On Black Cats and the Shelf They Will Not Leave

Ours has claimed the second shelf from the top. Not the top. The second. We have theories.

Our black cat, Ink, lives on a bookshelf. Not the whole bookshelf. The second shelf from the top, between a run of paperbacks and a fern that has learned to live with it. She has been there, on and off, for two years. The top shelf is empty and would be easy to reach. She has never once used it.

High, but not too high

Height is about surveillance. A cat up high can see the room, the door, and whoever comes through it. Nobody can sneak up on a cat on a shelf. But the top shelf is near the ceiling, and ceilings are dead ends. The second shelf lets her see everything while keeping a shelf above her as a lid. It is a box with a view.

The black cat problem

There is a sadder thread here. Black cats are still adopted more slowly than other colours in most shelters, partly out of old superstition and partly because they photograph badly in a cage under fluorescent light. In person, Ink is a sleek, green-eyed, faintly absurd animal with a loud purr and no concept of personal space. On a shelter website she would be a dark smudge.

If you are choosing a cat from photos, go and meet the black ones. The camera is lying to you.

The shelf, resolved

We stopped moving the books. The fern stays. A folded towel went onto the shelf in the first winter and was accepted after a two-week inspection period. The household now treats the second shelf as hers in the same way the armchair by the window is mine. It is a small negotiation, and we both won.