About Little Man

Despite his roguishly handsome face, fullback thighs, velvet paws, and a belly that begs to be given a raspberry (but don’t try it!), Little Man is all big cat. Indeed, his size—thirty pounds—and certain physical characteristics—pointed ears with small tufts of fur—suggest he dances along the evolutionary edge separating the common house cat from the bobcat and the lynx. In the absence of conclusive DNA evidence, however, (not to mention the fact that he just showed up at the door one day, an unknown number of months old, hungry, and badly wounded from life on his own), Little Man is now inarguably a fat cat, a descriptor as much of the boy’s current lifestyle and attitude, as his size.

Little Man publishes regular updates on his website about his visits to the shrink, takes daily inventory of “his things,” will swat anyone who uses the word “no,” and gets visibly angry if it’s raining outside.  He lines up his chipmunk kills in perfect order on one specific towel in the garage, occasionally coming to the door with a live one in his mouth and standing there until his father applauds his hunting prowess. He can hear a can of tuna being opened from any point within the house and has been known to sprint for the kitchen door from an outside distance of fifty yards at the enticing whoosh of any vacuum-packed tin. His eyesight, however, is another matter. Little Man once temporarily lost the chipmunk he was playing with only to subsequently discover that he was sitting on the pudgy-cheeked rodent.

Little Man is in therapy ostensibly because his human mother thinks he’s bi-polar (he has been known to switch rather abruptly from Jekyll to Hyde), but really because she can’t understand why he loves his human father more than her.