A little cat's tale

A few years ago I went up the garden and found that our intact tom cat, Jim, had come home with a kitten. We never did find out where it was from but suspect she was from a litter that had been abandoned.

To make sure that Poppy, our dog, didn't simply chase her off, I introduced them to each other by simply holding the kitten while they sniffed.

It would be hopelessly anthropomorphic to claim that they soon became the best of friends but Poppy certainly tolerated the little cat and the little cat, now grown up, behaves as though Poppy is her hero; following us down the street, greeting her when she comes home, laying ambushes up the garden and getting close whenever possible.

Jim, on the other hand, had a cat's limited repertoire of responses to other cats and rather than fight or pose, he chose to try to have sex.. A mismatch of scale meant this wasn't really possible but it did cause some concern for one of my sons who thought this meant we'd got a paedophile cat. Happily, it only took one or two bits of operant conditioning - a quick biff on the flank - to put Jim off and that was the end of that.

Little cat must now be nearly 5 years old and, even though the name we gave the vet who neutered her was Molly, we've never really managed to call her anything other than little cat. Her behaviour, especially the way she still gallops about the house, sometimes seems more like a dog than a cat and she treats the growl that Poppy emits when she gets too close to one of her Bonios as though it were a loud purr rather than a warning to get off.

Postscript: A couple of springs later Jim's hormones sent him wandering and he was found squashed on the main road a couple of streets away.