Fun fact: Ancient sailors thought it brought on trouble to say a cat’s name, even though cats were welcomed on board to keep rodents under control.
My first mistake was probably in naming him after Dylan Thomas. My orange cat, named after the poet who had authored “Do Not Go Gentle into That Dark Night,” took the message of that poem just a little too seriously. As my friend so perfectly put it: “That cat isn’t going anywhere gently.”
To be fair, I couldn’t have known what was coming. When I first met Dylan, he was cowering in the back of a cage at the local animal shelter. His name at the time was Armand. A friend had seen his ad in the paper and, knowing that I was looking for a cat and was partial to orange kitties, had suggested I go see him. He wasn’t exactly what I was looking for — I’d wanted a young kitten, preferably a female. Dylan was almost two years old, male, and afraid of everything. His ad had stated that he would need some “time to warm up” in his new home.
Meeting him at the shelter, though, I was warned that he would need quite a bit of time to be left alone to explore his new home on his own terms. His previous owners had abandoned him, simply putting him outside in December in New England and then moving away. A neighbor had seen him and kept him on his porch for a week before bringing him to the shelter.
There wasn’t an open room for me to visit with him at the shelter, and this grand orange cat curled himself into the far corner of his cage, watching me. From another cage, a calico threw herself against the bars, trying to get me to pat her. She purred relentlessly, walking back and forth against my hand and her cage door so much that she built up static electricity and began to shock herself. Still, she purred and reached her paws out, literally grabbing for my attention. Dylan curled himself away from me and went to sleep.
I brought Dylan home. It took the shelter employees an unsettling amount of time to get him into the cat carrier, and by the time they brought him out to me, I was a bundle of nervous energy, wondering if I was making the right move. Dylan yowled for the first ten minutes of the drive, but then pressed himself in the back of the carrier and remained silent.
Once we were home, I let him out, and he quickly investigated my Netherland Dwarf rabbit. I got my first good look at Dylan as he raced for the safety of my bed; I hadn’t been able to fully see into the cage at the shelter. He was impressively big and had beautiful orange stripes down his legs. The tip of his tail was white. Once he disappeared under my bed, I assumed I wouldn’t see him for days, as I’d been warned.
That night, I woke up to Dylan climbing on me as I lay in bed. I didn’t touch him or even dare to move; I just let him explore my bed in the safety of the darkness. I was elated that he was feeling confident enough to venture out already.
And that was when the adventure started. Not only was Dylan confident enough to roam throughout my apartment, he assumed that everything in it was his.
Within a few days, he had shredded entire rolls of toilet paper while I slept. He punctured a tube of toothpaste and a bottle of spray-in hair conditioner with his teeth. He carried a plush dog, larger than his head, throughout the apartment, frequently bringing it up to my bed. He stole rolls of paper towels and decorated the kitchen in confetti. In less than thirty seconds, he chewed a hole in a brand-new bag of cat litter. He stole a tray of a dozen cupcakes that I had purchased from the store and chewed through the bottoms. He chewed off the corners of my unopened mail, tore pages out of my notebooks, and dog-eared (or should it be cat-eared?) the corners of too many paperbacks. He climbed up onto the back of the toilet tank, picked up the full box of tissues with his mouth, and dragged it into the living room where he proceeded to pull out the tissues and shred them. (He’s done this multiple times, along with his toilet-paper and paper-towel tricks.)
In one of his more stellar stunts, Dylan bit into a glass Christmas tree light before carrying it around the apartment in his mouth. His vet almost didn’t believe me when I called after that incident.
And that’s not to say that he was neglected — far from it. I began investing in every type of cat toy on the market. Dylan had piles of toys that he loved — he just thought my things were more fun.
In less than six months, my exasperated status updates on Facebook prompted a friend to suggest that maybe Dylan was lonely. I had to admit that she was probably right. Dylan came dashing into the room any time I played a YouTube video with cats in it; he would search for the cats, talking to them all the while.
And so, questioning my sanity, I went back to the shelter and adopted another cat, a young female calico. Dylan was determined they would be instant friends, though the female, whom I named Cara didn’t agree at first.
In time, Cara came around, and Dylan had his buddy. His destructive behavior stopped almost immediately, though I still have to guard my toilet paper and paper towels. Now I’m lucky to watch these two play games of tag throughout my apartment. Having two cats wasn’t in my plan, but I’m learning that life often takes turns that you never see coming. Now these two are my buddies, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.
Dylan still has a few tricks up his sleeve — he opens my kitchen cabinets every night, and carries the rubber stopper from the bathroom sink throughout the house. He recently ate half a paper towel that he got out of the covered trash, prompting an unusual call to the vet. But for the most part, he’s settled, content to play with Cara. I still keep the toilet paper stored up high, though — with him, you just never know.
~Paige Cerulli
