Last night, dear kitty wanted desperately to look out the bedroom window. The blinds were closed, but there was something out there she just had to see. So I turned out the lights, pulled the blinds up just a bit, and together we peered into the darkness. With her night vision, dear kitty saw them before I did, her eyes reflecting in the window: foxes roaming the yards in the cul de sac beneath the glowing streetlights, the moon not yet risen. It looked like four foxes, though there could have been just two, one with a white-tipped puffy tail, the other with a long snout and curled tail, more dog-like than fox. They sniffed under the junipers, poked through the wood pile, and investigated the low rock wall in my yard. Finding no tasty morsels there, they wandered off, noses to the ground, avoiding being illuminated by the headlights of an approaching car. Soon after they left, dear kitty lost interest and curled up on the bed.
How did dear kitty know they were there? Could she smell them through the plaster and wood of the sturdy house? Did she hear them silently sniffing for food, their small paws crunching on the pine needles and dried leaves? And why did their presence matter to her, a small house cat who goes outside only when supervised, and only during the day? Perhaps her wildness is not yet bred out completely. Perhaps her homeless days still hold a place somewhere in her tiny mind. Or perhaps she just wants to know about the world outside her home, even if she never ventures far from it.
