All images © 2009, 2010 & 2011 DoC Kildare

The cat saga!! - continued!

Anyway, we'd been bitten by the cat bug..... we'd seen how Tufty's behaviour changed when we introduced Liclic, so we went back to the RSPCA and found another longhaired beauty, Foxy. You should be able to see why we christened her that. She was a young female whose owner couldn't get her to eat properly or stop peeing everywhere in the house. We suspected them of not being bothered to find out what she would eat and not letting her out of the house, because we didn't have any problems with her.

After Foxy there was no stopping us, we had to have more cats.

So we rescued 3 more from a farm that was being overrun by it's local cat population constantly breeding! Kookie & Truffles came together, they are related as Aunt n Neice but they are so close together in age, (Kookie's only a week older than Truffles), we treated them more as sisters. They're both tortoiselles and the day we brought them home will always stay in my memory because they set their relationship for the most part of their lives there n then. Kookie stayed in the bottom of the box, all wide eyed, silent and watchful whilst Truffles was the up front demanding attention sister, climbing up to me out of the box and meowing loudly at me!!! Broccoli was originally supposed to be a tom, because I wanted one, but she turned out to be female - but has the personality of a tom! Very strong willed, and she soon took over the reins of head cat!!!!!

Well we decided we'd cool it. But fate dictated otherwise. Our son then lived in Manchester started having problems and had to give up his flat. But he had 2 tom cats, Swipe n Chips and we couldn't let them go back to the Cats Protection league, because the Derby chapter was in trouble with authorities for not providing decent living conditions for it's cat population. We ended up with them both.
In the meantime Tufty had died. one reason we had Broccoli because we thought she was a tom, so we needed to redress the sexes balance and Floppie arrived, a champagne ginger tom who took to me intensely and has remained my cat. He sits outside with me when I'm working on my trikes.
Then, my father died and my mother couldn't cope alone in their warden controlled bungalow, so she had to go into care. Unfortunately she couldn't take her cat with her. No one else in the family offered to take her on, so we took her in. She is the oldest of the females now, and isn't really a communal cat so gets stressed n nasty when any of the others encroach on her space. A black n white semi-longhaired we have persevered with her and she is reasonably happy now with us
Then there were 9! A year or so ago our son tried to make his life again in Derby, got a flat again, and took in another rescued cat from the Cats Protection league. But life wasn't kind to him and he had to leave the flat again, so we again took on his newest young Tabby whom he'd christened Devo, but we called Purtels cos he purted a lot!!! Then he found another cat wandering the Derbys streets, a lovely natured 4 week old kitten with obvious persian attributes - flat face. Of course he had nowehere to live so asked us to take the kitten in, who we christened Midnite as he was another black cat. Finally Annabel decided that we ought to round it up to a level dozen and always wanted a smokey grey tabby and one came into our possesion when my mother in law told us of yet another unwanted kitten wandering around where she worked - Smokey Joe joined the pride and our numbers were up to 12.
I think I ought to clarify our living conditions here. We live in an ex-council house that started life in the early 1930's as a farm hands cottage. They were built as terraces in rows of 4 cottages that back onto the local school playing fields, and have nie on 100 foot long gardens! The cats have loads of room to explore, hunt and get away from each other during the day. Also we have had every one of our cats nuetered and innoculated, and microchipped for safety/identification. Our vets consider us the local cat experts now, and we do find that the cats behave entirely different when in a pride than as isolated individuals. The social interraction is fascinating to see. We see behaviour other cat owners will never experience!! The hierarchial struggles, the older cats teaching the younger ones what to do through play and showing them hunting techniques. The pride bonding that takes place. The greeting procedure that goes on when they meet. All sorts of stuff that you would never see with just one cat.