This is Willis. He’s our neighbor’s cat, and he thinks he’s a dog. He lives with several other cats and two labrador retrievers. When our neighbor takes the dogs for a walk, Willis trails behind on the sidewalk like a little puppy. It’s an amusing sight.
Our neighbors tell me Willis isn’t all that keen on people, but we’re buddies. It’s amazing that he tolerates me because my greeting usually consists of a scream, a yelp or a gasp. It’s not my fault. He’s always sneaking up on me.
Sometimes while taking close-up photographs of flowers, cat eyes appear in my viewfinder. Other times I’m scanning the trees for interesting birds when I suddenly feel something rubbing across my legs. My favorite incident occurred last summer. I was crouched on my heels in a raised bed preparing a hole for a new daylily. As I was reaching into the hole with my trowel, I felt something run across my foot. I barely had time to shriek before Willis whizzed by in hot pursuit. He was chasing a shrew.
Willis doesn’t mind my panicked greetings because I know just where to scratch:
I even know how to elicit the giant yawn:
