A cat’s first snow

Whenever there’s a significant snowstorm in this area, it’s accompanied by a set of stories about difficulty and hardship.

But something else that can pretty much be counted on when a bunch of snow falls is cute animal stories. Allow me to share one that involves our still-new cat, Andy.

First, let me announce that Andy is a she, not a he. Yep, my wife Wendy and I were incorrect when we first “assigned” the male gender to this funny feline.

But having been enlightened to her true identity, we decided to leave her name the same, which we thought was fine since, well, it’s her name. I guess it’s also worth noting that there are multiple examples of women having that as a first name, even if it’s spelled a bit different – like actress Andie McDowell and TV personality Andi Dorfman of both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.

To take that one step further, “Andi” is said to be a “gender-neutral” name originating with the Ancient Greek name Andréas, so it could go either way, so to speak. 

But back to the cute animal snow story.

Last Friday was Andy’s first official “snow day.” Sure, she had already been introduced to frozen precipitation via the ice storm that occurred several days earlier, but she hadn’t actually experienced winter’s full potential and seen the white stuff in all its glory.

That morning started like about every other since Andy’s arrival at our house as a small kitten last summer. At about 7 a.m., I opened the door to her “bedroom” in the laundry room (a blanket-covered animal carrying case that she sleeps in happily, and will even enter on her own when it’s time to turn in for the night), and she emerged purring loudly (as she always does in that situation), stretched her front and back ends mightily, and headed toward the kitchen for breakfast.

I’m telling you, Andy wakes up ravenous, and will devour a bowl of cat food like it’s the first she’s seen since being rescued from a remote island and surviving on whatever form of sustenance she could find. This morning was no different, and she made quick work of eating her meal.

Not long later, Andy went to the front door and indicated with her voice that she was ready to go out. Again, nothing different there, because this is one of those cats that actually wants to go outside and face, chase and maybe even attack the world.

But then, there was indeed something different. When I opened the door, Andy was on autopilot and virtually dove out onto the covered front porch like she usually does. But she hilariously hit the brakes when she encountered a landscape covered with about 5 inches of snow with snow still falling hard.

After realizing normality was not in the cards, she paced back and forth on the porch and stared out at the strange and unknown scene, assessing the situation with each step. After apparently determining her safety might not be threatened, she stopped pacing and literally stuck her right paw into the snow near the edge of the concrete porch, pulling it back when she found it was wet and cold.

She remained still for a moment, and then gained enough confidence to paw the mysterious white material a couple more times. Then, having obviously decided this was actually an occasion to consider joyful, she just went for it and took a huge leap into the deep.

Andy is mostly white, but her tail is entirely gray. As she bounded around, she kept her back-end appendage upright, so it was a little bit like watching a submarine near the surface in up-periscope mode.

Hilarious. I laughed out loud. I wished later that I would have had photos or a video recording to share, but I was caught up in the moment and forgot to document the memorable moment.

Andy spent much of the rest of the day having snowy fun, often wearing a wide-eyed look on her face as she ran around and enjoyed a new form of amusement and entertainment.

That night, Andy hit a wall and fell asleep on the couch, no doubt with images of snow-covered logs and secret hiding places dancing in her kitty brain. We smiled and knew she had expended more energy in a day than ever before in her short lifetime.

I think it’s safe to say Andy’s reaction to the next snowstorm will be more like, “Yay! This again!”

Doug Davison is a writer, photographer and newsroom assistant for the Houston Herald. Email: ddavison@houstonherald.com.