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Tiger and Other Friends

© Florence Cardinal

Tiger was a Mother's Day gift from my kids. At the time, we lived in a third story walk up apartment. To the east of us was a wooded area, home to foxes and skunks. A block to the north a busy highway ran through town. I didn't dare let him outside lest he get lost, eaten or run over.

I fixed up a litter box for him, and for over a year he never left the apartment. Then my Dad passed away, and we moved, lock, stock and apartment-bound cat, to the small hamlet of Blackfoot, where my mother lived. Tiger didn't seem to mind the move. He slept curled up on a blanket in the back seat of the car for most of the three hour drive. When we arrived and I looked at my mother's spacious yard, and the quiet street that ran past her house, I realized this was a great place for Tiger. At last he could go outside.

I set him on the grass, and he looked around, completely bewildered. After a few minutes, he got up and took a few tentative steps. The grass must have tickled his feet, because, looking very much like a ballet dancer performing her tiny little steps across the stage, he made a beeline for the house, leaped up the steps and across the porch. There he sat, looking very pitiful indeed, meowing at the door for someone to come and rescue him from the great outdoors.

He eventually grew accustomed to being outside, to feeling the grass beneath his feet and the wind in his fur. But that first few weeks must have been a real culture shock!

He was also baffled about bathroom habits. Whenever he felt an urge to go, he'd race to the house and meow at the door until someone let him in. He needed his litter box. Then he discovered dirt.

My mother had a large garden and he found out that the soft dirt made an ideal bathroom. It got even better when fall came and a neighbor plowed it up in preparation for winter. Tiger enjoyed playing there, digging hole after hole, not for toilet purposes, but just for the fun of it!

When winter arrived, however, he suffered another shock. He went outside one morning and walked gingerly across the frost encrusted grass to the garden. There he proceeded to dig his morning hole. What? During the night

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