Retrospective: Pippin Goes Canoeing (June 2009)

My parents have a canoe. It holds four adults. My sister came from her place to visit us the spring of 2009, and my mom wanted to go canoeing. This was somewhere new for Pippin, and I trusted him enough that I knew he wouldn't go swimming (unless we dumped the canoe over) (and there were dire warnings issued to all the humans involved: you dump my cat in lake water, you get to give him a bath!) (Not that he was particularly hard to bathe, actually).

I shall try to refrain from excessive use of parantheticals for the rest of the tale. But no promises.

Driving to the River

We went to a new place since the lake we used to go canoeing in wasn't really open anymore for canoe people. I think. Not clear on this. But instead we went to what is a lazy wide river with very little current. The principle is this: you pack the canoe with your people, your lunch, and your canoe equipment, and you paddle upstream till you get tired. Then you tie the canoe to an overhanging branch and eat lunch. After a lazy lunch and possibly a short nap, you untie the canoe and leisurely paddle back downstream with the current helping you along till you get to where you put the minivan.

Pippin is loving it

Here's what no one expected. Pippin, instead of being his usual resigned self (she's dragging me somewhere else. Again) loved it. I think it had something to do with being in a safe, confined space surrounded by stuff no one could get through to get to him, but he could sniff and hear and (limited) see all he wanted to. Plus the water magnified the scents and sounds. He was fascinated.

He also got wet, because it had been such a long time since we went canoeing that I forgot how you have to flip the paddle from one side of the canoe to the other, and in doing so, you drip all over the inside of the canoe (and the person in front of you). My father, in the back, steering the canoe, always took quite a lot of glee in dripping water down my back between my lifejacket and my clothes. This time I do believe he tried to avoid dripping lake water on Pippin, but it's not really something you can avoid altogether.

Pippin didn't seem to mind. In fact, he didn't even seem to notice.

My mother was in the front of the canoe, and my sister and I were side by side in the middle of the canoe, trading the paddle back and forth (we only have three paddles). And Pippin, as you saw, was on my lap.

No, he doesn't get Gatorade.
He won't eat or drink anything till we get home.

As we were traveling upstream, we were passing lake-front housing and some of the people were out in their backyards, doing back yard stuff. One backyard had two dogs in it. The wind was blowing toward them, and so they smelled Pippin.

There was a cat in the middle of the river. In that canoe!

This was a horrible state of affairs and must be corrected immediately! The dogs rushed down to their little pier and went barking like crazy, trying to get their humans' attention to rectify this awful error. It is a good thing the humans couldn't understand the dogs. It was bad enough that they were visibly annoyed with their dogs suddenly barking at a passing boat (you could tell it wasn't a usual thing the dogs did based on the humans' reactions to the barking) but if they'd been able to understand what the dogs were protesting, those poor dogs would have been told they were a bunch of liars.

Because Pippin, hearing the dogs, decided to duck his head down below canoe edge level, and thus could not be seen from the shore!

When we tired of paddling and found a nice place to tie to an overhanging branch, we stopped for lunch. We used to tie to a branch on the side of the river/lake, but when I was younger we had a snake drop in for lunch (quite literally) as we were snugged up against the land. This then involved the snake, my shoe (no foot in it at the time) and my father using a paddle to eject my shoe into the water, along with the snake. While I wasn't sorry to see the snake go, I was rather indignant about the shoe. Granted they were worn out dirty boat shoes, shoes that weren't fit for anything else from the holes in the sides and the wear on the tread, but still.

Anyway, now we make sure we have a nice branch that overarches the water, where we aren't right next to the shore, and we can see if there's any snakes (or wasps' nests, or giant spiders) hanging out on the branch.

We ate lunch and had our food coma nap afterwards. This wasn't like deep sleep or anything, and I kept an eye on Pippin, because I figured he'd take the opportunity to investigate once everyone stopped moving around and things settled and became quiet.

This is what he did. He was curious about this stuff the canoe moved through. Pippin had had plenty of baths at this point, so he knew what water was, and unusually for most indoor cats, he knew what "deep" water was (water that isn't just running like from a faucet or kitty water fountain).

Look, I know he's out in a canoe. But he was an indoor cat unless he was escorted. I never let him run loose without me around and either a harness or a fence involved. You could fence Pippin since because of his poor eyesight meaning he wouldn't jump the fence. I was still there the whole time. So, indoor cat.

Now I didn't see the other side of the canoe edge because I was behind Pippin with a hand in his harness, making sure I hadn't misjudged his level of curiosity. If he was going to suddenly become brave kitty and go for a swim, I wanted to be sure I could nip that idea in the bud. My father, however, was in a position to see what happened on the other side of the canoe where the lake was, and he told me.

Pippin very cautiously and carefully reached one paw over the side of the canoe. He had his paw bent like he was going to walk on the top of the water. He lowered the paw, still slowly and carefully.

The paw reached the surface of the water, but unlike the leaves floating around us, Pippin's paw kept going into the water up to the first paw joint (where it bends when they walk on land). He didn't react like you'd expect, yanking his paw up and shaking it.

No, he just slowly and carefully pulled his paw back out of the water and (I saw this part) looked at the damp paw rather mournfully, as if to say I knew it. I just knew it. Water. Humph. He didn't even wash the paw then, although I did my best to dry it off with a towel (or possibly the edge of my shirt). He washed it later, putting it back into order, but he was so disappointed that he couldn't go walkabout on the water around the canoe that he just left his paw slightly damp for a while.

May 2010: It was a smidge too hot to have taken him
with us, so he spent most of his time under the
umbrella while inside the canoe. Mostly sleeping.

We went canoeing several times after that. Pippin came along for all of the rides. He quite enjoyed them, and when we got back to the house he would tell me about how much he liked it and what he saw and smelled. At least, I'm assuming that's what all the little purls and trills and mrups were about. He certainly seemed happy with his canoe trips!