In a Man’ure of Speaking... Barn Cats By “Little Matt,” Matt Dillon, Jr. aka the Couch Kitty Go to any horse barn and you’re likely to find barn cats. We furry felines are stable frolicking fixtures who provide a variety of “services” in terms of rodent control and psychological well-being for horses and their humans. We manage to stay out from under horses’ hooves, while always seeming to be underfoot around humans n it’s the petting instinct. None of us are as famous as the “litterary” great Sneaky Pie Brown, but many of us have interesting stories to tell. Here are a few stories about the cats who have resided around Houyhnhnm Farm. When the barn at Houyhnhnm was first built in the early-1980s, an in-town friend of the owners “donated” a barn cat n Sarah. Sarah was a non-descript black female, except for her voice: she had a loud, demanding meow. She would begin asking for attention or food with a simple, matter-of-fact meow, but if the humans ignored her, she would repeat the meow, getting louder, and the meows getting longer, continuing until they resembled a siren that wouldn’t turn off. Sarah was saying, “I said mmmmmmmmm-eeeeeeeeee-ooooooooooo-wwwwwwwww!” The humans soon learned to pay attention and heed her requests. Later the humans built a house, but Sarah decided the house had been built for her. How nice! And what an improvement in living conditions! Sarah moved to the house garage where she remained in residence until her death in old age. The next barn cat was “found” at the gas station at Highway 64 and old Germantown Road. The owner stopped in for a soft drink, and when she returned to her car, she noticed a cat covered in grease come out from under the car parked next to her. The cat looked exactly like a cat who had formerly lived at her barn! She feared for the cat’s safety, opened her car door, and called, “Sunset! Kitty, kitty, kitty!” “Sunset” immediately came to her and jumped into the car. The owner drove her to Houyhnhnm, where she lived until her death in old age. “Sunset” was a strange cat with habits that would lead a psychiatrist to diagnose some form of mental illness. Maybe she was just a Zen cat. Sunset would have favorite places to “be” and would stay in her favorite places for weeks at a time, only rarely leaving them to eat and drink. Her favorite places might be in a shelf on top of the stereo, or draped across the top of a door, or some other unexpected hangout. Her favorite place was inside a bag of cat food. Whenever a new bag of cat food was brought home, she insisted on going inside the bag to eat her fill. At the barn, she enjoyed climbing on top of wheelbarrows filled with the latest stall cleanings. The latest additions to Houyhnhnnm are members of my family. We originally took up residence at the owner’s Knoxville apartment. My mother, “Miss Kitty” and my dad, “Matt Dillon” had four beautiful kittens in the spring of 2007. We had plenty of play room in the woods and grassy area behind the apartment, and occasionally came inside for a little human companionship. One day, the four of us were surprised to find another “brother” vying for a place at mother’s nipples. He was about our age, but we knew our mother had not given birth to him. We rejected him at first, but it didn’t take long for us to “adopt” him into our family, and soon he was nursing alongside the rest of us. To this day, we don’t know where he came from. When our human moved back to Memphis, we all made 6- to 7-hour drive packed into kennels in the car. We made the trip fine, but upon arrival, we were astounded to find that the human expected us to live in a barn with these huge creatures that scared us to death! We just couldn’t get comfortable on the rough hay with those huge creatures in stalls next to us. We later learned those creatures are horses, who do not prey on cats, but we still were afraid of them. So we came over to the front porch of the house, only to find that we had to put up with a dog n this Beagle who thought we were quarry to chase. After several months, though, we settled in and convinced the humans to let us come into the house for respite from those other farm creatures. By about dark o’clock, I’m ready for my “couch time” watching TV. Some of the other cats have learned to be “trained” bed cats, like those from Bertha’s Kitty Boutique. And we’ve figured out the dog is really no threat to us. She likes to trail scents all day, and she doesn’t seen to be able to distinguish rabbit scents from cat scents. We’ve decided she has very little sense. She does horn in on our territory at times, taking over our dog house and chaise lounge and eating our food. But we superior cats will soon have her under control, as we have mastered our humans. Our humans work on some kind of horse newspaper, a Review. I’ve checked out a few issues and have not seen a single article devoted to barn cats! Well, that’s all going to change, as I’m becoming the first Editor of the Mid-South Kitty Review. You can look forward to reading more stories about barn cats. I want to hear from other barn cats out there and how you train your humans. Feel free to send in comments to the Guestbook at www.midsouthhorsereview.com, temporarily until I get my own website.