Lassie

Like most cats, Scratchy looked down on dogs. Some he accepted (i.e. our family dog, Mandy), others he tolerated (i.e. the farm dog, Lucky, and Kyle's dog of the same name). But never, under any circumstances, should you ever treat him like a dog. He would not come (unless food was involved), he would not go where you wanted him to on a leash, he didn't do tricks.

It was strange, then, that he did do a few dog things. As mentioned before, he liked to play fetch with his rabbit's foot ... but I guess he allowed the exception since he would only fetch with that one toy. Cats have standards, after all.

Weirder still, though, was the first time he trotted up to me, meowed, and started trotting away from me. I stood there, watching him. He stopped, looked over his shoulder at me, and meowed again. After a few repetitions of this, I got it: "Follow me, you idiot!"

I think my best friend Susan scored one for the humans when she first saw him do this little act. "Lassie, what is it, boy? Did Grandpa fall in the well again?" It made me feel a little less like Scratchy's servant (or as I like to think of myself, Opposable Thumbs with Legs).

Oh - what did the furball want? Usually he'd lead us to a sink, where we were to carefully open the tap to the smallest stream of water possible so that he could get some fresh water. If he was feeling particularly ambitius, however, he'd take us to the fridge, where he'd tell us that what we really wanted to do right now was eat yogurt. And we also wanted to share it with him. I'm thankful that, thanks to my cat, I was one of the few teenage girls not threatened by calcium deficiency.