Boo-Boo Tail Goes Swimming!

Boo-Boo Tail and Starry usually stroll together, in typical military cat formation, to survey and watch over their carefully guarded territory around the house and the neighborhood. The patrols, like clockwork, begin right after sundown, again around 3:30 in the morning, and once more at after breakfast, usually around 10. They patrol for three reasons (from what they have explained to me, anyhow). The primary mission is to hunt for prey, the secondary mission is to defend the territory against militant infiltrators (other cats or dogs), and the tertiary mission is to ‘mend the fences’ by urinating in strategic locations to create a clear and present demarcation of their domain. If we hadn’t removed their testicles, there would have been a fourth mission which would have had something to do with courting females.

While you probably wouldn’t notice him, as he has a remarkable ability to blend into the South Florida fauna, Mean-Pea is their “wing man”. He walks softly and very stealthily out of sight about 15 yards to the side and another 10 yards behind the two other cats. Boo-Boo and Mean-Pea either walk either side-by-side or, often, Starry will stroll behind Boo-Boo who always has point. While Boo-Boo is clearly the Pride leader, it’s Mean-Pea that you wouldn’t want to be surprised by.

I think Starry’s job is to “carry the flag”. Since he’s so big, he’s the obvious “muscle” of the patrol; the overwhelmingly and very intimidating military might of the operation. The best way to visualize this is to imagine whiskers on the face of the SWAT officer in the infamous picture of the seizure of Elian in Little Havana by the feds when Janet Reno was the US Attorney General.

The cat’s world, which we would call a “suburban South Florida neighborhood” is experienced by them in a fashion that is little different than that of their cousins in the wilds, whether that be in the savannas of Africa, the hammocks and Cypress forests of the Everglades, the jungles of Asia, India and South America or the mountains of the American West. From their perspective, it is a lush and wild world, seen in acute focus and interpretation, yielding adventure, danger, opportunity and freedom. Their land is rich with wildlife, ranging from reptiles and rodents to birds and small mammals. There is a lake in their domain (a great ambush location), and the sky overhead is blue and warm and there are trees and bushes to climb, stalk from or just nap in.

It is also a land that has abundant riches for them. Since there is a conveniently accessible and nearby human settlement (our home) they also enjoy the benefits of an ‘alliance’ with us humans, who provide a predictable, but dreary, supply of food, comfy furniture, personal grooming and medical services and catnip. When they are truly exhausted from their adventures, it’s not an uncommon sight to see them (and the 3 other cats that share the same human encampment), sound asleep on a big king-sized bed with a thick and cozy comforter, in the master bedroom, overlooking the lake. Starry has his own, personal pillow, I might add, which he kneads with a rich and deep (and for Alice, a sleep-inducing) rumbling purr.

And so it was, on a particularly refreshing tropical late fall evening, around 10:00 PM in fact, I saw Boo-Boo Tail, Starry-Cat and Mean-Pea patrolling by yet another body of water – the backyard swimming pool. They swiped their ID cards against the patio door (ok, they actually walked through the ‘pet’ opening on the patio screen door), and proceeded along their way, without stopping by to say hello, as, after all, they were on duty. Not long, after passing my way, Boo-Boo began lowering his tail, a silent, but ritual signal to Starry and Mean-Pea to slow down, stop, stare and unsheathe their claws.

As his pupils widened to full night-vision, if not infrared focus, Boo-Boo also cocked his ears to focus all audio input to his central nervous system. His sensors had detected prey. He didn’t know exactly where it was, yet, but he knew where it wasn’t. He had immediately recognized the single, brief and humanly imperceptible sound that had caused him to freeze. His ability to interpret sound and motion was the result of eons of predator evolution. He knew that game was very near – and silently hiding from him. Meanwhile, Starry and Mean-Pea were calculating the prey’s possible escape routes, the probable trap zone and predicting the location of a kill zone.

To Boo-Boo’s left was the wall of the house, and alongside of the wall were various objects of human invention, such as pots, boxes and pool cleaning equipment. To his right, there was a small patch of plants and then the clear and cool waters of the swimming pool, illuminated from below by a submersed light. Ahead of him was the other patio screen door, and all around, the screened-in enclosure and garden of the patio. Starry was alongside and Mean-Pea was on the other side of the pool, slightly ahead.

As Boo-Boo and Starry stayed motionless and scanned the boxes to their left and the plants to the right, Mean-Pea silently, and without a single sound made, crept behind the plants along the pool and against the screen and ended-up facing Boo-Boo and Starry. He crouched, slightly. If anything tried to run away from Boo-Boo and Starry, it would have to deal with Mean-Pea. The distance between Mean-Pea and the other two cats was about 15 feet of flat, open, patio brick flooring. While Boo-Boo remained perfectly motionless, Starry silently sidestepped another foot to his left in a slow and elegant crouching position with his head pivoting perfectly, never once removing focus from the plants to his right. Absolutely no sounds or vibrations were made by any of the cats.

Boo-Boo’s reading of the situation caused him to focus his attention onto the plants to his right and ahead. It was here, he knew, an animal hid. As he drew in the evening air, he could just detect the faintest odor of a rodent, and, as he further synthesized the sound he had heard along with the information from the impossibly imperceptible smell, he decided that this was not a mouse. Oh no, this was no mouse, he was sure. It all added up to being a rat, and probably a very large one at that. And, now, without a doubt, but unseen, it was in the plants and just a few feet in front and to the right of him.

Mean-Pea, crouching and moving very slowly, approached closer and then stopped about 6 feet from the plants. Starry took another two steps left, as Boo-Boo’s tail started to twitch and his powerful muscles, honed by years of climbing patio screens and trees, began to tense up, ready to spring. The rat sensed danger, and in fact, could actually see Boo-Boo slightly from behind the leaves of the plants, but it had no idea that it was surrounded on the other two sides by killers. Inches away, lay the open water of the pool.

The moment had come! Boo-Boo sprang up into the air, easily covering over three feet, as if he had been launched from a spring board and landed squarely onto the rat in the plants. Boo-Boo’s right front claw had snagged the rat’s rear as he landed and, simultaneously, the rat bolted out of the plants, only to be surprised by Starry, whose mouth, agape, was baring deadly fangs. Boo-Boo was trying to get a bite into the rat’s head, as the rat spun around again, with Boo-Boo, and now Starry in tow, only to encounter Mean-Pea rushing up and crouching low to the ground. With all the energy and adrenaline the rat could muster, it sunk its back feet onto the ground and launched itself towards the pool, and was now free of Boo-Boo’s claw as it landed in the water, leaving behind three cats in the plants alongside the pool.

I heard a splash! Water was bouncing off the sides of the pool and waves were beginning to form. I then heard another splash! Water was jumping over the pool’s edge and onto the patio floor. It was Boo-Boo! He had jumped into the pool and was swimming after the fast-swimming rat. I was amazed. Starry and Mean-Pea both glanced at each other and then returned their attention to the pool. The rat swam alongside the edge of the pool and Boo-Boo was inches behind him. Starry and Mean-Pea ran up alongside the pool’s coping, looking down at the incredible scene of the rat swimming away from Boo-Boo. Boo-Boo stuck out his front leg and his claws pulled the rat down and under the now-choppy water. As the rat came back up, Boo-Boo bit him, deeply, on his spine. The rat was frozen in shock as Boo-Boo, grasping the rat in a death-grip with his fangs deeply embedded, swam forward to the pool’s edge. With incredible strength, he kicked his hind legs to gain power to allow him to place both front feet onto the pool’s edge, and, using his powerful front legs, lifted himself up and out of the pool, with his prize – a full foot-long rat – in his mouth.

What a sight! Proud Boo-Boo Tail! He was drenching wet and dripping onto the patio, with a large, motionless rodent in his mouth! His two buds, next to him, and me, yards away, mouths’ open and astonished at witnessing his achievement of skill and determination.

Obviously, strength-training paid off for Boo-Boo and he could probably entertain a shot of being a contestant on a future episode of “Fear Factor”.

With Starry and Mean-Pea deferentially walking behind, Boo-Boo then proceeded, with a slow and determined stride, along the pool’s edge, and then out the pet-door. Boo-Boo didn’t bother to even look at me – he had business to conduct. The rat was still alive, but motionless. Boo-Boo released it in the grass, but only for a few seconds, because he then bit it again on the neck, delivering yet another deep wound, and knocked it around a bit. The rat tried to escape again, but, it was too late, it was mortally wounded. After a little bit more “role-playing” and “re-living the moment”, Boo-Boo then disemboweled the rat, but, didn’t eat (much of) it, as he really wasn’t very hungry. Now satisfied, he began to eagerly groom himself, and, in a very self-delighted fashion, I should add.

Meanwhile, Starry and Mean-Pea flipped the rat over and tried to get it to run away, but to no avail, as the rat was, at this point, quite dead and no longer had all its body parts in the same place.

The cats left the kill for a few hours (and relived the episode over drinks and Meow-Mix), and, then came back and moved it closer to the lake, under a cluster of palm and oak trees – a location that the cats typically lounge in during the afternoon to observe and hunt birds and snakes. Days later, Boo-Boo dragged the rat’s remains to the back door of the house. He wanted to share his kill with his extended family, as he had noticed that freshly killed meals weren’t routinely served in the house, and thus he concluded that the humans (and presumably the other cats) needed help with the procurement of food for the rest of the pride. We very sincerely appreciate his concern and generosity!