The Barker Street Regulars

Rowdy and Kimi to love the little pussy cat? No. My goal was to teach them to ignore the cat. I broke the goal down into steps, and the steps into behaviors that I could reinforce: looking at anything except the cat, holding still, moving away from the cat, displaying relaxed ears and lowered hackles, doing nothing at all in the presence of the cat, displaying any behavior incompatible with attacking the cat or totally unrelated to the cat, first from a distance, then very gradually from closer and closer. On a fresh sheet of paper I rearranged my notes about training the dogs in a pyramid-shaped diagram. The goal was still on top. On paper, it looked easy to reach.
    At first, the task of outlining a behavior-modification program for the cat stymied me. My goal, I admitted to myself, was not a trainable behavior: I wanted the cat to go away and live with someone else. Failing that, I wanted her to become a gorgeous gray feline TV star with huge amber eyes. Better yet, she could transform herself into a dog. And failing all that? The answer required a fresh sheet of paper. This sheet was for my behavior. The goal for myself was to establish a relationship with the cat, which in the language of behavior training meant a reinforcement history. So far, our relationship consisted of a negative history. To her, I meant the pillowcase, the stone, the approaching hand that scared her off the cozy mouse pad on my desk. To me, she was hisses, scratches, and the unwelcome message that here was one animal that didn’t want me around. Within five minutes of taking in a stray dog, I’d have given it a name. The first step in breaking the negative cycle with the cat was to decide what to call her.
    Cambridge places a heavy burden on anyone who sets out to name an animal. The expectations are dauntingly high. A respectable name for the cat, I feared, would allude to a character in some famous work of literature I’d never read and wouldn’t want to. Hidden in an Icelandic saga or a Persian folktale was undoubtedly a maiden who’d suffered trauma to an ear and had six fingers on each hand. My cousin Leah would know, but it would defeat my purpose to get Leah to name the cat. In my entire life, hadn’t I ever read anything sufficiently highbrow to enable me to name a Cambridge cat? Ah-hah! Sherlock Holmes! Somewhere in the Canon there had to be a cat. References to dogs sprang from every page. In “A Study in Scarlet,” Watson, as a prospective roommate, warns Holmes that he keeps a bull pup. The pup never reappears, but other dogs do. Indeed, in the same story, in a passage I’d almost forgotten and didn’t want to reread, Holmes actually kills a dog to test some poison, a dog, if I remembered, that was dying anyway. Even so! But in addition to canine characters are zillions of images of dogs. Lestrade is like a bulldog, and something or other—a dark mass?— is like a Newfoundland dog. Wasn’t there a single kitty-cat in all Sherlock Holmes?
    As kitty crossed my mind, it overturned a mental object that crashed with a thunk. In the aftermath of the fall, a sinister inner voice with an affected English accent whispered dark words: “He is everywhere!” There was indeed a Kitty in the Canon. She appeared in “The Illustrious Client.” She was Miss Kitty Winter, of all things, the hurler of vitriol. But damn it, Sherlock Holmes or no Sherlock Holmes, and even if your name is Winter, here in Cambridge you just cannot call your cat Miss Kitty! The cat had caused me enough trouble already. She was not going to turn me into a social outcast. Damn her! And damn the abusive would-have-been cat murderer and his ugly bulbous forehead! Why couldn’t fate have let me rescue a dog? Preferably an Alaskan malamute.
    A second mental object tumbled after the first. This one, however, landed with what sounded remarkably like a familiar woo-woo-woo that seemed simultaneously to sing from the open pages of The Malamute Quarterly. On the right-hand page was an ad for the young show dog who’d taken the championship points at Saturday’s show, Kaila The Devil’s Paw. Kaila, I am relieved to report, has nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes, at least so far as I know. It’s the kennel name of Chris and Eileen Gabriel, the breeders and owners of the dog, Narly, and of his illustrious grandsire, the late Tracker, Ch. Kaila’s Paw Print. Inspiration at last! The nomen omen! I would name the cat after an Alaskan malamute, and not just any