WE HAD some shock news about our old cat recently, the effects of which our household is still trying to absorb.
As readers may recall, we didn’t always own the cat, which is part of the problem. She used to belong to somebody else, but then starting hanging around our house in a kind-of community pet-sharing scheme, spending more and more time here and eventually adopting us (without consultation) as her new owners.
So we didn’t know anything of her earlier life – even if she had a name. So at first, to avoid bonding with the animal, I confined myself to calling her “Cat” or – sometimes – “Stupid-head”.
But eventually the children decided to name her “Sheba”. Which, I grudgingly had to agree, rather suited the regal way she carried herself and her aristocratic disdain whenever I bought the wrong brand of cat-food.
You can imagine the embarrassment, therefore, when a while ago, a neighbour who had known the cat during its earlier life broke it to us gently that Sheba was in fact male, and that his real name is “Jerry”.
This was especially shaming for me, somehow. I am, after all, a country boy, who’s supposed to know these things and who still considers it the height of urban ignorance when anybody uses, say, masculine terminology about a cow.
But how can you tell with a cat? A tendency to walk around with its tail in the air notwithstanding, the species is notoriously discreet about its sex-life. Not only that, its anatomy is discreet too. Since the revelations about Jerry, in fact, I have taken another hard look at the parts of him most affected by the news.
And to be honest, I’m still not convinced.
EVEN SO, we are attempting to adapt to the apparent new reality of the cat’s gender. Which among other things means we cannot expected him to act as a surrogate mother – or even grandmother – to Pete Briquette: the orphan kitten that, as related in a recent diary, I rescued from a bog road in Tipperary last month.
Pete is doing very well, I’m glad to say (and thanks to the many readers who have inquired after his well-being). He now skitters around the house like a mad thing, picking fights with passing shoe-laces or anything else that makes a sudden move.
And so used has he become to being treated like a human baby by my children that, during his quieter moments, he finds it more natural to lie on his back than on his front.
But despite the love showered upon him, he probably needs some cat-mothering too. In particular, I suspect he could benefit from a tutorial on going to the toilet. He has all the basic instincts: digging a hole in the litter tray, aiming carefully, filling the hole in afterwards, etc.
It’s just that his footwork can be a bit careless sometimes. And that was even before the last few days, during which he has developed a touch of – apologies if you’re reading this over breakfast – diarrhoea.
Since then he’s been skittering around the house in more ways than one. It may well be that we need to adjust his diet slightly. We should probably check with the vet. And, as soon we disinfect everything the kitten has touched recently, we will.
AS FOR HIS relationship with the old cat, it remains rather tense. In many ways, it’s a generational issue. Being a kid, Pete wants to play all the time, whereas Jerry – who we calculate must be over 100 in cat years – now mostly wants to sleep.
With the colder evenings of late, the older animal has moved indoors again and so occasionally has to share sofa-space with the upstart. This is not conducive to relaxation. It sometimes involves having his ears and paws chewed by the kitten. And when he turns his back on the little torturer, he gets his tail chewed too. Luckily for Pete, his elder is a very placid creature.
Once or twice, the cat has lashed out with a right-hand lead (yes, boxing fans, he is a south-paw). More often than not, though, he responds to the kitten’s tormenting with nothing worse than a weary, put-upon “miaow”. If the kid is being particularly annoying, the old-timer will just get up and leave, deciding that being outdoors in September is not so bad after all.
There have been tender moments between them too. A rather sweet thing happened earlier this week, for example, when, as they curled up beside each other on the couch, I noticed that the cat was licking the kitten.
At first I thought it might be the onset of feline senility: that perhaps Jerry was mistaking Pete for his own leg. But no, the licking appeared quite deliberate. It was as if some parental instinct had taken over the old cat. Either that, or he just liked the taste of the lemon-scented disinfectant with which we had earlier wiped the kitten.
* fmcnally@irishtimes.com