Feb 12, 2004

Pet of the Week: “Alejandro Evan”

Pam Whisnant had decided to retire from “pet care” a few months back and go gleefully into her golden pet-less years. Little did she know that a baby tabby/Abyssinian kitten was about to change everything.

“I didn’t want another pet,” she explains. But when her friend Eva showed up at her door with the tiny stray, she took one look and “that was it.”

Alejandro Evan became a permanent member of the Whisnant family. His name evolved from “Allie” [alley cat] and “Evan” [Eva, just in case it was a girl], with a little influence thrown in from a family friend lovingly called “his Tia [aunt] Gabriela.”

Alejandro Evan is not your ordinary cat. To coin a popular phrase, he’s “a dog trapped in a cat’s body.” Fetching and retrieving—a trick typically reserved for canine counterparts—is his calling card, along with his trademark squeak in place of the traditional meow.

“I’ve had lots of cats before, but this is the first one that has fetched and retrieved,” Whisnant says. “He’ll return it to me and wait for me to throw it again. It could be a sock or a ball, whatever he wants to play with.”

Whisnant admits his other talents can be somewhat annoying—opening doors and turning on faucets that would most likely have an impact on their utility bills if left undetected.

Although Alejandro Evan is by all accounts very sweet and loving, Whisnant admits he does exhibit signs of an evil twin, following her around like a shadow one moment and laying in wait to strike an unsuspecting victim the next. “He’s sort of like a Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde,” she says. “He bites at our feet so much, we have to walk around with squirt bottles to discourage him from attacking us.”

According to Whisnant, Alejandro Evan loves to steal socks and jewelry—when he’s not knocking things off the counters or jumping at the walls—and chase mysterious invisible objects. “We sometimes don’t know what he’s jumping at,” she admits.

Arguably, his favorite toy is a sparkle ball, usually found firmly lodged in his mouth as he parades around the house. “That’s his favorite toy,” Whisnant says. “We make sure there’s one in every room. It’s kind of like keeping an addict supplied. We’re enabling him.”

--By Kymberli W. Brady

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