Dat Vito

“Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.”

- Michael Corleone

- Godfather III

            Vito would be mortified if he was aware of this, but he looks like a cat.

             How horrible would it be to resemble your mortal enemy? What if Batman woke up as The Joker? What if a werewolf from Team Jacob was as pale and scrawny as a vampire from Team Edward? Imagine a Wolverine mistaken for a Buckeye? It could be a catastrophe.

            We try not to mention that he looks like a cat in front of him because we don’t want him to be full of self-loathing. But with those big, pointy cat ears, he doesn’t miss much.

            Our whole family thinks that from the back Vito looks like Felix the Cat, or maybe Sylvester. With his black and white coat and whiskers, it’s not that much of a stretch. It’s the way his tail moves lightly through the air that makes us suspect that he may have some cat DNA floating around his chromosomes.

            That wouldn’t be impossible. Throughout history, animals have mated with those of a different genetic code. Remember when people at the zoo put together a lion and a tiger? The world had a Liger.

The breeder Judith said Vito’s parents were Siberian Huskies named Emme and Rogue. But, really, how can she be sure?  I believe Emme and Rogue mated, but who can say that Emme wasn’t getting some on the side?

Come to think of it, there was a randy cat that roamed around Karnovanda Kennels. What if that big, fertile, alley cat stopped by, maybe with a couple 40-ounce bottles of Colt 45 Malt Liquor, and got Emme good and drunk one night while Judith was sleeping?  Maybe Vito is a Dat, a dog-cat hybreed. I’m sure Judith wasn’t watching Emme 24/7, so how can she say for certain that it didn’t happen?

Especially when you consider that when Vito’s hungry, he arches his back and rubs against our legs.

It’s not just our immediate family. Aunt Julie visited and brought him a toy. It was a fishing rod with an imitation sand dollar that hung from the line. When we took it out of the package, she cracked up because she hadn’t realized the toy was meant for cats. But my feeling was that she saw a photo of Vito and in her subconscious she thought he was a cat.

Within one minute, he had annihilated the entire toy, so somewhere inside he is a dog.

            To settle this, I invented my own genetic test for him. I heard the garbage pail in the laundry room topple over. I called for Vito, “Here kitty, kitty, kitty …” He came, with an empty can of tuna fish in his mouth.