Let me just say it straight out: I'm a dog person. Mom said that from early on there wasn't a dog that I couldn't make friends with. (Sometimes she'd end sentences with prepositions, but she was still a good person.) I've owned five good dogs in my lifetime and happily tended to several others. All our dog-owning friends know that if they faced a family disaster at least Tippy or Chloe or Barney or Sam would have someone who'd not only look after them but would spoil them rotten with chew toys, doggie treats and long, long tummy skritches.

So why do we have two cats? We were invaded, that's why!

It began ever so innocently. My wife found a tiny black and white kitten mewing plaintively in the garage one weekend afternoon. Apparently it got separated from its mother and wandered away, eventually stopping to rest under the workbench. Carolyn brought it in the kitchen. "Isn't it cute?" she practically drawled as she stroked its slick fur, completely under the spell of the kitty's cuteness.

Benji, the dog we had then, was not taken in. "Daddy!" his little shoe-button eyes seemed to shout, "you're not going to let that thing in our house?" I assured him that it was only here until we could make other arrangements, like putting the kitten on the porch and letting its mother find it. Ben shook his head and went off, grumbling, to lay on the couch.

Things didn't go to plan, much to Ben's continual dismay. I knew we were in trouble when Carolyn wanted to name the kitten. "How about Scaredy?" I said. "It was meowing its head off outside. I think it's a scaredy cat." Carolyn thought it was a horrible name but acquiesced. Before long our house had all the life-support equipment that cats require: some balls with bells in them and a stinky litter box. Scaredy had a home, Carolyn had a kitten, and Ben and I learned to deal with it. After a claw or two to the snoot Ben even shared his water dish. Begrudgingly.

About a year later Scaredy was a full-grown cat. One evening in early fall she didn't return to the house after her daily roam around the yard. When she stayed absent for several days I thought our cat-owning phase had passed like our stint in Amway. Each time I came in from outside Carolyn asked me if I'd seen Scaredy. And each time I gave the same answer...a big, faked-sad "No."

On a Saturday afternoon not long after, I made a trip to the chicken coop to retrieve some garden tools. When I pushed the door open I heard a familiar squeaking noise coming from the very back corner. I worked my way to the rear, moving old bicycles, grimy window sashes and rusted metal buckets as I went. Scaredy lay nested in the corner, curled up around her new family. Three tiny kittens, their eyes still unopened, nursed at Scaredy's side. One was black and white like her mother and sported white mittens on her front paws. The second was a calico and the third one was gray with a white spot on the tip of her tail. The rest of the family gathered around to gaze and coo at the new brood. Benji came in, sniffed, and stalked off disgusted, perhaps sensing what this new beguilement would cost his people.

The invasion began in earnest as autumn turned to winter. One evening Scaredy showed up at the basement door with her family in tow. Fearing that they'd freeze over the winter we let them stay downstairs and I only saw them when I went down to change the furnace filter. I hardly knew they were there until one morning at about 2:30 Scrappy (the Calico) and Mittens (the black-and-white) had a cat-fight on the back steps. The awful screeching and growling jolted me out of a sound sleep. With murder in my heart I stormed to the cellar door and shoved it open. The combatants, who joined their battle at the top of the steps, got knocked off the stoop. They ran back into the basement, leaving no evidence of their fight but a big puddle. Not long afterward I evicted the whole family. They moved back into the chicken coop. Had I known what was in store I would have left them where they were.

The kittens grew to adulthood, earning their keep by holding down the mole population. They stayed in the chicken coop but paid us occasional visits. Around summertime a gray-striped tabby who looked like a fighter claimed the coop for his harem. He had a big nick out of one ear, and that feature earned him the name Big Nick. Fighting was only one of Big Nick's hobbies. I don't have to explain the other one to you. As summer turned to fall our four cats turned to nine. Mittens and Scrappy both delivered litters containing variations on a tabby-striped theme. Not long after the blessed event Big Nick hit the road. Judging from the position I found him in he hit it pretty hard. That can happen out here in the country. A lot of big farm equipment travels our road.

Our herd had reached its zenith when we scarcely dared to back the cars out of the garage for fear of running over kittens. Something had to give, and it turned out to be us. Our vet earned a couple hundred dollars spaying Scaredy, Mittens and Scrappy. Only one of Mitten's kittens remained unaltered, a one-eyed tabby we (okay, I) named Deadeye. She managed to sneeze just as she went on the operating table so the vet wouldn't anesthetize her; that sneeze resulted in three more kittens. The gray cat and several other kittens disappeared on their own, and now we're down to a manageable two cats. We kept Deadeye and one of her daughters, a jet-black kitty named Midnight. The two couldn't be more different. Deadeye is a first-order lover who craves long strokes and chin rubs. Midnight spends most of her time outdoors, occasionally coming in the house to fill up on free cat food and mooch a bite of whatever I happen to be eating.

I'm not sure whether we were irresponsible pet owners back when we had kittens popping up like dandelions. Except for the first one and the last two, most of them didn't qualify as pets. They were barn cats who had family ties to us. Whatever we were then we are definitely responsible pet owners now. Midnight got a trip to the vet for her first half-birthday. Her mom, who had trouble delivering Midnight, got spayed during an expensive Mother's Day Cesearean section. This, however, I do know: in terms of multiplication, barn cats got rabbits beat hands down. If they were a better cash crop I could have retired on them.