When I was almost 15, my next door neighbor gave me a kitten. My mother was not into pets but Dad prevailed earlier that year, and the family acquired a beagle we named Becky. Mom wouldn’t let Becky the Beagle live inside with us; she was relegated to a dog house on our back patio. And Mom drew the line against a cat.

She was convinced that cats carried diseases and she suspected them of harboring bad wishes toward her. She claimed to like kittens, but she wasn’t even convincing about that. I’d been after her for awhile, and I’d just about given up hoping.

Then Jeff swooped in with a yellow male kitty. It was Christmas/Hanukah time, and he and his mother nagged mine about it, and a miracle happened. I was allowed to keep the kitten. But he would have to live outside.

I named him Albert after Einstein. I played with him and petted him that first evening – such a sweet ball of yellow fur – till my mother made me put him outside and close the drapes over the sliding door.

Minutes later Becky bayed, and we pulled back the curtains to reveal the wet kitty, but it wasn’t till the next night that we witnessed the cause. That first time I took Albert in and dried him off and then carefully placed him back outside, in the dog house, for what turned out to be an uneventful night.

The next evening we spied on kitten and dog after I put Albert out. We watched the beagle lift the kitten up, carefully and naturally by the scruff of the neck, dunk him in the water bowl, set him wet and bedraggled between beagle front paws, and then sit back and howl the deed. Again I retrieved the wet kitten, laughing this time at the dignified beagle, dried him off, caressed him, returned him to the back yard.

Becky the Beagle and Albert the Cat settled down after that. They became accustomed to sleeping together in the dog house. Albert didn’t know he was a cat. He gave up purring and started to wag his tail. He tried to dig under the redwood fence instead of climbing over it.

Our parents made us give Becky and Albert away eight months later. We were moving to Marin County and they weren’t allowed to come with us. Becky went to some folks in the country. Albert was taken by a school friend. Phyllis’s family neutered him and the next time I saw him he was a fat old cat.