What do you love about your cat?
We fostered her. She was a stereotypical orange cat. I had heard about the phrase One brain cell is shared among them all, but she seemed to have survival instincts. We adopted her and her sister Stevie. They were found in downtown Spokane and eventually ended up at SpokAnimal, and you adopted them from there.
Grits is adaptable, she always goes 100%. She was down for anything and loved hard. She’d jump in bed and cuddle, then like the flip of a coin she’d start playing hard; jumping and climbing. She was all out for whatever she did.
She was part of the group; our family. I have 3 kids and she was just part of the action. It’s part of the reason we adopted them; they were up for everything. She was a joiner. We’d have all 5 of us in the bathroom, brushing our teeth with Grits.
Who made the lost cat poster?
I did. I thought the most likely circumstance at the time was that she was locked in a shed, and I was hoping the neighbors would keep an eye out. All the neighbors liked her; she was friendly and not super skittish. Grits is agile and tiny and would roam around more than our other cat.
I put up Neon posters, maybe 6-8 to catch the attention of drivers, and then for walkers I had the cat poster without the neon poster board. I wrote on the top help find.
Why did you name your cat Grits?
Grits goes by many names. At first her name was Roz because Roz is the name of the robot that survives the wild in the movie The Wild Robot. He gets dropped in a natural environment, develops skills, and survives. I think Grits is still very much a survivor and adaptable. Grits reminded me of Roz. They both thrive.
I’m big on literary references for cats. We named Grits’ sister Stevie because Stevie has arm sleeves, like arm tattoos. We used to have three cats named Lion, Tiger, and Bear.
Things just evolved with names for Grits. She was called Dolly because I thought I wanted to name the cats after flowers, and my favorite flower is a Dahlia. My husband is Southern and so Grits just fit her. She would come with her ears back running to the door when called. She came to all her names; Dolly, Roz, and Grits.
What has your cat taught you that has surprised you?
I never thought it was possible that a cat would leave their home willingly and not come home, and now I think it’s possible and the most likely of the options for what might have happened to her. She was last seen 1.5 hours before we discovered she wasn’t in the house that evening. If a racoon came, she could have run away. We have had raccoons in the back yard, we have chickens.
I’ve always been careful to avoid applying human emotions to animals, and I recognize people and cats don’t have the same experiences. I don’t think that’s fair to do to cats because we have no idea what their worldview is like. It’s the concept of choice for me; what’s going on in a cat’s mind, do they have more choice than I thought and can they make different decisions?
I know cats know what loyalty is, but maybe not in the way I would define it. Grits missing has made me think about what it’s like for a cat. It broadened my scope of what cats really go through, and I’ve been practicing empathy with that.
Did you ever find Grits?
No.
What happened?
It was a Saturday. We had come back from spring break the week before, and she had been cooped up in the house because of that. It was singer-song night at The Grain Shed, the first one actually, so my husband was gone, plus he came home much later than anticipated.
At 5:45pm my daughter said she saw Grits in the front yard. We had dinner and hung out, and the kids went back outside. I was snuggling with my littlest one on the couch and I thought both cats were inside.
I realized at around 7pm that she wasn’t inside and I went to look for her. I couldn’t find her and stayed out till 9pm looking. You couldn’t contain Grits, she was constantly getting outside. I was going around the neighborhood with her food bag shaking it and calling for her. It got dark about 8pm so I had about 45 minutes of light while I was looking. Grits has run away from us at night before. We kept her and her sister inside at night.
I don’t know if this is true, but we laid out all the options of what we thought could have happened to her. Did she just decide not to come home? Did she decide to live the street life? My husband said what if the crazy cat lady down the street saw her and thought, “this is great!” My dad was like “No way that happened.”
I think she chose not to come in that first night. I can’t tell if she’s alive now. I like thinking of it like that compared to the alternatives. I like that idea most out of all possibilities.
Does your cat have relationships with other animals?
Yes, her sister Stevie. They loved each other, although Grits liked Stevie more than Stevie liked Grits. Stevie hasn’t seemed devastated that she’s been gone. Grits also taunted the indoor cats next door. They would sit at the window looking out, and Grits would jump up on the fence and walk past them and show them she was free. She would also roll on her back on the grass in front of their windows.
Does your cat have any special abilities and/or psychic powers?
Grits is a very intuitive cat. If my daughter was having a hard day she would cuddle with her. She was aware when people were off or when they were sick. She would try and bring joy; she was good at that. She was consistent and intuitive about feelings.
Stevie is almost shut off emotionally in contrast. Grits made the rounds each night in our house, and everyone would get a turn to sleep with her.
She was also a mouser. I would say that’s a special skill. A true mouser not only catches mice but kills the mouse as well. Some cats just catch and not kill. She was a little cat and she would take down giant mice. She was persistent. She’d spend 2 hours digging for a hunt. She was a worker.
Was your cat indoor/outdoor?
Both, and we always put her in at night. We had adopted these two cats in Chicago when we lived in this apartment in Logan Square. They were city cats; they had never been outside. Then we moved to Spokane in 2012 to a farmhouse on the south hill. They went from indoor cats to this giant yard and a house, and it was the first time we let cats outside. It was winter at the time and there was snow and they were so excited and pumped to be outside.
Grits was a different circumstance. We fostered her and her sister in the shed. They always wanted to be outside cats, and I thought about my approach when we got them. I’m risk aware and not comfortable having fully outdoor cats. I read an article in the NY times about constraining a cat’s nature to make them indoor cats, the psychology of that. I’ve thought about that for a long time; the idea of being super protective as a cat owner. Is it fair to keep them inside? Is that going against their nature when they just want to chase butterflies outside?
How would you describe your cat’s personality?
Enthusiastic, all in, really supportive and intuitive, and a spaz. She’s unpredictable, quirky, fiercely loyal, and she didn’t have a concept of her tiny size. It didn’t faze her. She would walk around trotting the border of our property with her tail in the air.
Why did you decide to talk to me?
Because you’re my neighbor and you were helpful and kind when Grits was missing. It’s also nice to talk about it, it feels good to talk about what happened in a constructive space. I haven’t cancelled her pet insurance yet, I think maybe she’ll still show up. I can’t bring myself to do it yet.
Does your cat remind you of any people in your life?
No, Grits was a different cat. I’d never had a cat like her. I had a lot of cats growing up. I had like 20 cats in my youth, so I had lots of experience with losing a cat, and I grew up with cats going in and out of my life. Grits was unlike any of them. She had a neurotic, unique cat energy.
What is something to know about your neighborhood?
Our neighborhood is close knit, and we are made up of a lot of different people. There are a lot of creatives, there’s a variety of people and it’s an accepting place because of that.
We don’t have alleys in this neighborhood, and I think people are closer because of that. I read this article about how neighborhood closeness can be measured by where you park. If you park in parking garages or garages at the back of your house, you don’t see your neighbors as much. A lot of people park on the street here. We look out for each other. We always see neighbors out on the street and coming and going. It’s generally a pretty safe place.
What kinds of things do you notice about your cat?
I noticed many things about Grits. She had a true joy of life, she was very curious. My worst cat fear is losing a cat in the dryer; it happened to my mom’s friend’s cat. When she first went missing, I thought that was what might have happened. My husband checked because I thought initially she was locked in somewhere.
She had gotten locked in the unfinished laundry part of our basement when we had guests staying. They had accidentally locked her in there when they were staying in the finished part. My friend who stayed had got up and went to run the sheets through the washer the next day, and when she went to the washing machine there was poop in there.
Girts had been locked in the laundry room and used the washer like a litter box. She even peed in there. Can you imagine her balancing over the washer like that? She had watched me wash clothes and knew this was where I put the dirty things, so she acted accordingly. I mean, some cats get trained to use toilets. She was not your stereotypical cat.
Describe your cat with four words:
Persistent (this includes a stubbornness she had), intuitive, loyal, tenacious.