One of the side-effects of the current dry spell is that I’ve had to start buying mineral water for our ancient cat, Jerry. Being a reluctant cat owner, I consider this just the latest in a series of new lows to which he has reduced me over the years. But the problem is this – the old fusspot absolutely refuses to drink tap-water.
Showers
He instead depends on the sky to supply his needs. And this is normally a reliable source in Ireland, where the leftovers of the last shower have rarely evaporated before the next one arrives.
But over the past 10 days or so, Jerry has exhausted all his reserves – starting with the puddles; then the various containers in the back garden; then the crevices in half-full refuse sacks, and so on; until there was nothing left.
Time was I could trick him on occasion by topping some of these up from the kitchen sink when he wasn’t looking.
Or if that didn’t work, my attitude to his subsequent bouts of self-imposed dehydration was that, sooner or later, one of two things would happen – either it would rain again, or the cat would lower his standards.
Volvic
But I came home of an evening recently to find that he had sought asylum with a new neighbour – a kindly Portuguese lady who had poured Volvic (non-sparkling) into a bowl. Did I know who owned him, she asked, as he lapped it up like a camel that had crossed the Sahara since his last drink: “He looked a bit . . . unhappy”.
So I filled her on on the back-story – how his name was Jerry, and he used to belong to somebody else on the road but then that person moved down the country and he stayed behind, devolving first into community ownership, before drawing up a shortlist of homes where he’d like to spend his retirement and finally choosing ours.
As I looked down at the old ingrate, I may also have mentioned that we feed him, and let him sleep indoors, and pay his veterinary bills, and bring him to counselling sessions with a feline psychiatrist (all right, that last bit hasn’t happened – yet).
Supervalu
But even as I explained all this, I was feeling defensive. And so it has come to pass. Next time it rains, I’ll have buckets under the drainpipes. In the interim, I’m buying him mineral water: Supervalu own-brand, until he decides that’s not good enough either.
There's a familiar pattern here vis-a-vis the cat's ever-increasing needs – first puzzlement on my part, then resistance, then capitulation. After years of trial and error, for example, a while ago I finally discovered a brand of food he will almost always eat. It's some sort of taste-enhanced stuff, made in France for "chats difficiles".
So now every couple of months I have to cycle to a pet shop in Crumlin and haul back a 12-kilo bag over the handlebars.
"See this?" I told Jerry the first time, pointing at the "chats difficiles" and translating. "It means you're a fussy c**t", I said, "if you'll pardon my French".
Fraught start
It’s a good thing our other, much younger cat is not so demanding. In keeping with his fraught start to life – I was obliged to adopt him as a week-old kitten after first almost driving over him on a Tipperary bog road where he was disguised as a tiny lump of turf – Pete Briquette has a pragmatic attitude to survival.
He too will go on hunger strike occasionally if he doesn’t like what’s being offered, but never for more than five minutes. Tap water is OK by him too.
And yet, despite his flexible attitude, he’s not taking anything for granted. On the contrary, even though he’s neutered, he still seems to have regular tom-cat urges to eliminate his competitor.
Their age difference of about 100 notwithstanding, they get on well most of the time.
But at least once a day, Pete will also have a little felicidal episode.
Main defence
First, usually, he’ll climb onto the back of a sofa or some other vantage point where he knows Jerry has to pass beneath. Then he’ll leap onto the back of the target’s neck.
The old cat’s main defence these days is to snarl, and luckily for him, he can still do this with the decibel levels of a fire alarm.
So at this point, the nearest person always intervenes on his behalf, although when it’s my turn, I sometimes delay just enough to give Pete a sporting chance.
@FrankmcnallyIT