Blog Post: How Henry Got Her Name - Conclusion

This continues from Part II of "How Henry Got Her Name."

One warm Sunday afternoon I was sitting here in my basement writing, when I heard a great ruckus above my head.

"No! Henry! No! No!" It was Sharon's voice, accompanied by some kind of scuffle. I ran upstairs and into our bed room. There crouched Henry, hunched over a mourning dove. Its neck had been neatly snapped. Blood covered the poor thing, and was seeping into the rug.

Sharon and I stood there in a state of shock. I can't imagine why. What did we expect? This cat had been living in the feral jungle for months prior to its adopting us as its "owners." It had regularly deposited half masticated rats on our back yard stairs. Just about every day we'd witnessed it lurking in the grass staring lustily at finches, doves, jay birds, and starlings. This corpse should have come as no surprise.

But of course it did. We had gotten used to Henry as a nuzzling, purring, affectionate accompaniment to our lives, not Jack the Ripper. Here, however, was Jack, grimly and obstinately pawing over her prey, wondering what possible objection Sharon or I could have to this dead bird oozing its guts into the floor of our sleeping quarters.

I have to give credit to the cat. Some felines will play with and torture a bird or rodent for hours before bumping it off. Not Henry; she broke its neck as soon as she got her claws on the critter. That dove was meant for eating.

And so you can imagine the stiff, groaning indignation that accompanied Sharon's firmly picking Henry up and taking her out of the room, while I put the dove in plastic wrap and gingerly deposited its corpse in the garbage.

We spent the rest of the afternoon emotionally torturing ourselves in various ways. We looked out the window at the surviving mourning doves, which gravitated around our back yard to eat from the bird feeders we hung from various tree branches. There they nested as before. Which One Was Next, we wondered? It was Our Fault, we concluded. We speculated about which dove had been the partner of Henry's prey, and now wandered about in a traumatized state of widowhood. In short, we did everything we possibly could to construct the Disney version of this incident.

Meanwhile, Henry sat in a corner of the house for the rest of the day, no doubt wondering what lapse in judgment had caused her to cohabitate with traitors like ourselves. She gave us various looks that I translated into "Do I Know You?"

But by the late evening All Was Forgiven, especially after we put an extra dollop of wet canned food in her dinner dish.

That's about all I have to write about Henry, which I think has been plenty. I could tell you about how the first time we took her to the veterinarian, she managed to eat through the cat carrying box we'd purchased (I guess I just did). I could tell you about what I said to the vet when she told me that Henry will need expensive periodontal surgery soon (So will I, I replied, and predicted that I'll get mine first).

Obviously there are far more important things to read about besides our cat: the Middle East, Britney Spears' paternity suits, what Vladimir Putin really wants, what kind of cell phone you should buy next year, and who could knock you unconscious faster: Michelle Obama or Cindy McCain.

But cats should have their literary moment as well. They deserve some words, and thus I have given our cat Henry some. Although I cannot match the eloquence that former Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson composed upon vetoing Senate Bill No. 93, an ill-considered 1949 law that would have allowed the trapping of stray cats:

"I cannot agree that it should be the declared public policy of Illinois that a cat visiting a neighbor's yard or crossing the highway is a public nuisance," Stevenson wisely wrote.

"It is in the nature of cats to do a certain amount of unescorted roaming. Many live with their owners in apartments or other restricted premises, and I doubt if we want to make their every brief foray an opportunity for a small game hunt by zealous citizens—with traps or otherwise. I am afraid this Bill could only create discord, recrimination and enmity. Also consider the owner's dilemma: To escort a cat abroad on a leash is against the nature of the cat, and to permit it to venture forth for exercise unattended into a night of new dangers is against the nature of the owner. Moreover, cats perform useful service, particularly in rural areas, in combating rodents—work they necessarily perform alone and without regard for property lines.

We are all interested in protecting certain varieties of birds. That cats destroy some birds, I well know, but I believe this legislation would further but little the worthy cause to with its proponents give such unselfish effort. The problem of cat versus bird is as old as time. If we attempt to resolve it by legislation why knows but what we may be called upon to take sides as well in the age old problems of dog versus cat, bird versus bird, or even bird versus worm. In my opinion, the State of Illinois and its local governing bodies already have enough to do without trying to control feline delinquency.

For these reasons, and not because I love birds the less or cats the more, I veto and withhold my approval from Senate Bill No. 93."