Household pets tend to defy the laws of logic. Several months ago, for instance, Ginny and I adopted Harry, a homeless, black, rough-haired cat. He was a real gentleman, affectionate, grateful, and easy on the furniture. Shortly thereafter, reflecting on the success of our first adoption, we took in a second male cat, Boots, a smaller fellow, affectionate, smooth-haired, also a true gentleman, who hung around our barn door and hopped onto my lap, purring like a bandit, the moment I opened the truck door. Two times one gentleman ought to equal two gentlemen, right? Wrong Whereas each cat, when alone, spent most of the day lounging on our front window sil! l, together they seem to have devised a complex activities schedule that requires a good deal of energy. I'll show you. At 7:30 each morning, there‚s a mad rush and skittering of sharp-clawed cat feet down the uncarpeted steps of our staircase. At the foot of these stairs, both cats engage in some good-natured tussling, before separating, each one jumping on the couch or chair in the family room, then rushing into the kitchen, to make sure his food and water bowls are utterly brimming with food and water. (These may be cats, but they eat like medium-size dogs!) From here, each one jumps on a chair to look out the window, to make sure the nearby neighbors haven't yet traded in their medium-sized yappy dogs for something a little quieter, like a concrete statue. Before checking our room to make sure Ginny and I are still at bay, Harry and Boots roll themselves into one volley-ball-size black ball and roll around the living room carpet. The sight of them reminds me of an early D! isney cartoon.

They say cats spend 95 percent of their time sleeping. I would take issue with the percentage. Oh, sure, these two cats sleep soundly when there‚s nothing better to do. But when humans are awake, they perk up and provide entertainment that‚s often better than what TV offers. Take the little mouse innards.

Over the Christmas holidays, both Harry and Boots found themselves the happy recipients of cloth-covered mechanical mice that squeaked, about the size of real mice, in fact. They took to them immediately, of course, picking them up by their tails and swinging them around until they got tired or until one of us humans deprived them of said wee beasties. I wish I could convey the sight of each one of them, in words, as he proudly pranced around the room, his head held high, the little creature gripped tightly in his mouth.

Now, here's a funny footnote to this story. Harry or Boots, or maybe the two of them together, stripped the cloth covering off the little guy and dunked him in their water dish. Somebody pulled the mechanism out of the drink. Next morning, it was back in the water bowl. Well, something must have triggered the sound mechanism, because all that day… and into the night … there came a most un-mouselike noise that sounded suspiciously like a distressed grackle or bluejay. That first night, I was confused, had we somehow, in remodeling our house, left a soffit open, thus inviting a band of squirrels to share the expensive warmth of our house? What was this strange noise I was hearing now? It didn‚t sound like a mechanical animal. It sounded, rather, like the recording of a "distressed blackbird" that my neighbor Bruce Qackenbush and I had borrowed years ago from the local authorities to flush a band of blackbirds from our backyards, where they had gathered a truckload of their friends, to "relieve themselves" so freely that the south side of our house looked as if it had been whitewashed.

That "distressed grackle" sound kept going ceaselessly for three days and nights. And both Boots and Harry treated its innards as if it was an eminent dignitary worthy of respect. They were so attentive to it that no one in the house wanted to toss it in the trash. Boots and Harry carried it gently in their mouths from room to room, for a couple of days, until its innards wore out, and its sound was gone.