Darling, Don’t Bite
Deb warned me.
Little Wallace is named after his mother, more or less. He was delivered by a carpenter. This frisky little kitten’s arrival in the world was highly unusual. Deb bought her house a few months ago, up on a hill overlooking Dodger Stadium in the Mt. Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles. Among the eccentricities of her beautiful little home are animals walking on the roof of the house. They climb up the avocado tree and pad around on the roof. The first time I house-sat for Deb, I lay in bed listening to the footsteps overhead wondering if burglars were prowling up there. That was before Wallace was born. One day, Deb heard a persistent mewing sound and went outside to investigate. She went out and in and back out and she noticed that the mewing got softer when she was outside, and louder when she was inside, which meant she had a problem. Training a kitten not to bite human flesh is a long process. Cats are more difficult to train than dogs. It takes time and patience, and a willingness to respond consistently to the biting. Watch him play. Watch him walk on my chest. Little kitten, I love you very much. You are beautiful and funny and sweet in spirit. You are a piece of sunlight that fell between the roof-beams and found home. I enjoy watching you play and watching you sleep (which doesn’t happen very often). Sometimes, dear one, it is hard to spend time with you because you don’t stop biting. One day, you may learn; but right now, you persist. You do not yet understand what you are doing. Wallace loves company – craves it. At bedtime, he loves to join you in bed. He loves the warmth of your company. Still, he cannot help himself – he still has the urge to bite and he never quits. If you want to get any rest from it, eventually you have to shut the bedroom door and leave him out, despite his confusion and disappointment. Sometimes this is hard to do, but truly it is all right. Wallace is young; and even when one is not young, it is not too late to learn. 
A few hours later, a carpenter had cut a hole in the wall and ‘delivered’ a baby kitten – young Wallace. This week, the scamp has been in my care: falling all over himself because his paws may as well be the size of his head. His eyes are still baby-blue and his dot of a nose is ham-pink, like a tiny pencil eraser. He climbs up his scratching post and perches on top. He terrorizes a little piece of red ribbon. He has not yet learned to differentiate a human being from a tree – or a chew toy. Deb warned me about that.
