A Cat Called Chowder

The Clutter family made a mistake.  It wasn't a big one, but it was definitely a mistake.

The family got a dog one day and they named her Chowder.  She was a rescue dog from a dealer of ill repute.  But she was cute so they brought her home.  Soon afterwards they noticed that there was something different about Chowder.

Chowder never came when they called.  Mrs. Clutter would stand at her front door whistling, clapping, and calling.  But Chowder didn't seem to care.  She could obviously hear well because she jumped at every little sound.  But no matter how long or how loud Mrs. Clutter called, Chowder simply wouldn't come.

She turned up her nose at the dog food that Little Clutter tried to get her to eat.

And she hid when company came over.

No one knew it yet, but Chowder was a cat and her identity couldn't be kept hidden forever.  Sure there were signs, but they were subtle and the Clutters didn't pick up on them.

Chowder liked to spend her time either curled up in the sunshine or out wandering the fields.  She rubbed on the furniture and had dainty feet.  But Chowder also weighed around forty pounds.  She rarely wagged her tail, but the Clutters chalked that up to her reticence to settle into her new routine.  At first the Clutters thought that Chowder growled a lot, but it soon became apparent that what they took for a growl was more of a purr.

When they took her to the vet the doctor asked them what they had been feeding her, he'd never seen a cat so large.

Mrs. Clutter told the doctor that he must have made a mistake for they had clearly gotten a dog.  Look at the size of her neck for Lord's sake!  The doctor assured Mrs. Clutter that the size of her neck was exactly his point.  This was no dog, this was a humongous cat!

Well that certainly changed the Clutter's opinion of their new pet.  Chowder's snobbish attitude suddenly made sense.  They quit buying so much dog food and invested in a cat food company instead.  After all, a forty pound cat can really eat a lot.  They stopped trying to make her come when they called and cut their losses in the department of attitude adjustment.

But they were not without a dog.  The cat they thought they had gotten, turned out to be a Golden Retriever trapped in a kitten's body.  Life has a funny way of working itself out.