A tale of two cats and one dog

"No," said the cat. "Now, you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names."

- Coraline, Neil Gaiman

I was looking through the pics in my fone when I noticed I had some pics of cats and dogs. I planned to blog about them, but things (like work) got in the way. So here we go, before I forget.

This is a tale of two cats and one dog.

Mokey
If Ma'am Tin has Kikay and Ma'am Iyra has Oprah, I have Mokey. Mokey's a Lhasa Apso, a breed of jumpy, feisty and quick Tibetan Mountain Dogs. Think of them as Shih Tzus with less overbite and paws as large as those of German Shepherds. Their fur usually reaches the ground but we cut them short during summers so they'll be comfortable.

Mokey's real name is Mokong. Why Mokong? We've been breeding dogs for some time now. When the family started Utopia Kennels, we decided to follow the alphabetical naming of annual litters. Each dog has an official name on paper as well as a nickname for easy calling. So we went through the whole gamut of greek heroes, gods and goddesses (Achilles, Agamemnon, Io, Hera, etc), classical music composers (Beethoven Bach, Mozart, etc.), and historical European / Russian names (Trotsky, Tolstoy, etc.). When Mokey was born, we named him after Janno Gibbs' character in the GMA7 sitcom "Si Manoy at Si Mokong". So his littermates were named Manoy (Eddie Garcia's character) and Mimi (Rufa Mae Quinto's character).

Mokey's part of the 13th litter, but that's far from the last one. Our last litter, the 17th, had "Q" for names (hence Quasimodo, Quentin, Quixo, guess who they were named after?). All that said, Mokey's our last dog. He has outlived his siblings and great-great-great(?) grandchildren. He's now 11-12 years old, that's about 75 in human years.

He has started to lose his hearing and eyesight, quite common with the breed. When I arrive from school or work, it used to only take him 2 seconds to bound from the garden and into my lap. Guess what, now it takes him a whole minute. Getting him into the garden from the garage is a loooooong ordeal every morning so we could back out the car. He used to be able to jump till my chest when he was young. After a couple of years that height lowered to my waist, then my knee. Then a year ago he could only manage to lift his paws and push on my calves. Now all he could do is rest his head on my shoe, no more jumping. He still likes it when I hold his chest or belly (Hi Iya and Eli) and hoist him a few inches off the ground.

Damn alpha-male dog (yup, he held that title despite the arrival of younger males who have come and gone). He still doesn't hold still for photographs.

Adopt-a-Kitty
Last weekend I awoke to sounds of mew-ing (not meowing) near my bedroom window. My mom and my nephew Enzo said there's a kitten inside our front lawn. He just crossed the street and decided to make a cozy resting place in our flower box. Mom told me to get rid of him, us/we being a dog-family and all. Yep, at the height of our kennel we had about 17 to 19 dogs and pups yelping and yapping their way to their dog dishes. Not much till you find out our neighbor Tita Edith had 21 pusakals (mongrel cats) freely sashaying about in their garage. Talk about sleepess nights with all the meowing and barking.

Any way, I have a soft spot for furry creatures so I just let the green-eyed kitten be. After a while he found his way out and stationed himself on a rock in the outer garden. I gave him a small cupcake. Dunno where he is now. You know what they say about cats, they adopt you, you don't adopt them.

UP-usakal
I came across this kitten just yesterday. But the circumstances were rather frightening.

As I was on my way to Diliman after dropping my mom off at Mendiola, I slowed down as the stoplight turned red at the V. Mapa / SM Centerpoint / Lumanog guitars area in Manila. Only a few cars in this batch of traffic. To my horror, as the truck in front of me pulled away to beat the red light, there was a kitten making his way across the road!

I've seen this happen a couple of times and I've tried to do the same thing a few times over. Many years ago, I saw a full grown cat in the middle of a two-way road (yellow line with the reflectors) curled tightly into a ball and meowing loudly. He was stranded. I stopped the car, even if it meant me being late for class. I got out and picked up the weakened cat and put it down in front of the nearest house. Oddly enough, the cat tried to stand up. Problem was he was wobbly and walked as if he were drunk. I assumed he was dizzied from all the cars which passed around and over him.

I though of that previous encounter when I saw this kitten. As the truck passed over him I saw how wobbly his legs were. Heck, I would think that what this kitten went through was the equivalent of an Airbus A318 passing just 6 feet above your head. I turned on my hazzard lights, stopped the car and stepped out to retrieve him. He had wobbly darted under the car and curled up just under the license plate. He didn't scratch or fight as I picked him up.

It was then and there that I realized that there were no residential houses nearby where he could have come from. I just guessed that he was deliberately left in unknown territory to fend for himself. He was muddy but he didn't have any mange nor any wounds. I placed him on the mat of the passenger seat. He quickly found his way under the cushions, meowed a couple of times, then fell asleep.

I brought him to UP. I gently woke him up and released him in the parking lot. He took shelter under the familiar license plate of the car. Of course the parking lot alpha-male Pusakal immediately sized him up and pawed at him a bit. But I guess he'll do okay.

Sure he'll be traumatized by the new surroundings. Sure there'll be nights when he'll be cold and hungry. Sure he'll be in fights, he may even lose one of his blue eyes like some of the UP cats I see. But, at least, he now has a fighting chance. I didn't want to see him end up as roadkill. So, if you do see him during one of your visits to the kiosks at the mountaineers' side of the UP Main Lib, do toss some food his way.