Time Spent with Cats

Time Spent with…

…Anita, Jack, Kipps, Spud,

Terry, Marion, Nancy,

Ennis, Timmy…and Nigel

the squirrel !

There’s a sign that greets you as you walk into Anita’s house: ‘Cats are like

potato chips. You can never have just one’.

If you’re reading this, there’s a middling to high probability that you’re nodding your head vigorously in agreement with that sentiment and/or that you’re surrounded right now by multiple cats, so I know you’re going to enjoy spending a little time with the lovely Anita, who – if you’ll forgive me for stretching the dreadful potato-based snack analogies even further – is living proof that once you pop the metaphorical Pringles tube that is cat ownership, you most definitely can’t stop! She and her partner share their life with no less than eight cats: Spud, Jack, Ennis, Terry, Timmy, Nancy, Marion and Kipps, plus Nigel the squirrel, five hens and two ducks, and I spent a very pleasant afternoon indeed getting to know them all a little bit. Eight’s nothing,’ says Anita, ‘when we first moved in here, we had ten cats! Somewhere I’ve got a photo of ten carrying baskets all lined up over there.’ We’re sitting chatting, watched with interest by Kipps and Spud, in Anita’s large, bright conservatory. It’s a perfect relaxing spot for both humans and cats, with cat beds, places to perch and hide, a big box of assorted cat toys and, best of all, a superb cat tree with steps leading up to a platform across the top of the doorway, which Anita built so the cats would have a high vantage point and runway. She’s also created a cat garden at the front of the house, which has places to sit, play and snooze, brushes to rub against, fresh catnip, and – possibly the best use of topiary I’ve ever seen - a cat cave cleverly hidden inside a bush, which will eventually grow around the wire frame and provide a perfectly camouflaged hidey-hole. It’s pretty much a cat’s paradise. I wonder how the rest of the cats get along, thinking about my own pair, who fall out at least once every few days, requiring me to step in and play the role of referee, mediator, kindergarten teacher, judge and/or jury, soother of bruised egos and literal human shield. Sometimes simultaneously. ‘There’s overall harmony’ Anita tells me. ‘We’ve made as many different spaces as we can for them to go, and we have two cat flaps so that no one can ever stop someone else getting in or out of the house.’ Sure enough, they all seem quite laid back and chilled. I ask if any of them are hunters, as Anita’s garden backs onto fields and trees, which must make it perfect mousing territory. ‘Only spud really hunts, because he’s still at the age where everything’s a toy to him’ she tells me. ‘Most of the others have got tooth issues anyway. I don’t know what they’d do – they’d probably have to suck the mice to death!’ she laughs. Kipps, a beautiful long-haired lady who’s now thirteen, has been quietly watching us from her perch behind Anita on the back of the sofa. ‘She’s one who hasn’t got many teeth left’, Anita tells me, ‘and she does this special thing with her tongue!’ Right on cue, Kipps sticks the tip of her tongue out and happily leaves it there. She’s very affectionate and loves cuddles, and particularly headbutts. Like many a long-haired cat, though, one of her dislikes is being brushed.

Spud, a handsome young black cat, wanders up to see what’s going on as I’m introducing myself to the ducks and chickens, but barely gives the birds a sideways glance. This seems very wise to me as they’re all at least as big as he is and certainly sound as if they could hold their own in a showdown. ‘Spud’s the youngest of the cats’, Anita tells me. ‘He was rescued in Liverpool when he was only about 5 days old’. Being young, he can be a bit of a nuisance to the others, she says, ‘but he picks and chooses who he’ll pick on – mainly Terry and Ennis’. In turn, though, Spud himself gets picked on by Florence, who lives up the street and he can give it out but he’s not so good at taking it - ‘he comes running in looking for his mum, and I tell him “now you’re getting a taste of your own medicine!”’

Above: Jack takes it all in from his cosy cat-pod

Left: ‘Muuuum….you’re embarrassing me in front of the

visitor!’ Terry having a cuddle with Anita

Below: ‘Bit of catnip? Don’t mind if I do’ Terry enjoys a quick

catnip fix

Above: Spud, the youngest of the cats, enjoys a cuddle

Left and below: Kipps enjoying some headbutts with Anita

Terry, who’s tabby and white, has also been watching us from the table and now comes to partake of a little catnip, sprayed on his toys, and it’s only when I get down on the floor to play with him and Spud that I feel another set of eyes on my back – a quiet black cat is calmly taking note of proceedings from the seclusion of his comfy wicker cat pod. ‘That’s Jack’, Anita tells me. ‘He’s 13 now and he’s the brother of Ennis’. Jack and Ennis first came to Anita as foster kittens, but it soon became apparent that they both had serious knee problems so they had to have major surgery when they were about 18 months old. After that they couldn’t be rehomed so came back to live with Anita permanently. ‘They walk okay, although if you watch Jack from the back you can see that he has quite a swaying gait’, Anita says. Jack’s quite shy with visitors (although he does allow me a stroke of the head and a quick photo) and Anita says he stays in his bed a lot now but loves cuddles. ‘We have a morning routine here in this room’, she tells me. ‘Jack comes up here on the sofa for cuddles, then Nancy (who, unlike Kipps, loves being brushed!) comes up here and miaows at me until I give in and brush her, while Kipps does headbutt kisses’.

I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon with Anita and her furry and feathered family and I left on a high, feeling very much in awe of her complete dedication to animal welfare, both in her personal and professional life. Not many people would be willing to take on cats or other animals with problems; the ones who have health issues, who are traumatised, who don’t trust humans, who aren’t easy to love or who need extra care. Giving a home to the ‘un-rehome-able’ takes a special kind of person and the loving home Anita and Alex have created shows that with patience and perseverance there’s always hope for any cat and we should never give up on them. ‘I was always known for being the cat lady,’ Anita says, showing me the cat cuddle jumper that was a present from her sister. It’s a hoody with cat ears and a lovely fleecy pouch in which you literally wear your chosen cuddlee. The jumper now lives on a mannequin where the pouch makes a lovely snug bed for a young squirrel! ‘One day we slipped it off the dummy and over my head onto me and I wore it for the afternoon then I took it off, we put it back there and the squirrel didn’t even wake up!’ she laughs. ‘So yes, I was always “the cat lady” but now I think I’m “the squirrel lady” too!’

Get in touch at: SpendTime@TimeSpentWithCats.com

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@UKTimeSpentWithCats

Not all eight feline family members were at home to visitors; some are a little shyer than others or were off doing Very Important Cat Business (the only kind of cat business, of course) elsewhere. Or maybe having a quiet nap. Either way, Ennis and Nancy had decided that 15 minutes of minor internet fame was not for them thank you very much, while Timmy is semi-feral so didn’t put in an appearance. Nancy, a very pretty dark tortoiseshell lady, stayed outside but I caught a glimpse of her peering in through the window a couple of times just to keep an eye on things. The other cats, meanwhile, were more than happy to supervise proceedings so we were in safe paws.

All Anita’s cats were originally rescue cats and many have had to overcome serious difficulties or health problems. Some started out as temporary visitors being fostered while waiting to be re-homed and ended up staying permanently. ‘We’ve mostly kept those who have issues or who were difficult to re-home’, Anita tells me. She has a background in animal welfare, both professionally – which was an all-encompassing, 24/7 job - and also as a volunteer, in which capacity she’s done everything from hand-rearing orphaned kittens to carrying out home visits prior to re-homing, to acting as a trustee. She’s still involved with several animal charities and, of course, retains strong connections in the field, making her top of the list of people to call when there’s an animal in need. Even her two ducks, Gilbert and Sullivan, were rescues. ‘They were due to be destroyed because they couldn’t be re-homed’, says Anita, ‘so my friend rang me up and said “do you want a duck?” and I said “no...” but of course I took both of them!’ The two ducks now live happily in the garden, where they have deluxe accommodation including a house and pond which Anita built for them. At first Gilbert suffered from sore feet, she tells me, because walking on gravel gave him a fungal infection in the pads of his feet and they swelled up and caused him discomfort when he walked. ‘He had an operation to remove the infection and had stitches in his pads. I needed to protect his feet after the operation (because it’s hard to confine a duck!) so I made him some neoprene shoes to allow him freedom whilst his pads healed’. When we go to say hello to them, Gilbert – feet now in fine fettle – is having a loud conversation with the hens, with Sullivan chipping in now and again, (and I’ve now learned that it’s only female ducks who actually make the ‘quack’ sound. Males make a totally different sound, and also have the brighter yellow bills.) Four of the five hens (Constance, Dolores, Elspeth, Florence, Grace and Rita) are ex-battery hens, now enjoying a very happy, healthy retirement, while the other came from a friend.

Terry, who’s now ten, also likes a bit of fuss but hasn’t always been as confident as he is now. He and his two siblings were rescued by the RSPCA when they were young – the three of them had been kept in a rabbit hutch for the first year or their life. ‘It was a really sad case of hoarding’, Anita tells me. ‘The owner had mental health issues, and part of their illness was that in their mind they believed they were ‘tidying things away’ – so they kept cats in the airing cupboard and cats in the kitchen cupboards and Terry and his two siblings in the rabbit hutch.’ Not surprisingly, this left the cats with a few problems of their own. ‘Terry was a little bit agoraphobic at first because he’d spent a year in that tiny space, and also he didn’t know how to jump and leap properly, so he had to learn all that. He used to be a bit like Mrs Doyle in the Father Ted episode where she gets all ready to jump and then just falls forward off the stool!’ Terry’s now clearly happy and well-adjusted (and his catting skills have definitely developed), which is a testament to the patience, care and love Anita’s given him over the years.

In fact, Terry played quite a key role in bringing Anita and her partner together. ‘Alex and I have been together for years now but before we were together I used to do home visits for the RSPCA. I’d been fostering Terry and he was up for being re-homed and Alex and his housemates asked if they could adopt him. I said “I’ll have to do a home visit on you first” - I think it might actually have been a ruse to get me alone!’ The home visit was successful (as, clearly, was the ruse!) because Alex adopted Terry and then got together with Anita. Eighteen months later, they all moved in together and Terry was officially back. ‘Actually, Terry had been a bit of a nuisance to the others when he was here the first time,’ Anita tells me, ‘so in a way we were all quite relieved when he went off to live with Alex. The other cats thought they’d got rid of him…. then eighteen months later and here he comes again saying “hey - I’m back!”.’ Luckily, Terry had settled down a bit by then so he was less of a nuisance the second time around. As little furry Cupid Terry had clearly sussed out early on in proceedings, Alex is a cat person too. Chatting over a cup of tea, both Anita and I agree that we couldn’t live without cats and that we couldn’t be with anyone who wasn’t a fellow cat person. Anita remembers that years ago, they thought Alex might be developing an allergy to cat fur: ‘He said, “what are we going to do if it turns out I’m allergic?” and I said “No…you mean what are YOU going to do!” she laughs. Fortunately for all concerned, he wasn’t allergic, and the rest - as they say - is history! With such a well ‘catified’ house, and with cats being (as any cat owner will attest) utterly shameless freeloaders, it’s no surprise to hear that other neighbourhood cats often pop round to make use of the facilities. ‘Yes, a couple of the neighbours’ cats virtually live here’ Anita says ‘ and there’s another one, a big grey tabby girl, who’ll come in just to sleep on the rug overnight. Mine have learned to accept her, but she can be a right little cow to them when she feels like it – she’ll growl at them sometimes’. The price for admission is submitting to the dreaded flea and worm treatment, (which seems a fair enough exchange to me). ‘We do them when we do our own cats’ Anita says, ‘because if you’re coming in here, you’re having the treatment!’ Administering flea and worm treatments to eight cats plus or minus a number of hangers- on must be a mammoth task, I say, thinking of how melodramatic and diva-like my own cats get whenever de-fleaing time rolls around. Some are more difficult than others, she tells me. ‘With Timmy, who’s semi-feral, we have a good system going now - Alex has to wait on one side of the cat flap with the cage and I’ll be on the other side ready for him’. I definitely don’t envy Anita and Alex that particular task!

Top: Spud poses in a patch of sunlight

Above: Anita with Terry

Left: Kipps watches us from the back of the sofa

Above: Gilbert (back) and Sullivan (front)

Below left: three of the very happy hens gossiping

Below left: ‘well, of course it was all completely down to ME

that mum and dad got together in the first place’

Below: Spud yet again demonstrates his uncanny knack for

finding photogenic shafts of sunlight to pose in.

Would you like to meet Nigel the baby squirrel?’ Anita asks. Well, let me tell you - I didn’t need asking twice! After all - baby squirrel; what could possibly be cuter? Not much, is the answer to that - Nigel is gorgeous and I’m utterly smitten! He’s an orphan that Anita’s hand- rearing and would otherwise have had to be put to sleep. He’s about seven weeks old now and feeding himself on nuts, but when he first arrived he was only about four weeks old and Anita had to bottle feed him. When I meet him, he’s happily nestled behind a cushion on an armchair, although he has a lovely little house of his own in front of the T.V. that he can retreat into if he wants to. He’s learned to use a litter tray most of the time too. At night, he sleeps in a large cage for safety, but during the day he’s free in the house. ‘Squirrels can be totally independent by the time they’re fourteen weeks old’ Anita says ‘so in a few weeks Nigel will be allowed access to the great outdoors in an enclosed space.’ This is the first time I’ve ever stroked a squirrel or seen one at such close quarters and I’m struck by how soft he is and his bright, intelligent eyes - and it’s lovely to see what a bond he has with Anita; how much he trusts her and how he responds to her. What about the cats, I ask. Fortunately, Anita tells me, only one of them shows even the slightest interest in Nigel (just as well, because it sounds as though Nigel would win paws-down if it came to an inter-species ‘tooth-off’!)