A gift for Potvin, Part 2

Last week's article explained my family tradition of pets giving and receiving gifts, and how I found a handsome tabby cat in a pet store.

He was three years old. I peered at the scrawled tag on his cage. It seemed to say, "POTVIA," which sounded like a small, wartorn country in Eastern Europe.

"Potvia?" I inquired.

"It's Potvin," the clerk replied.

I still puzzled over the name for a moment before I remembered the Canadian hockey star, Felix Potvin. Then it made sense. It turned out that Potvin had belonged to a 10-year-old boy whose mother got evicted from her apartment. For several days the cat was locked in with the other belongings, before the upset landlord called a lady at the Humane Society, who prevailed upon the police to briefly open the door. They dragged a terrified kitty from under the bed. The little boy had gone to live with his father and was not allowed to bring Potvin.

Though not a hockey fan, I was pleased with the serendipitous resemblance to my own name. So Potvin he remained. My duaghters, for whom he was a Christmas gift, quickly created the nickname Pitty-Pat.

I have never known a more easy-going or well-mannered kitty. Of course he was terrified at first, but from the moment he ventured from beneath the bed, he has been virtually inseparable from me. No matter how long I sit in one place, he will stay within arm's reach and occasionally beg for attention. I have allergies, so Potvin has learned he is only allowed on the bed if he stays at the very bottom corner. That is where he spends his nights.

Despite his calm personality, he is a vocal animal. He talks when I get up in the morning. He talks when he's hungry. He talks when there's food in his bowl but he wants me to go look anyway. He talks when he wants attention, which is all the time that he isn't sleeping. He talks when I come home. When I'm going out, he falls silent and stares at me with his clear green eyes.

He doesn't talk at night, because he knows he's liable to get tossed in the shower, a harmless but absolutely effective punishment for cats.

Although he hates traveling from place to place, he loves our summer vacations at the cottage, and there his personality changes. All day long he sleeps beneath the bed. But in the evening when the children and my parents' dog have gone to bed, Potvin will emerge. The cottage provides a long, almost straight gallery like a runway, from the kitchen through the dining room to the large living room. He abandons his usual couch potato demeanour and lopes repeatedly from one end to the other, playing some enigmatic game. When he tires of that, he bats endlessly at moths flying against the screen door.

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