Confessions of a Cat Sitter: The Columns, page 6
The boys’ playful ways have never been greater than over the last week, due to the presence of a gang of builders at the house. Builders are the natural enemies of catsitters. I’ve yet to meet a builder who’s managed to keep an indoor cat indoors (a strange inability to shut any door or window) and, of course, their drilling and hammering doesn’t greatly please the more nervous of my furry customers.
Predictably, upon arriving at the house this week, I found the front door open, and immediately spotted Sam and Alfie in places you wouldn’t want a pair of indoor cats to be. Alfie was happily watching me from next-door’s roof, and Sam was only half visible through the branches of a tall tree, ears back and not looking like he had the faintest idea what to do next.
Another thing that makes builders an enemy of catsitters (especially one who has a tendency to embarrass himself in the simplest of situations) is how very very good they are at ‘taking the mick.’
After spending the first 15 minutes of my visit attempting to talk Sam down from the tree, I suddenly realised that I was being watched by a group of four blokes in plaster-covered clothes, all enjoying a cup of tea and seemingly very amused. Eventually, one of them asked, ‘Alright then, we give up, who are you and why you standing in Mrs Croft’s garden talking to a tree?’
Ah well, at least they had some ladders with them, so that the totally perplexed Sam could be helped down from his branch. Alfie took somewhat longer to coax in, but the promise of food did the job in the end (even if Sam ensured he eventually wore most of it).
It’s been a good week overall though. They might be a tiring duo, but they’re always followed by a daily visit to an elderly tortoiseshell named Wilma, who does nothing but purr and doze on my lap. No better way to unwind after a long day, than with a purring tortie sleeper!
Smith & Jones
Your Cat Magazine 2013
It’s been an exciting week, though it started sadly.
The worst aspect of having a customer base of scores of cats, is that every now and then, one of them leaves us. My old friend of many years, Oliver, passed away at the start of the week, and as Oliver has always been one of my all-time favourite cats, it was hard to take. The only consolation was that he’d had a long and very good life, living in a giant house with a giant garden, next to open fields and miles from any busy roads. It made me smile though, that one of his very last acts was to deliberately pee on a prickly-and-nobbly floor-mat that he’d hated all his life – way to go Oliver!
So, a bad start to the week indeed. And things got ever so slightly worse when another client rang to say they were emigrating and had to leave their lovely cats Smithy and Jonesy behind. They’d been let down by prospective new owners at the last moment, and Smithy and Jonesy were off to the RSPCA that very evening. Did I by chance know of anyone who could re-home them, the owners asked? I was suddenly on a few hours deadline.
It was obviously much too early for Oliver’s feline-loving owner Liz to consider adopting again, but I did know of an old client who’d lost their cat 6 months previously. I rang her straightaway.
‘Hi Fiona, it’s Chris, your cat-sitter, I’m trying to re-house a lovely pair of cats, and just wondered if you’d be interested?’
‘Hi Chris, um, I’m not sure it’d be a good idea at all. He’s not very sociable is he? He can get quite nasty’
‘Who?’ I replied, wondering if their was perhaps a side to Fiona’s seemingly amicable husband George that I hadn’t noticed.
‘Freddy’
‘Who’s Freddy?’
‘……my cat? Freddy? You’ve been looking after him for three years…?’
With slight horror, I’d realised I’d called completely the wrong Fiona. There followed a groveling apology and disconnection, and then, just seconds later, Liz called.
When we’re meant to find cats, we find them, don’t we? Or they find us. But it’s always meant to be. I couldn’t resist telling Liz all about my embarrassing call to the wrong Fiona, but Liz wasn’t really listening. I’d lost her right at the start of my story – at the reason I’d called Fiona in the first place.
Needless to say, Smithy and Jonesy now live in a giant house with a giant garden, next to open fields and miles from any busy roads!
Just a footnote with regard to this month’s column. I happened to read a lovely piece online recently, about an eight year old child who gave the best reason ever for the sad fact that cats don’t live as long as we do.
‘We’re put here to learn how to love people and be loved, and to brighten up other peoples lives, aren’t we?’ she said, ‘Well, cats already know how to do that, so they don’t have to stay as long…’
Lost in Translation
Your Cat Magazine 2013
I tend to meet a few ‘eccentrics’ in my line of work. Obviously I do – I work with cats. Is there any cat who’s not eccentric in some way or other? I’ve worked with hundreds of our furry friends now and I can honestly say that every last single pointy eared one of them has an odd little quirk or two (in most cases, many). Just taking my last three visits as an example – I have a tabby lad who jumps on peoples heads from the tops of fences while chittering away happily to himself, a black & white girl who’ll happily accept every available stroke, before suddenly staring at you in wide eyed shock and backing carefully away, as if she’d never before laid eyes on a human being. Thirdly, I’m looking after a pair of Bengals who move and act as a single unit, slinking into the room side by side for their meal, happily purring and rubbing leopard-like faces together…then without any reason one or the other will scream like a banshee and before you know it they’re rolling straight over their food bowls locked in vicious combat. Two seconds later they’re licking each other’s faces.
Can you imagine humans acting that way? I can honestly say that, apart from jumping on people from high fences while chittering happily to myself, I’ve never behaved in any of the ways described above. But, getting back to the point of this month’s column, maybe I can imagine people acting that way because it wasn’t actually eccentric cats I was referring to. It was their owners.
I have two jobs – I’m a cat sitter and an author. Obviously, as a catsitter I regularly meet cat owners as a matter of course, but less obviously, I meet them as an author. When a new cat book is released, I often get asked to branches of Waterstones and others to sign copies of my books. This isn’t as glamorous as it sounds – Waterstones only do this to ensure they at least have a chance of selling a few copies before everyone completely loses interest.
It was at one such Waterstones event that I met perhaps the most eccentric cat person of all time. Having reached the front of the queue (well, I say queue…I think she had to wake me) the lady in question studied a copy of my book before asking if I spoke ‘Cat’.
Assuming I’d misheard, I asked her to repeat her question.
‘Do you speak Cat?’ she asked again, absent mindedly reading my book blurb.
‘As in…how exactly do you mean, speak cat? Do you mean understand their ways, or…’
‘No no, do you speak their language. Understand exactly what they’re saying?
‘Well, I can always take a good guess,’ I smiled, ‘If they’re standing at their food bowls I know they’re going to be asking for…’
‘MEOWW!’ she shouted, raising a hand to stop me in mid flow. ‘Meoww, mewwww, mawwwr, meowwmeoww.
I smiled nervously.
‘What did I just say’ she demanded, waving my book in my face.
‘Um, I don’t know exactly what you’re trying to…’
‘MEOWW!’ she said, throwing my book back onto the pile and turning disgustedly on her heels. As she left, I’m fairly sure she hissed at the security guard.
So, maybe we’re very capable of being just as eccentric as our cats! Anyway, meoww to you all, meoww mawr and see you next month!
Barks at Cats
Your Cat Magazine 2013
I’ve been off work the last few days, finally succumbing to the one single ailment that prevents me from catsitting. I usually tend to struggle on when I’m a bit off colour, and cats seem to appreciate this. They’re generally pretty stoic when it comes to injury and illness, and they expect the same from their staff. As long as they get their bowls filled, a few treats, a long brush & stroke, and a thousand compliments on their general behaviour and the shininess of their fur, they really don’t mind at all if I’m at death’s door and barely able to move.
The one thing that they will not tolerate though, is the complaint I’m currently suffering with – a simple cough. My experiences with a constantly irritated-looking tortoiseshell named Skye a few days ago sum up the problem.
Skye had been the first port of call on my rounds, and we’d established a nice daily routine (cats loving regular routine as they do). I’d arrive and feed, put the kettle on, and then sit with Skye on my lap for a cup of tea and couple of Hobnobs, Breakfast beneath the Skye. Skye absolutely loved our start to the day.
But then, it happened. Without warning, I suddenly emitted an 80 decibel raspingly violent cough, which was swiftly followed by a crumb avalanche as I involuntarily crushed a Hobnob between my thumb and forefinger. To say this annoyed Skye would be something of an understatement. Jumping about five feet in the air, she shot across the room at breakneck speed, before mounting the stairs and vanishing in a blaze of panicked tortie colour (and what lovely colours they are). After a few seconds, Skye’s face reappeared, eyeing me cautiously through the banister.
‘Meow?’ she enquired, her face looking even more irritated than usual.
‘Sorry, sorry, Skye, I was coughing, I wasn’t shouting at you, come back here’ I softly crooned.
Skye made her tentative way back towards me.
‘Meow?’ she asked again.
‘BRAHHHHHHSPAAAAAACAAAAAARGHHHH’ I replied.
It took another ten minutes to get Skye back on my lap. As Skye settled again, I could feel the worrying rumbles of a cough brewing in my chest. I had to suppress it; it was my duty.
Ever tried to hold back a cough? I started with a couple of strange whimpering sounds. Skye glanced up at me, but resumed her purring. Next came an involuntary muffled grunt. Skye now regarded me a little more closely, but decided I was obviously just odd. The cough was rising though. In a desperate effort to hold it back, I began making the only noise I seemed capable of – which turned out to be an extremely threatening low growl. I’m not sure how ‘reassuring’ I thought growling at a cat would be, but Skye now stared at me in total alarm. What the hell was the matter with this idiot today - first shouting his head off, and now growling at me? She’d had enough.
And so since then, my partner Lorraine has had a lovely week with Skye and the rest of our charges. But I’ll be back with them all again very soon - skiving off work just doesn’t have the same appeal when you work for yourself!
Homework
Your Cat Magazine 2013
I thought I’d tell you about a couple of my own cats this month. I suppose you’d call them my homework.
Number one is Jojo. Jojo is a feisty, edgy, jealous little tortie who inexplicably dotes on me, and seems to have decided I belong to her and her alone. It’s therefore fortunate that her black and white housemate Spooky isn’t keen on me at all, much preferring my daughter’s company. Despite the lack of any in-house competition, Jojo is constantly suspicious of my antics, mainly due to the various feline scents I bring home on my clothing. She thinks I may be seeing ‘other cats’. Probably around 200 a year.
Jojo is a rubbish hunter, her biggest-game prey being small flying insects. However, this does make her an excellent dancer. The sight of Jojo suddenly jumping into the air, twisting, and clapping her paws together as she totally fails to capture a slow-moving moth is a normal (but wonderful) sight in our household. Last week she seemed to be dancing Gangnam Style down the hall towards me (little bit disturbing).
Spooky wouldn’t be seen dead dancing, spending almost her entire life on 1 square foot of sofa. However I believe that, despite choosing never to step outside, Spooky may know more about the outside world than any cat alive. This is because Spooky is a TV addict. Spooky will watch anything and everything, and there really can’t be much she doesn’t know about the FA Premier League, life in the oceans, dinosaurs, wildlife, war, floods…and the various going-ons in Coronation Street, which is a must-see for Spooky – though she doesn’t seem very keen on Gail Tilsley at the moment.
Experts say that you can tell a lot about how your cat sees the world by how they watch TV. Apparently, a cat who takes an interest in what’s on TV probably has ‘normal’ vision, similar to ours. If they take no interest at all, they possibly have ‘invertist’ vision, that is to say, they can only really make sense of 2D images if they view them from an upside-down perspective. A simple test to discover if you have an invertist cat is to turn your TV upside down. If your cat suddenly takes an interest, this means they probably have invertist vision. I once tried this test on my previous cat and great friend Brum, who never seemed to notice TV at all. The moment I turned our portable TV upside down, I was stunned to see that he suddenly seemed to see the picture. Then, inexplicably, he rolled over onto his back and watched it upside down. What the hell did that mean? That didn’t denote anything at all. The TV was upside down, but so was he. I gave up on testing Brum at that point. He was a very odd lad, and I really didn’t need further proof.
Anyway Spooky is, as I write, in the lounge watching Ice Road Truckers. I tried turning the TV off a few moments ago, but this seemed to annoy her, and it’s now back on. So, while the rest of us head for bed, Spooky will spend the next hour or so totally enthralled by the sight of artic trucks skidding through the Arctic circle, no doubt trying very hard to ignore Jojo dancing the night away with a moth.
What a strange little world they live in.
Pixie-Bust
Your Cat Magazine 2013
A customer called me this week, to give me a quick update on her cat Boris’s circumstances ahead of her forthcoming holiday. Boris is a Persian, named for his likeness to the current Mayor of London. It’s not only his great mop of golden hair, but also an eagerness to be present at every Opening available – as long as the opening involves a tin of cat food. Boris had always been an indoor cat.
‘Hi Chris just a couple of changes. We’ve finally smashed a hole in the wall and Boris has a catflap now.’
‘Okay, that’s good, how’s he taking to the great outdoors?’
‘Not too bad – we’ve got a bit of a problem with him chasing the birds, but otherwise okay’
The Mayor of London immediately sprang back to mind, but I thought it best not to comment.
‘Oh, and one other thing Chris, we’ve done away with his litter tray, hope that’s okay?’
‘I’ve never missed a litter tray yet!’ I blurted out, instantly regretting my wording - this was clearly a statement that could be taken in very much the wrong way.
Fortunately, Mrs Johnson (not really her name!) didn’t pick up on my poor choice of sentence. But, as you’ll know from past columns, I’m not always the greatest at choosing the right words (hence my career as a writer). And, this was never more evident than during a recent visit to the doctors, made on account of wounds suffered in the line of my catsitting duties.
Wounds? What this time you may ask? Mauled by a Bengal again? Brought down by a pack of Maine Coons? No. A tiny Cornish Rex named Pixie, with legs as thin as a pencil and standing only 7 inches tall in her white-paw-socks, broke my toe.
Pixie is so tiny that there’s absolutely no way she can go outside, despite her pleading smiles (she has a constant expression that would put the Cheshire Cat to Shame), because she would almost certainly be swept away by the first Red Kite Hawk that set eyes on her. But she still managed to put me in the nurse’s room at the local GP’s. This was because she made a dramatic run for the front door as I opened it one bright Tuesday morning. My instinct was to quickly block her route with my right foot. This deft little maneuver only almost worked. To any onlooker it would have looked as though I’d just opened the front door and swung an almighty kick at the door frame for no apparent reason. The resulting loud crack and blinding pain told me that my foot had not fared well at all but, on the plus side, the noise stopped Pixie dead in her tracks. For the briefest of moments, I’m sure that smile of hers became a laugh.
Anyway, when I hobbled in to see the nurse, on account of my little toe suddenly looking bigger than my large one, I’m not sure how I could have explained that I’d broken my toe any less clearly than I did.
‘Just leave it alone’, replied the nurse, ‘It’ll fall off after a while.’
It was probably the look of total horror on my face that prompted her to offer to take a look anyway, ‘Ah, your TOE!! Thought we were talking toenails!’
You go in for a broken toe, they give you a heart attack….
The Builder
Your Cat Magazine 2013
It’s not often I turn up on a cat sitting visit to find the cat I’m looking after involved in a full blown argument with a tradesman, but it happened today. I suppose, with the amount of cats I visit, every scenario will occur eventually, however improbable. It’s like the infinite cats on typewriters theory – if you sit an infinite number of cats at typewriters, they will eventually, by sheer chance, write the entire works of Shakespeare. Oh no – that’s monkeys, isn’t it! Cats would more likely come up with Mein Kampf or something. Given their aloof and dictatorial mindsets, this wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility at all.
