Categories: cat
Date: 30 October 2009 11:42:08
Despite the fact that Daughter and I were already rather outnumbered by presence of my Husband, 2 sons and 2 male lodgers, I’ve now added a further 2 males to the household. But at least James and Henry are both rather cute pale ginger cats.
Long ago made promises of “when the baby is almost one, we’ll get another cat” have now been kept. Younger Son was a year old yesterday. James and Henry have been with us almost a month. Elder Son was quite happy to tell the RSPCA lady and anyone else that would listen that “we’re getting a new kitten ‘cos Mitsy died”. Mummy put her foot down with respect to the kitten-ness of the cats. Despite small boy tears, cute 12 week old things were not going to come home with us. And the elderly deaf cat he took pity on wasn’t for re-homing. In addition there were a good number of lovely animals that were “not suitable for homes with children”. But the pair of 6 month old DSHs were too perfect to ignore. And Husband came around to the idea that “cat” could be “cats”.
They play very nicely together, and with the kids. Husband and I have a fair number of playful nips and the kitchen notice board has been adopted as a scatching post. But Younger Son can pull tails and not complaints at all. James and Henry seem to know that small humans don’t understand the word “gentle” and aren’t holding it against him. Daughter has taken to demanding that the cats sit on her lap and half carrying, half dragging them across the room to comply with her demands. They stay for about 3 seconds and then escape.
Tops of kitchen wall cupboards appear to be a safe haven. In fact, climbing is as high as possible is a favourite pastime. But the competition between the new boys has recently taken a new turn. It now involves food. James in getting fatter. Henry is getting more adventurous.
I returned from work yesterday to be greeted by an unusually attention-seeking fat cat. There was no sign of Henry. And I had things to do so I ignored the cat under my feet. Half an hour later I found Henry. He was crouched on the back door mat motionless with his head stuck in an empty cat food tin. His entire head. The tips of ears were just visible. It looked like someone had removed his head and stuck can on his neck instead. If I wasn’t so worried I would have laughed. I tried to remove the can. Plaintive mewing. I picked up crazy cat and called Husband for assistance. Together the crazy cat was released without injury. Hope he won’t try licking the bottom of the cat food tin again. But you never know. Cats have 9 lives… but their memories aren’t a patch on an elephants.