Cats are like kids in the 1940s and ’50s.
Out to play after breakfast–not seen again ’til tummies rumble, early evening.
It’s what our tribe are like–not sure kids can do that these days.
A couple of days ago young Shadow came into the kitchen all–
“Hey fiddly dee, a kitty’s life for me! Just stopping by for a couple of spoonfuls, before hopping out.
“Uh-uh!–why no food bowls?”
Instead, the trusting little guy faced one of the less pleasant experiences of a young cat’s life.
Being neutered.
We reckon he’s about six-months-old–and it’s time.
Heartbreaking moment to see him jauntily enter the kitchen, ready for another day in Paradise, only to find no food and a strange looking container with a grill door sitting on the kitchen table.
“HELP! this isn’t how it should be, how it normally is.”
Driving to the vet, I felt recurring surges of emotional upset at what we were putting the poor mite through.
That old schoolmaster’s lie as he beats his pupil: “This is hurting me more than it hurts you!” came to mind.
A few hours later, after the simple procedure, Meredith picked him up and drove him home.
Not visibly distressed–simply exhausted and still drowsy from the anaesthetic, he slept through the night–but slipped out of the house in the early morning.
As the day developed, we realised he was not around.
He didn’t react to our calls. We started to worry.
He’s gregarious by nature and is always trying to engage the others in “conversation” and play–victim of the “third child syndrome”(Meredith knows about this; Jack too)–where the “others” are too busy to bother with “junior”.
High and low–house, cemetery, field, hedgerow–we searched; no Shadow.
The church was locked and windows newly-mended but then Meredith remembered that years ago one of our other cats, Peanut, when still semi-feral, found shelter in the church, beneath the wooden floors of the vestry, through a ventilation conduit.
Beau rues the fact that this conduit is too small for him now!
She located the opening and called. No reaction.
She bent down low–Ben was with her–and peered into the black hole.
There, peering back dubiously at her, were a pair of green eyes.
She managed to coax him out (perhaps reassured by Ben’s presence) and together, the newly formed trio set off on a tour ’round the church.
His confidence and trust in us were shaken by this traumatic experience–and it has taken a few days to win him back.
Last night he snuggled up to Meredith on the couch to watch a bit of “Scandi noir” on TV (the denouement of a Norwegian series)–followed every word, he did!!
Then he scared the daylights out of me by chasing a small ball across the floor exactly as he would a mouse.
“It’s a BALL for heavens sakes,” shouts an unsympathetic Meredith.
(I take care of the spiders, she takes care of the mice.)
Feels like he’s fully back in the family now.
Robin Ellis 