"Old fat furry cat-puss..."

I get so frustrated with my cat. She’s wonderful and I love her to bits but where once her movements were sure and swift now they are hesitant and kinda clumsy. She falls off tables and chairs, mistimes her leaps so that she falls short and there is a mad scrabbling or else lands too far in knocking over ornaments and frequently breaking them too.

She always seems to be in the wrong place and either needs to be let in or out as the whim suits her. When you do let her out, you see her hesitate on the other side as if to say: “Now why did I want to go here?” or else “Where the heck is this?” Sometimes she shakes herself and carries on to wherever it is she is going. Other times she simply turns back immediately bumping her head on the closing door. I know this because I can hear her thumping into it and she usually yells at me indignantly as if it were my fault.

She yells at me a lot. Mostly for food sometimes for reasons I cannot fathom. She is always hungry but there are times she is persistently hungry. It’s almost as if she forgets she has just eaten. I know she can’t be truly hungry because I have to watch over her while she eats so the dogs don’t knab it. She will eat until she’s stuffed then leave the food she doesn’t want. I then put the bowl away only for her to yell at me she needs food again barely five minutes later. I give her the bowl again, she turns her nose up at “OLD food” I clean bowl refill it with “FRESH food” and she takes one mouthful then stalks off or else looks at me as if I was barking mad and why would I think she needs more food when she’s only just eaten…

She is increasingly fussy about her food and any old stuff will not do she prefers Whiskas Oh So Fishy Senior, will not tolerate Felix and don’t try to fob her off on normal Whiskas or indeed any other cat food for that matter. She won’t eat gravy only jelly and she hates rabbit and whitefish. I usually give her whitefish first thing in the morning as I know she is SO hungry by then that she’ll eat just about anything within given parameters.

She has decided she likes Hellman’s Mayonnaise. As soon as you get it out of the fridge she is there with her head virtually in the jar. You barely have time to spread it on your sandwiches before she is plaguing you. She mithers and bothers you by pushing herself into your personal space. And you can put her down as many times as you like within seconds she is back again. It’s just easier to leave a dollop and let her get on with it.

I do get cross but then again I look at her and say to myself: “Well it comes to us all.” I tuck her up at night and she purrs in her sleep. She’s happy and seems not to notice the fact that she is not as dignified as she once was…

What;'s the worst that can happen?

Imagine the worst thing that can happen when you are asked to look after a friend’s pets while they go away on holiday, and then double it.
My best mate J has had the most terrible time recently. You see we went away for two weeks and left him in charge of the house, the dogs, the chickens and the cats.
Now J has done this loads of times, and in the past has had some near misses. Like the time when I phoned him up to say Hi and check up on the builders who were busy converting the attic and putting on a new roof. At the end of the conversation I casually asked how he was doing with the cats.
“Oh they’re fine,” he said cheerfully before asking after my holiday and when we were coming home etc.
Little did I realise that as I was speaking to him on the phone, he and the builders were desperately trying to locate my Siamese cats from between the floor joists where they had managed to get stuck. Everyone could hear them but just could not locate them. The hunt involved taking up the newly laid carpet and ripping up floorboards in several rooms. Needless to say when we got home there was no evidence that anything untoward had ever happened at all and it wasn’t until a few years later that J confessed over a particularly boozy supper.
Over the years poor J has dealt with the would be kamikaze cats, the toothbrush eating whippet, the subterranean Jack Russell and builders en-masse: 15 of them to be exact and never once did he forget their individual tea and coffee orders. By the way he also had to run his own workshop to make a living.
However, this time I think he took the biscuit.
For as well as agreeing to keep an eye on the EBJ (the wickedest whippet it the world) and be of assistance when she was to be mated, (I know, I ask a lot, but there is only a small window of opportunity on this and as luck would have it the whole thing sort of landed up on J’s plate, he said he didn’t mind as long as he didn’t have to get hands on or anything!) he also had to look after my elderly Siamese cats, Agatha and Alice aka Fat Cat.
Having acted as Dog Pimp and got through that ordeal J was on the last few hours of his watch and nothing untoward had happened. It should have been a coast all the way home so to speak.
He knew we would be back after lunch and then he could finally go home and relax.
So that morning he bounces down the stairs, lets the dogs out, puts the food out for the cats, does he chickens comes in for a cup of tea, lifts the small cat, Agatha, onto the table so she can eat in peace away from teh dogs, notices the Fat Cat has not moved, goes over to lift her onto the table for breakfast and then realizes that something is very, very, wrong.
The Fat Cat is always the first to demand food, the Fat Cat is called Fat Cat because that is what she is and to be a Fat Cat means you are particularly food orientated. Missing breakfast is NOT an option, not when you have a reputation at stake.
As soon as J touched Fat Cat there was not a shadow of a doubt what had happened. She had died peacefully in her sleep curled up on a chair.
For J the event must have been the worst nightmare ever.
I mean only a few hours…
Now what would you do?
Option 1) ‘Fess up and as well as having Dog Pimp on your CV add Cat Killer
Option 2) Pretend you hadn’t noticed and leave said cat to be “discovered”
Well J is my friend and I would not have blamed him for going for Option 2 but he didn’t and although I was very sad about FAt Cat, and I will post about her later, I couldn’t help but see the funny side. Poor J. I think that really is the worst thing that can happen on your watch!