Friday, 10 June 2016

The Proud Owner of a Rubbish Cat

My cat; is a shit cat. He’s rubbish and refuses to sit on my knee. Occasionally if my other half picks up the black and white fur-ball, he will sit on his knee for approximately 15 seconds. Then he clearly realises that he is sitting on a human knee and makes a bid for freedom. This behaviour confuses me greatly; Father Christmas delivered this crap excuse for a cat on Christmas day 2 years ago. The kitten was so tiny his eyes hadn’t quite turned from kitteny-blue, to green. When he was a minuscule thing that fell asleep sitting upright, he would sit on my knee happily. He even used to sit on my knee when I was at my desk, replacing my usual wheatybag. These days the nearest I can get to cuddling this anti-social creature is picking him up and draping him over my shoulder like some hairy, living, accessory. And that only works while I am walking around or standing up. If I sit down with my hairy, living, accessory, he’s off. He’s quite a big cat and I had no idea how much a cat can eat and not get fat. Perhaps Slimming World should be marketing cat food as it certainly doesn’t put weight on the fur-ball and he eats 4 pouches a day. He is always hungry but will only eat from a pristine dish and as my other half has taken to using my bloody Burleigh pasta dishes whenever the cat’s dish is dirty, I have considered just feeding him on the floor and mopping up afterwards. This cat takes a mouthful of food and then places it on the floor to chew it. And he’s certainly Spatially Aware as he always makes sure he drops his food on the floor and not on the mat underneath his dish that would be easily washed. He is also a bit strange as he doesn’t remotely mind getting wet.
He returns from his travels with his tail shaped like a question mark and his coat wetter than an otter’s pocket. So why do we bother keeping this poor excuse for a cat? Well, grim though it is, we don’t appear to have a mouse problem anymore. In fact, if Dr Crippen had made a cat, this would be him in the flesh. He kills anything. Mice, rats, moles, rabbits, birds, nothing that is small and moving is safe from this cat.
In fact even things that are big and moving aren’t safe as I saw him wrestling with a Pheasant the other morning. We returned from the afternoon school run the other week to find that he had devoured half a rabbit in the bloody conservatory. Hats off to my 7 year old daughter who, upon hearing that her Mother is more squeamish than a celebrity faced with a Bushtucker Trial, promptly collected the dustpan and brush and proceeded to sweep up the remains. All I had to do was call out “Make sure you pick up both the rabbit’s ears, darling” in my very best Mary Poppins voice. She’s also a bit of a dab hand at rescuing live rabbits from underneath the planters on the patio. Her tools of choice are a shoe box and my 3 foot long dressage whip. Poor bunnies. My other half has now made a mesh barrier to go across the conservatory doorway. It’s brilliant, it means the plants don’t get cooked and the cat can jump it easily but not while he is carrying a rabbit. We haven’t had another bunnygate incident since it was installed.
We had to lock the cat flap some months ago; so that the cat can go out but cannot bring the vermin that he has caught, back into the house.
One day we moved the sofa in the kitchen and found a dead shrew under it. And another shrew squashed under the rug at the sink.
He’s an awesome hunter and I’m not sure what I want more, a cat that purrs himself to sleep on my knee or a 5 star vermin controller. Obviously as Father Christmas brings all the presents on his sleigh direct from Lapland, that’s where the black and white fur-ball came from. But if Santa was the kind of man to use a cat charity so that he could re-home their cats and kittens, I’m fairly certain it would be this one. ;)

www.westgateark.org.uk



SHARE:

No comments

Post a Comment

Blogger Template Created by pipdig