Music startles the domesticated breast

Evelyn, my erstwhile Shih Tzu, usually seemed uninterested in music. Whenever I played music she just lay there, apparently oblivious. One day while I was listening to a radio broadcast of a Japanese jazz percussionist improvising in a junkyard, she got up and started exploring the area behind the speakers, trying to find the source of the sound (mainly by using her sense of smell). I decided to try playing different styles of music for her to see how she would react.

I played samples of every style of music I had. From Gregorian chant to heavy metal she just lay there, apparently oblivious. When I started George Crumb's Black Angels for amplified string quartet, she didn't wait around to see what it was. She bolted at the first sound and ran to the farthest point from the stereo she could reach, which happened to be behind the downstairs toilet. I found her there, trembling. She was afraid to come out for several minutes.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Puff, a cat we had when I was a young boy and who has been mentioned here before, had a lot of problems with a certain mockingbird pair that nested in a tree near our house every year. Seeing the kitten as a potential threat to their young, the birds would swoop down and peck at him whenever they spied him outside. He was no match for this sort of aerial assault.

This must have been a source of some stress for the little kitty. The day came, however, when he was big enough to deal with the problem directly. No doubt the issue had been in the back of his feline mind for years, and at length a plan took shape. When the time was right, he executed.

I was playing outside when Puff made his move. One of the mockingbirds was flying toward the nest. It followed a predictable route; a route Puff had noted well. Its flight path took the bird to within several feet of another tree. This fateful day, Puff was waiting there. He leapt from the upper branches of the tree, a good 50 feet off the ground, and snatched the mockingbird out of the air in a splash of feathers.

Joined as one by Puff's claws, the two plummeted earthward and crashed into the yard. Within a couple of minutes, nothing remained of the bird but a scattering of feathers up and down the block.