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Caturday Story: Tango the Great Wabbit Hunter [1]

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Date: 2025-07-26

Our Hero’s Origin Story

Like many cats over the years, Tango was a kitty who came to live with us in a roundabout way. Many of you have experienced this. Perhaps you call it adoption, when a stray cat adopts you, but I prefer a more scientific term: feline reverse osmosis. It’s a phenomenon where kitties use their psychic powers to emigrate from lower density outside living, through the semipermeable membrane of your heart into the higher cat density of your home.

Tango lived outdoors in an apartment complex. We don’t know whom he originally lived with; we believe he was an abandoned pet because he never behaved like a feral cat. Like Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Tango depended upon the kindness of strangers to feed him.

One such stranger was my sister. After a few feedings and a trip to the vet to check him out, Tango adopted my sister, and so became a new osmosis addition, increasing the cat density of my sister’s place.

There was just one problem with this happy new arrangement: apartment policy set a limit of two pets per unit. Tango made three.

You can get away with being an apartment scofflaw for a while, but as every apartment dweller knows, landlords reserve the right to enter your unit for inspections and other random reasons. About the only time you can count on not being visited is when you call for maintenance.

Unlike my sister, I live in a house on a quiet street without the burden of a homeowners’ association. With no pernicious pet policies to ponder, Tango soon came to live with us.

Wabbit Season!

In spite of living in the ‘burbs of a large city, our neighborhood had a lot of bunnies hopping about. Lately I haven’t seen very many—coyotes and hawks are in the area now—but when Tango first came to us, bunnies seemed to be everywhere. Once Tango settled into his new digs, the wild green yonder of our yard called to him, and he was soon exploring the premises.

I’m sure dreams of hasenpfeffer were never far from his mind, but as far as I know Tango never actually caught any bunnies. Maybe. Like Bugs Bunny, did the wascally wabbits outsmart him? I think it’s more of a case that regular meals blunted any real urgency for The Hunt, but as I discovered, that didn’t stop him from symbolic hunting, as is the ancient cat tradition.

One afternoon I began walking up the driveway to check our mailbox. Tango was outside, and he took it upon himself to be my escort, no doubt to protect Mr. Canopener from a cacophony of fiercely chirping songbirds. I, as a mere human, interpreted it as, “Oh aren’t they lovely!”

Tango, of course, knew better. It was his duty to protect me from small angry birds so that I might live to see another day. And open cans.

Our driveway is off to one side, with what I euphemistically call a pine island between the drive and the front yard. The vegetation is dense, obscuring a view of the yard, but the island ends well before the street. It was when we broke pine island cover that we simultaneously spotted The Wabbit.

The fearsome beast—or cute little bunny—was in the middle of the yard, sitting quite still. I stopped and stood still myself, pleased to see the bunny and hoping to not scare it away. Tango stopped for the same reason.

He instantly crouched down and began a slow belly crawl towards the bunny. Okay, the grass did need mowing, but it didn’t provide that much cover. I did have a height advantage the bunny lacked, but still, Tango’s upper body rose above the grass line.

With stops and starts, Tango ever so slowly closed the gap. I was astonished that this was happening at all. I just could not believe that a cat, in a yard with no cover, could successfully sneak up on a bunny. And yet, that was exactly what I was witnessing.

Closer and closer Tango crept, until he closed to roughly halfway between me and the bunny. Still the bunny sat, not moving a muscle, seemingly unaware of approaching peril.

That was as far as it went. Tango suddenly stood up, turned around, and ever so casually began walking back to me, tail in the air, pleased as punch as if to say, “See what I did?”

The bunny, meanwhile, broke its paralysis, and with a bunny-voyage madly bounced away in the opposite direction. Tango, his ritual done, paid absolutely no attention at all. As far as he was concerned, he could have caught that bunny. It was enough to satisfy cat honor and tradition.

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