Write about what you know - cats part 4

Cats part 4  - Stable cat refugees

Meanwhile Susie took a leaf out of Sid's book and decided who she would visit in the vicinity and things went fine for a good while.

My daughter spent all her spare time at a stables where there were a number of cats whose rodent catching skills were not necessarily enhanced by a lack of proper food and a lack of warm and safe places to sleep. The stables were freezing in winter and there were a number of dogs who roamed free and thought cats were sport. Guess who ended up feeding the cats enough to keep them alive and finding them some bedding. From time to time various kittens were brought in or just arrived on account of the neighbouring farm tom cats and the lucky ones were adopted by adoring pony riders and their doting mamas. Tinker and Bell were not so lucky, they went home with Orla for a brief stay and one got neutered but not before they both had kittens themselves before they were old enough, between them three litters and barely a live kitten. They were fussed over and spoilt by the girls at the stables but lacked the worldly wisdom and expertise of the older stable cats. They were funny little stunted furballs with short legs and insufficient skill and speed to consistently evade the dogs. Eventually Tinker just wasn’t fast enough and there was no-one there to rescue her. RIP Tinker.

But I digress. Amongst the kitten refugees came two sisters, black and white, no takers and kept in a cage for their own protection. For far too long. At which time my teenager informed me that if no-one else would have them, she would - so there, they lacked space and socialisation and the best protection they had was the bars of the cage and Max the mad Jack Russell who hated most people and attacked at random unless he approved of you in which case anything which was yours was under his protection. Like the kittens, because Ellie loved them. And if you wee on things you mark them as yours, don’t you?

And home came Mini and Minx. 

One sceptical and reserved, with a thumb on each front paw and boy could she use it we found out later, and the other open, friendly and playful and absolutely delighted to be at our house

Climbing and scratching trees, toys, food, beds, litter trays, spoilt rotten and free to change roles of friendly cat, grumpy cat.  But Susie wasn’t impressed, maybe she was still resentful about how Kipper had not welcomed her as a new and willing-to-be-friends kitten herself. And so they took over and she slowly distanced herself. She took to sleeping outside on the front lawn and I actually saw someone stop to check if she was alive or not.

                                            
      





Mini and Minx liked the telly.
I had to buy them meerkat dvds for Christmas .        

Add to this less than successful melee the undisputed arrival of Bell in a hurry one day, simply catnapped from the stable after one more rescue from slavering killer canines by Max and Ellie combined. We both cried for the sheer pathos of poor Tinker’s untimely end and what was I going to say when she told me if it happened one more time she would bring Bell home before the same happened to her?

Bell was short in leg and chunky of body. She was absolutely delighted to come home where she was safe, warm and fed, she purred her little head off all the time and slept the sleep of the happiest and safest of cats which she’d clearly never done before. And we continued with four who co-existed but not by choice. Bell was the most easy going.

And then Susie disappeared and my world fell apart again. She’d got old and thin and had a skin condition. She’d started to stay out, to visit further up the road. I’m sure they fed her, but it was her choice. I didn’t mind so long as she was ok and they didn’t mind either, but she did have a home and an owner, she just got fed up with Mini and Minx. Bloody kids. She was a crotchety old lady of 14 or so. And one day she just didn’t turn up. Flyers, adverts, walking the streets, no sign of her. Register online as missing, try the vets, even the street cleaning people who presumably pick up the carcasses. Zilch. I beat myself up for not being there, I’d been away just before she went, for her feeling outsted from her own home when she had been there first and I tormented myself with visions of her sick or injured and waiting for me to find her or rescue her or for someone to let her out of their shed, or whether some vile human had done something unmentionable………and I still don’t know.

Sid’s former owner came to see me, visibly upset, they had been feeding her and would have kept her, but she disappeared, they understood when I explained because that is exactly what Sid had done, decamped elsewhere. I just needed to know she was alive and safe, if she was happier elsewhere who was I to drag her back? And then there was a terrible rumour that other neighbours party to an existing feud had taken her to be put down on account of her physical state, being so thin and her fur so poor because of her untreated allergies. Unable to verify this and too exhausted to confront them, I left it and I still don’t know what happened to her.

No. 4 and no grave this time.

How does this keep happening? It is too too awful and I am glad to see Mini Minx and Bell but they are not mine and I don’t want to do this again, it hurts too much.

I am going to have a pet-free existence for a while at least.

 Poor Susie, but at least I am free to go.
Which is just as well, as for one reason and another I end up in Spain for a 3 month winter and possibly long term.