Caterwauling

By Gordon Hopkins Dogs bark. They bark at people. They bark at other dogs. They bark at cats and squirrels and chickens and the TV. They bark at doorbells. Some especially dopey dogs bark at the furniture.Dogs bark. Cats meow.Some folks think the meow is just the cat's version of barking, but it isn't really the same thing. A cat meows to get attention or to ask for something. While kittens meow at their mommies, adult cats generally don't meow at other cats. They usually only meow at people.Archie and Groucho are not especially vocal cats. Well, Archie can be. The few times I have shoved him into a cat carrier and put him into the back seat of my car, he certainly wasn't quiet. He yowled all the way to the vet's office. Only, the noise he made wasn't really a meow. In fact, it didn't sound like a cat at all. It sounded more like the tormented wailings of a thousand damned (and very, very hard-of-hearing) souls.As I said before, cats generally meow because they want something. I would like to think Archie and Groucho don't meow because the ywant for nothing. Truthfully, I think it's more likely that, because I got them at a pretty young age, they just never learned this behavior from other cats.Harper, the new guy, is a different matter. I've had him for a smidge over six months now. He meows all the time. Again, cats meow because they want something. I know what Harper wants. Harper wants food.All. The. Time.Every morning, when I wake up, Harper meows at me for his breakfast. Every evening, when I get home from work, Harper meows at me for his dinner. Unfortunately, because I feed him as soon as I walk in the door, Harper has decided that means every time I walk through the door, he is going to get fed. I take out the garbage or step outside to get the mail and, once back in the house, Harper is meowing.A couple weeks ago, as I am waking up from a very sweaty sleep (which is what happens when you sleep with/under three cats), I hear the early morning meowing. I mumble, “ Okay, okay. I hear you. Let me get out of bed.”That's when I realize it wasn't Harper meowing. It was Groucho. He'd never done that before. He rarely meows and has never meowed at me to feed him.This morning, I woke up once again to the sound of a hungry cat meowing. Only, this time, it was Archie, who also has never done that before.I can only conclude that Harper is a bad influence on my other cats.

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