Claremore Daily Progress

Columnists

September 1, 2007

Polydactyl want a cracker?

By TOM FINK

If you tell people you’re the proud owner of a “polydactyl,” the reactions will be as varied as the people themselves.

“You mean those winged dinosaurs? I thought they were extinct.”

“Isn’t having more than one wife illegal in Oklahoma?”

“I had polydactyl a few years back — I took some penicillin and it cleared up, though.”

For clarification, a polydactyl is a particular type of cat, one with more than the usual number of toes on one or all of its paws as a result of a body type genetic mutation — in other words, a cat with at least six toes on each front paw and five on each rear paw.

All that said, I recently became the proud owner of such an irregularly-toed cat, to the surprise of friends, family, and most of all, myself.

Already owning one cat that “couldn’t hit the litter box if it was the broad side of a barn” was enough for me — another cat was the last thing I needed.

OK, a life-sized standee of Homer Simpson may actually be the last thing I needed, but the NEXT to the last thing I needed was another cat.

Or so I thought.

Every week, I frequent the Claremore Animal Shelter for the “Pet of the Week” photo shoot feature, taking the picture of a dog or cat that’s in need of adoption.

When making the rounds last week, animal shelter director Jennifer Linam told me of an uncommon specimen of cat they’d recently taken in — a polydactyl cat.

After reassuring me that it wasn’t actually a winged dinosaur, Jennifer told me about the six-toed thing and that many polydactyl cats are believed to be descended from cats owned by writer Ernest Hemingway, himself, a lover of the breed.

Hemingway, eh?

This, I filed away to memory under “Interesting Trivia,” took some pictures and went about the rest of my day.

It didn’t take long for my mind to start drifting back to the Shelter and the six-toed gray and white kitten that could have been a great-great-grandcat of one that had belonged to Hemingway.

Eventually, I called the Shelter and asked them to let me know if he didn’t find a home.

Long story short, I’m one pet richer this week with the addition of a cat that looks like he’s always wearing boxing gloves.

So, why — over common sense — did I take in another living creature that’s destined to wake me up in the middle of the night, make messes, run up a vet bill, and have accidents in my shoes?

Here’s the thing:

I’m a collector of sorts — cards, books, comics, friends — anything there was ever more than one of and came in a set, I probably wanted to collect.

For true collectors, the most prized items in any sets are the rarest or oddest ones, the ones that there are few of or differ from the rest, the variants.

I’ve never been a collector of pets, per se, but at various times in my life, I’ve owned dogs, cats, catfish, fish, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, and a veritable menagerie of one creature or another from the animal kingdom.

In the world of cats, I would guess a polydactyl cat would be considered one of the more uncommon, or a species variant.

I will confess, the little guy (we’re still settling on what to call him, although the name “Biscuits” seems to be in the lead) first caught my attention because of the extra toes.

I mean, honestly — how often does the chance come by to adopt an animal with those kind of waffle-stompers?

But the more time I spent with him in subsequent Shelter visits, the less I noticed his oversized mitts and the more I noticed his gentleness, his sweetness — just a small kitten, affectionate and wanting a home. Really that, more than the polydactyl factor, is what made me ultimately decide to take him home.

I guess I can’t say he’s not still curious to look at. He’s even more rare or more variant for his almost pathologically sweet disposition, though — for me, the toes are just a bonus.

Now, if I could only decide what in the world I’m going to do with a life-sized Homer Simpson standee.

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