Meet Bogie, Dexter's Other Brother!

You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by . . .

I have often shared photos of my beloved Tabbycat, Dexter, on these pages. I have also included pictures of Dexter's brother Skeeter (saying hello and saying good-bye), who lives with my friend Celia, and of JR, the Tabby Boys' mother. However, so far, I have not until now included a photo of the third brother, Bogie.

So . . . meet Bogie, Dexter's other brother! His full name is Humphrey Bogart, after the movie star of the same name. Bogie is the furry son of two of my sister's friends who live in Harrisburg. My sister and I got to visit both Bogie and JR on Saturday evening on our way to my sister's house, prior to leaving for our Atlantic City beach trip on Sunday morning.

Bogie, like the other two boys, is quite a large Tabby. He is very friendly and gregarious, and he loves greeting people at the door. His purr is loud, like a motorboat, and he has the thick, almost waxy fur that the other boys also have.

One of Bogie's favorite activities is climbing to the very tippy-tops of things and surveying "his" kingdom. He is also a prodigious leaper, like his grandmother Fluffykat, and it is a talent that serves him well when he climbs to such amazing heights.

When I first met the three Tabby Boys (also referred to as the "Itty Bitty City Kitty Gang"), Bogie seemed to be the ringleader of the lot. Wherever trouble was, there was Bogie. He was the instigator, always seeming to be at the center of things. Wherever Bogie went, chaos followed.

All of them are very similar in appearance, and in fact, when I see each of them, I catch my breath. They are all so similar and yet so distinct. If I glimpse Skeet or Bogie out of the corner of my eye, I can almost imagine it's Dexter! But it's not . . . A very strange feeling, indeed: doppel-tabbies, if you will.

Like his mother and brothers, Bogie has beautiful patterns and markings, which include gray and black stripes and spots, a white tummy, touches of white around the face and bib, and pristine white paws. Of the three boys, Skeeter has the most white on his paws, Bogie has the least, and Dexter is somewhere in the middle. Bogie has more spots than stripes on his sides, and Dexter is somewhat lighter in coloring than the other two, with an almost brown or golden cast to his fur, which helped earn Dexter one of his many nicknames, "the greater North American golden Tabby."

In honor of his namesake, Humphrey Bogart, the song I am including to accompany this image of Bogie is from one of my all-time favorite movie love stories. The movie itself is pure magic from start to finish, and if you have never seen it, you really should. "Play it, Sam," is one of the most famous lines from any movie, and it refers to the song, As Time Goes By, from the 1952 classic film Casablanca. You can hear the song in both of these clips, once early in the movie when Ilsa (the incomparable Ingrid Bergman) asks Sam to play it, and once later in the movie when Rick (Humphrey Bogart) does. You'll recognize some of the lines included in these clips, I'm sure. Enjoy!