The Cat's Out of the Bag

Molly shamelessly steals a tuna sandwich carelessly left on the wheely bin by my son William (7)

"She'll be around here somewhere..." Abi wondering where the next attack is coming from. Here's a clue: she's on the wheely bin eating William's tea, Abi.

I'm not the world's biggest cat lover, it has to be said. I feel that felines are somewhat neglectful of social niceties, such as the convention that you should not sit on the floor licking your own bottom whilst the rest of us are having our tea. Despite this, we have two moggies. Abi, your classic black 'witch's familiar', has been with us for four years now. She and I have reached something of a truce, especially since Molly, the other one, came along. Molly started off by demonstrating a cavalier disregard for Abi's tenure as House Cat by making her life a misery. So much so that Abi now requires a security escort when moving round the house, as Molly generally lies up waiting to ambush her. I therefore feel a sense of duty to protect Abi, so usually help her by carrying out a forward reconnaissance. If contact is made, that gives me the chance to chase Molly out of the house so that Abi can get stuck in to the cat food.

When we got Abi, from the local Cat Rescue people, we were told that she would insist on fresh tuna every day and settle for nothing less. As a moggie born and bred in Leeds, I don't even know where Abi got her taste for tuna. Living in Leeds it is a bit inconvenient nipping to the dockside everyday to buy some straight off the trawler, or whatever you use to catch tuna, even supposing that tuna are regularly landed in Hull or Grimsby. So we weaned Abi on to tuna-flavoured Go-Cat (this is not a sponsored blog by the way, I'm simply stating fact). I think it's got some other expensive fish mixed in as well: Pacific Salmon and Angel Fish or something. That's another thing; why do the cat food people flavour the stuff with animals that cats never eat in reality? I bet if you asked them, 9 out of 10 cats would prefer hamster, budgie or goldfish-flavoured kitty nibble.

Over the past few years I've managed to get Abi to accept Asda's Tiger cat food. Strangely this does not include the sort of flavours that 90% of tigers might prefer; goat, donkey or careless tourist for example. We have the odd tantrum of course, such as when we run out of Tiger and I can only be bothered to nip to the local Late Shop, so she has to put up with the late shop's own brand stuff. This causes the cats to go on hunger strike until I feel sufficiently guilty to pander to their foibles. The two of them can't even agree on this however; one will eat a particular brand so the other promptly boycotts it.

What they are both particularly partial to, though, is the local wildlife. Abi started it, at our old house, when her food was temporarily being supplied by Morrisons. Having decided that nipping up to the shops herself would not be an option, Abi taught herself to hunt. Of course, she might have learnt this as part of her vocational training at Leeds Cat Rescue, though I expect they only bothered to take her big game fishing. Even though we lived near some trees, which is what passes for countryside round here, I hadn't noticed any signs of rodent infestation. So it was a surprise when one day Abi brought home a baby mouse. Having relieved her of it, and given it a decent send off in the wheelie bin, I thought little more of the matter. Unfortunately it would appear that Abi had murdered the offspring of an influential rodent fundamentalist. We suddenly became the focus of a sustained onslaught of mouse-generated terrorism. Mice would appear all over the place, nibbling at anything they came across, including plastic plates and electric wiring. Fortunately they weren't able to lay their paws on any explosives otherwise I am sure that the house would no longer be standing. In the end we moved, having been driven out by the cheese-loving midget freedom fighters.

Since Molly arrived, both cats are now trying to outdo each other in the rodenticide stakes. One of them left an impressively-sized rat on the doorstep the other day, which I think is asking for it. So when this morning my wife told me that she had fed the pets but Molly was sitting outside chomping on a mouse, you can understand my sense of foreboding......