Fun fact: Only female calico cats are fertile; males are few and they are usually sterile.
“You want out again, Marmalade? You were just out. What, not the back door, you want out the front?” I was very surprised that our beautiful, long-haired, ten-year-old calico cat wanted out again.
Several days later, I realized that almost every day she had been asking to be let out at 1:00 p.m. and always wanted the front door instead of the back door she normally used to go to the yard. As a busy housewife and mother, I hadn’t been paying much attention, but I realized this had been going on for a while, and I had no idea why. Therefore, the next time it happened, I watched out the front room window to see what Marmalade was doing at one o’clock every day.
“Marm” meandered down the front stairs and out to the city sidewalk — then just sat there. About three minutes later, she flopped down and rolled over so her belly was showing.
“This is weird,” I thought. “She never does that unless she wants to be petted — but there is no one there.” I looked up the street — no one; I looked down the street — no one. Wait — on the sidewalk just crossing a block down from our house was a group of about fifteen young adults from the nearby group home for young adults with Down’s syndrome. They were out for a walk with their chaperone.
As they approached, I could hear, “There’s the kitty; there’s the kitty,” coming from multiple mouths. When they were close enough to touch Marm, she lay quietly while each person took a turn petting her. This took quite a while, and obviously these teens were very comfortable petting her and talking to her. When everyone, including the chaperone, had given Marm a petting and a belly rub, she turned over, stood up and gave herself a shake, then meandered back up the sidewalk to the front door where I heard her scratching to be let in. As I opened the door, I watched the group continue on their walk down the street.
It had been a breathtaking experience to see.
The next day, at the same time, I watched it happen again.
After a few more days of this, I needed to find out how long this had been going on, so I went out just as the last few were giving Marm the required petting, and asked the chaperone.
What I was told was both interesting and humbling. Our wonderful cat had been doing this every weekday for months, and these young adults thought it was the highlight of the walk to be able to have a chance to pet her.
How she had come to understand that these young people would enjoy petting her and could trust them, only God knows.
Marmalade had the most loving and caring personality I have ever seen in a cat. She would cuddle any of the family when they felt sad, and she would lick away the tears and purr in their ears until she had made them feel better. To see that she extended that love to others was incredible.
~Shirley K. Stevenson
