I am a cat guy.

I know I run the risk of losing some of you by opening with that statement, but it’s the truth. I love dogs, too — Peggy and I have had at least one dog for the past twenty-five years — but I get cats.

One night my brother and I were driving back late at night from a business dinner with a couple of other guys in the car. We were tired so we stopped at a truck stop. After walking around a bit I sat on the curb outside the building, and a big white tomcat came out of nowhere and jumped in my lap. I petted on him until the others came out of the truck stop. When the other two guys saw the stray cat sitting on me, my brother noticed their confused looks. “That’s been happening to him since he was a baby,” he told them.

Today we had to put down the feline matriarch of the family. We got Pepper from the vet’s office when she was a kitten. We had just lost a cat (to coyotes, I think) in San Antonio, and Peggy thought she was too cute to leave with the vet.

From the very beginning we were convinced she was some special breed of cat. She is the most intelligent cat I have ever known, and the vocabulary of words she understands is ridiculous! If you talk she knows she is supposed to answer, so she tries to involve herself in every conversation. And I have never seen a cat that jumps as high as she does. We have nine-foot ceilings in the bedroom — she jumps from the floor to bat the chain on the ceiling fan!

She was never a mother, but she has raised four kittens since we got her. The first two she even “nursed” for a few weeks (she had no milk) before “weaning” them. It was just natural to her. 

Pepper owned me from the very beginning. Every morning when I get up she stands on the bathroom counter, puts her paws on my chest and rubs her head under my chin. She likes to stand on my shoulders and rub her face in my hair, and I can’t shave without her jumping up to sit on my shoulder. If I sit down in the house she gets on me, and she fusses at me every time I make her get up.

At a little over six pounds Pepper is the smallest cat we have ever owned, but she is fiercely protective and does not like strangers. More than one person has told us they were afraid to enter our house when we were not with them because of the “crazy cat”. Once we got a call from Mike’s babysitter, a 180-pound high school athlete, that he was stuck in the laundry room because Pepper wouldn’t let him out.

She has mellowed somewhat with age, but she still has the same reaction to anything that scares her — instead of running away she runs toward it. What a great life lesson from a cat. Attack the things that cause fear instead of running from them.

Pepper turned 18 in April (all of our animals are rescues, so we celebrate all of their birthdays on April 15. It gives us a reason to celebrate the day). Up until the last few months she had been her usual active, spry self. It became apparent lately, however, that she was suffering and in pain. When the doctor told us today there was nothing he could do to alleviate the issue or her pain, we made the decision. She is the sixth pet for whom we have endured this, and it never gets any easier.

I will miss her tomorrow morning when I get up and she is not on the bathroom counter to greet me. It is amazing to be loved like that.

Rest well, Pepper.