sad, and we will love them until the very end, but Terry and I came to the decision a while ago that these are the last three in a long line of Tennant cats.

We've owned cats together since before we were married. For the three months leading up to our wedding in 1992, I lived alone in the house we had bought with a little kitten named Alex. He was the first of our many four-legged, fuzzy friends.

Over the subsequent 34 years, we've owned as few as one or two cats at a time and as many as five. Our current three feels like a good number, especially to me as the person who daily feeds them and cleans their litter boxes.

When we lost our boys Fred, George, and Charlie in a 15-month span in 2022 and 2023, we were down to just Ginny and Molly. And that seemed fine.

Then Cheddar unexpectedly joined the team in the spring of 2024. You can read about that here, if you're interested.

Now I truly think we're playing out the string. I don't mean that to sound heartless. As I said, we love our three kitties and will continue loving them until it's their time to go.

But I've been doing the litter box/cat feeding thing almost every morning for 3+ decades. I wouldn't mind hanging up my scooper. And Terry and I would both be OK not having to worry about aging cats using our basement armchairs as scratching posts or surrogate bathrooms.

I say this as someone who has had at least one pet in the house consistently since birth. I grew up with dogs and fish, while our kids have owned cats, hamsters, guinea pigs, rats, chinchillas, mice, and fish of their own.

I've taken care of more than my share of furry and non-furry creatures. As sad as I'll be to lose Ginny, Molly, and Cheddar, I'm ready to take a break. A permanent break.

And this time, I mean it.

I think of our cats as tiny humans, and I constantly have to remind myself they're not

Ever since Cheddar the cat entered our lives a year ago, this scene has played out hundreds of times.

Cheddar (the orange cat above, lower right) will be sitting in the living room minding his own business, when suddenly calico Ginny, one of our two girl cats, will come charging at him. The two will tussle for a few seconds, hisses will be exchanged, then order will be restored.

When this happens, I give Ginny a stern talking-to. "Why would you do that?" I demand of her. "Stop being a bully. Leave Cheddar alone! You're mean."

Then I pause for a second and realize a few things:

• Ginny does not generally understand English, outside of the word "treats" and her own name.
  
  
• Ginny is acting on instinct. She is not "mean" by nature.
  
  
• These lectures of mine never seem to have an effect, and she is likely to repeat this behavior an hour later.

NOTE: Cheddar is not entirely innocent in all of this. Maybe it's because he's fed up with being attacked, but increasingly, he is the aggressor when he and Ginny or he and Molly square off.

Other than the occasional nose scratch, no one ever gets hurt in these confrontations. But I always feel like Cheddar, a cat who was plucked from the mean streets of Wickliffe by our daughter Melanie, deserves some peace and quiet.

Then again, he's an animal. Does he even know what "peace and quiet" is? Isn't he built to handle this kind of thing?

Regardless of how much we love them, the fact is that our cats, as domesticated as they are, are cats. They have instincts that make them act in ways that, while unpleasant to us, are perfectly natural to them.

Overall, they seem pretty happy with their lives.

This tendency of mine to treat them like people also extends to their facial expressions. Or at least what I interpret as their facial expressions, because again, I read their faces the way I would read people's faces.

Which is also a mistake. Cheddar, for instance, has what Terry calls "Resting Sad Face." He always looks like a forlorn little human child, but he looks that way even when he's sitting on my lap purring and is clearly very content.

So while I still don't like it when the cats fight, as I said, no permanent damage is done and they all seem fairly happy with their lot in life.

Of course, I would know for sure if they stopped being so stubborn and learned to speak English.

I told Terry, "No more cats!" And then along came Cheddar...

I became a cat person only because I married a cat person.

Having grown up with dogs, I didn't know much about caring for felines until the spring of 1992 when Terry and I got ourselves a little kitten that we named Alex.

This was during my three months of bachelorhood after I moved out of my parents' house and into the house on East 300th Street that Terry and I bought before we got married. Alex and I lived there alone until June, when Terry moved in following our wedding.

I quickly learned that cats are self-sufficient, territorial, and depending on their personality, varying degrees of affectionate.

In the three-plus decades we've been married, Terry and I have had a range of cats, including a long stretch in which we owned five of them. Over time, I became the one who fed them all every day and cleaned their litter boxes.

Thus, while I was sad when our cats Fred, George and Charlie all died within about 15 months of each other, there was also a sense of relief that morning cat duty might someday be lifted from my shoulders.

At that point we had just two kitties, our girls Ginny and Molly. I was fine with this arrangement and was always the first one to say no when someone suggested we take in a stray or claim a kitten in need of a home.

Meanwhile, our daughter Melanie had moved out of the house, and she was building a little cat army of her own. That included an orange stray who started hanging around her place last winter, and who she would regularly feed and pet.

She eventually took him into her home and named him Cheddar. She loved Cheddar, and with good reason. He's a good cat.

The problem was that one of Mel's other kitties, who generally hates the world and everything in it, took to tormenting Cheddar. They couldn't even be in the same room together, which forced Mel to keep Cheddar locked up in a bathroom while she figured out what to do.

I didn't want any more cats, but I also didn't want Mel taking Cheddar to the Humane Society. One night she came to our house for dinner and mentioned him, and I went ahead and said what was on everyone's mind.

"Oh, just bring him over here," I said. "He can live with us."

And so she did. And so he does. It took a little while for Ginny and Molly to accept him, and even then, at best, they tolerate him.

But Cheddar has been a big hit with the three humans in our house. He's affectionate, inquisitive, entertainingly vocal, and fun to watch whenever he goes into kitten mode and starts playing with whatever he can find on the floor (a hair tie, a cat toy, a piece of string, a dust ball, etc.)

So now we have three cats again. It's not five, and I don't intend for it ever to be five again. Or even four, for that matter.

We're sticking with the ones we have. And once they're gone, no more.

And this time...I mean it.

Smaller pets are eternally babies, even when they're getting on in years

 

The feline in the photo above is Ginny, the oldest of our three cats and also – by a considerable margin – the smallest in stature.

Ginny (named after Ginny Weasley from the Harry Potter series) joined our family nine years ago this month. According to one online source I found, this makes her about 52 in human years.

Not a senior citizen, by any means, but a lot closer to old-cathood than she is to kittenhood.

Yet I still often think of Ginny as our youngest simply because she's so small. She just seems very kitten-like.

By the way, it's commonly thought that calico cats like Ginny are smaller than other cats simply by reason of being calicos. That's not true, though. It turns out calicos can range from small to large. The reason calicos tend to be smaller is that 99.9% of them are females, and female cats are naturally smaller than males.

Whatever the reason, Ginny will seem forever young any time she is near her two siblings: fat floofy Molly and svelte-yet-undeniably-masculine Cheddar.

When those three are physically close to one another (which isn't often, given their mutual distrust), Ginny always looks like the little kid tagging along with the big kids.

We are in a period of relatively good cat health in our house right now. We lost three of our kitties in one 16-month period between February 2022 and June 2023, so it's nice to have everyone looking and feeling good, especially when I realize how much we pay in vet bills when they're not looking or feeling good.

Still, whenever I see Ginny and realize she's going to be a decade old next fall, I remember what it's like when they start going downhill.

Not at all fun.

Which is why I choose to continue fooling myself and believing Ginny is in fact a kitten who will live forever.

It's better that way.

Bringing another cat into the house is way more complicated than I remembered it

 

That's Cheddar soaking up some sun near our front door.

For many years we owned five cats. This was just how it was, and I spent the first few minutes of every morning feeding them, getting them fresh water, scooping out their litter boxes, and ensuring they were all present and accounted for.

Then our three boys (Fred, George and Charlie) each succumbed to various feline diseases in one 16-month period, and suddenly we found ourselves down to two kitties in the house: our girls Ginny and Molly.

As much as I miss Fred, George and Charlie, I have to admit I've enjoyed the relative ease of taking care of only two cats vs. five. All along I've said that as soon as these two ladies pass on – something I hope doesn't happen for quite a while – we would start living cat-free.

No more food bowls, no more litter boxes, no more clumps of fur blowing randomly around the house.

You know where this is going.

A few months ago, my daughter Melanie found a sweet, affectionate orange cat living outside her house. She started to feed and pet him, and the next thing you knew, Mr. Orange was living inside her home along with the two cats she already owned.

This would have been fine except that the two existing felines weren't especially nice to Orange. They made his life miserable, which is all the more sad considering what a nice little guy he is. He loves receiving pets, being around people, and just generally loving everyone.

Mel didn't know what to do. She wanted to find him a new home where he could live in relative peace and quiet, but there were no obvious candidates outside of her family.

Again, you know where this is going.

I had already resigned myself to the fact that Cheddar, as she had named him, would be coming to live with us, even before the formal request was made. Our oldest daughter Elissa offered to take him, but it was agreed that we could offer Cheddar the best home.

So one Saturday Mel brought him over. He lived in our master bathroom for a few days while he got acclimated to his new surroundings.

Actually, him living in the bathroom was done mainly to allow Ginny and Molly ample time to get used to his smell and accept the fact that he would be their new brother.

I read online how integrating a new cat into an existing cat family should be a gradual process. One thing we did, for example, was to feed the girl cats treats on one side of a bedroom door while Cheddar was getting his own treats on the other.

This not only put them in close proximity, the treats also (theoretically) created a positive association for them with their mutual smells.

Slowly we started giving Cheddar more freedom. When the girls first encountered him visually, their reactions were predictable: Light but insistent hissing and facial expressions that clearly conveyed the message, "We don't know what you are, but you are not welcome."

As I write this in mid-April, this is still the state of affairs, though I think Ginny and Molly are coming to the realization that Ched isn't going anywhere and they need to get used to the idea.

Who knows? Maybe in time they'll become pals.

All I know is that I envisioned this process happening much quicker and going much more smoothly. We've done the cat integration thing before, but apparently I've forgotten how reluctant they can be to welcome new companions of their own species.

We had a much easier time when we were bringing home new (human) babies every two years back in the 90s and early 2000s. At least back then the kids didn't hiss at their new brothers and sisters.

The deer on my morning walks are not at all impressed by me

I spend so much of my morning walks this time of year worrying about skunks that I sometimes forget about the deer.

Deer are very common where I live (they may be common where you live, too). This is a significant change from my years growing up in a suburban neighborhood with closely packed houses. Back then, deer sightings were real events. I remember deer roaming onto our street maybe three times during the 22 years I lived there.

Now, with the deer population in Northeast Ohio generally rising, and with us living in a somewhat more rural (though still decidedly suburban) area, deer are as common as dogs. Or at least it seems that way.

Being out on the road walking/jogging five mornings a week, I come across the various deer families in our neighborhood quite often, especially in the fall.

I see them in the spring and summer, too, but for whatever reason they seem more prevalent in October and November. On one recent morning I came across four different groups/families during my 2.3-mile jaunt.

Their fur is darker this time of year, and I never knew why until I just looked it up. Apparently the darker coat helps them better absorb the warmth of the sun ("solar gain") during a season when sunlight becomes a decidedly iffy proposition around here.

The males also have antlers now, of course. And while I've never had one act aggressively in any way toward me, I give those spiky-headed bucks a wider berth.

For their part, the deer react to me in one of two ways. They're either skittish and run away at the first sign of me. Or, more commonly, they eye me warily but stand their ground as I pass by.

Some seem genuinely interested in figuring out exactly what I am, but mostly I'm just a momentary distraction. As long as I'm not a threat – and it usually takes them about three seconds to realize I'm not – they don't care about me that much.

Which I suppose is the way of things.

I would happily pet them if they would let me, but they have no real interest in coming closer...even the ones who aren't scared of me.

So I confine my animal petting to our two cats, Ginny and Molly. To their credit, those girls do appreciate me, maybe because I'm the one who provides them fresh food and water every day, as well as being someone who is always willing to give them a scratch behind the ears.

It helps that neither has antlers. The power dynamic in our house would change noticeably if they did.

Recent encounters with wildlife

 

(1) The little guy pictured above was somewhere in the house when our cat Ginny caught him. This was unusual in that, when we’ve had mice a few times over the years, it has always been Charlie who tracked them down. But this time, Ginny was the one credited with the capture. Terry noticed the little fuzz ball hanging out of Ginny’s mouth and called me into the room. Ginny, acting on instinct, was very possessive of her catch and ran away when I tried to take the mouse from her. We eventually got her to drop it and I scooped him up and took him outside, where I presume he is now living more in fear of hawks and owls than house cats.

(2) I see a lot of deer on my early-morning walks, but recently I’ve had multiple encounters with a big old skunk. He hangs out in a wide patch of grass that I pass twice on my usual route. The way he moves suggests he is older, though that probably only means he is 3 or 4, given skunk life spans in the wild. Half the time he doesn’t even notice me, but when he does, he instantly becomes alert and raises his tail. I give him a very, very wide berth, and after a few tense seconds we both go on our way. I like to think we have a wary mutual respect, but I’m sure he knows he’s the one in control of the situation.

(3) Speaking of deer, we get them in our yard all the time, to the point that I usually don’t pay them much mind. But we had a huge buck walk across our property recently and I couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer size of him. I don’t recall any of our local deer population ever getting that big. In my mind, the other deer call him “Moose,” though I suppose “Buck” is just as likely.

I shouldn’t be as impressed by our Roomba vacuum and Braava mop as I am

We recently bought two robots.

Well, actually, what we bought are the Roomba autonomous vacuum and Braava robotic mop made by a company called iRobot. You either have one of these or you’ve at least seen how they work, so unlike me, you’re probably not especially fascinated by them.

But I’m smitten. I know it isn’t exactly cutting-edge technology, but all you have to do is tap a button on your phone and instantly this machine, whose sole purpose in life is to keep your floors clean, springs into action.

That’s a Jetsons-style miracle, as far as I’m concerned, and I’m not sure we as a society appreciate these sorts of things nearly as much as we should.

We of course have named both devices. The Roomba (which has taken on a male persona in our house) is called “Dustin Bieber,” while the Braava (a female, for whatever reason) is “Moptimus Prime.”

I’ll admit to being especially proud of having come up with Moptimus Prime.

I’m surprised by what a good job these things do on our floors. And shoutout to whatever team of engineers designed the algorithms that allow Dustin and Moptimus to map out our first floor and maneuver deftly around almost any obstacle.

Our cats react to the robotic cleaning crew in different ways. Ginny, for example, is extremely interested in both Dustin and Moptimus and tries to sniff them whenever they’re active. Fred, by contrast, is terrified of them. He cannot get far enough away once they start moving around.

My dream is that one of the cats eventually works up the courage to jump onto Dustin or Moptimus and ride it around the house. In the meantime, I’m just going to enjoy our sparkling, space-age-clean floors.

Here's the scouting report on our cats

We have five cats. I grew up with dogs, but I immediately became a cat person when I got married because...well, that's just what happens. One person's pet preferences end up dominating.

Anyway, if I were a scout looking to draft some cats, here's how I think the five in our house would grade out (in descending age order):

NAME: Fred (aka, Fat Fred)

AGE: 13 1/2

ALLY: His brother George (see below)

STRENGTHS: Very loving to a small group of people he likes, chiefly me

WEAKNESSES: Obese, slow-moving, mostly skittish; lacks courage, intelligence, and self-confidence

OUTLOOK: Fred ruled the roost in our house for his first 2 1/2 years here, then Charlie came along. He has been slowly moving down the pecking order ever since. His heft and occasional urinary tract problems do not bode well for a healthy future, though he has lost some weight the last few years and eats special food for the pee problems. Classic beta male.

NAME: George

AGE: 13 1/2

ALLY: His brother Fred

STRENGTHS: Loyal and affectionate

WEAKNESSES: Possible brain defect; that thing under his right eye that never goes away.

OUTLOOK: As Fred goes, so does George. Which means he will live out his years in subordination to the other cats.

NAME: Charlie

AGE: 10

ALLY: None, nor does he need any

STRENGTHS: Dominant personality, purebred Lynx Point Siamese (we're told)

WEAKNESSES: Seldom affectionate, largely aloof; he'll beg for food, but he doesn't need you and he knows it

OUTLOOK: Charlie showed up in our backyard one September evening as a 7-week-old kitten. We have no idea where he came from, especially given the fact that he's such an attractive purebred. Charlie will rule this house every second until he takes his last breath.

NAME: Ginny

AGE: 5 1/2

ALLY: None, though she used to be best friends with the now-deceased Bert. We have encouraged an alliance with Molly, the other female cat, but neither is especially interested.

STRENGTHS: Beautiful tabby cat; very affectionate, though she reserves that affection almost exclusively for the men in the house.

WEAKNESSES: Unidentified anxiety disorder that causes her to pick up socks in her mouth and move them randomly around the house, all while making a strange noise. Repeatedly betrays Terry, the person who loves her most in the world.

OUTLOOK: She spends a lot of time in Jared's room and he spoils her, but once he moves out, well...things may turn grim.

NAME: Molly

AGE: About 3 1/2

ALLY: Occasionally teams with Charlie to wreak havoc, but she mostly annoys him.

STRENGTHS: Wicked front claw game; increasingly affectionate as she realizes the pleasures of having her butt scratched.

WEAKNESSES: Kind of fat and getting bigger (you can't tell in this picture), cannot stand being held, dealing with anger issues.

OUTLOOK: One day in the next decade or so, Molly and Ginny will be the only cats left. She needs to chill out and make friends with her sister if she wants to enjoy her later years.