The Gratitude Of Cats

Recently, I read a piece by Kevin Connolly, the BBC journalist based in Jerusalem, in which he spoke about the sheer number of feral cats in the city and about his run-ins with the cat population that inhabits his bins.

There are a great number of cats in Mallorca as well, most of them living near to me. The word about bins has clearly spread from Israel, as the local moggies spend most of their time underneath the communal bins, on top of them (when they are closed) or inside them when they are open.

The variety of cat is enormous in that colours vary greatly. Indiscriminate and promiscuous breeding has created a catty colorific cornucopia, though the more humble and simple black version appears to dominate cat land. On one street one afternoon I encountered a small platoon of blackness. It was engaged in collective sitting and staring, separated more or less equidistantly from each other. It made no noise, just observed in a suspicious and supercilious fashion.

One of the neighbours has long provided a form of haven to the cats. I have witnessed her expenditure on Nibbles and whatever at Eroski. Some say she is a bit of a nuisance because of the provisions she provides. At least the cat snacks are on her own land, though.

A town hall, Capdepera, has introduced a system of fines for feeding animals in the street, by which it means - predominantly - the feral cats. It's ok to feed them if you have permission, though how one gets permission, I honestly couldn't say.

Thoughtful and generous humans do leave trays of food out for cats or simply take the lids off tins and place them in the vicinity of bins, the cat communal areas. Rather like the cat woman, I imagine not everyone approves of such thoughtfulness.

The thing with the cats, though, is that they are such bloody ingrates. Give them a spot of lunch and then try and engage them in a bit of human-feline bonding and they scarper. Not, in truth, that bonding which involves touching or stroking is probably advisable. God knows what's lurking in their fur.  

There is also an issue with allergies. One that I have. Cats and I don't go together terribly well. Which leads me to the story of the cat in the garden.

It appeared some time during the summer. It was from the black-cat platoon in that it was part of its progeny. Possibly. It was only a kitten but it was, after a couple of days, very much less ungrateful than the normal feral variety.

It had positioned itself under a hedge. It looked, as much as I could make out by flashing a torch, to be unwell. It was in fact injured, if only temporarily. It couldn't put one of its back legs down properly.

As cats do, it engaged in a considerable amount of mewing. You couldn't just ignore it or neglect it, and so it was fed and watered, its leg got better, it ran around, it mewed constantly, it wanted to come inside the house (which it did and had to be chased out), it would wait for the door to open in the morning and its feed to be prepared, and I wondered what the hell I was going to do with it. The allergy issue was confirmed by its proximity.

A solution, so I thought, was to take it to a refuge. Which I attempted. Having driven to one, I found its gates shut. No one answered the phone. I could have left the kitten but that would have been heartless, and I know full well it would have run back into the car anyway. So it had to come back, and proceeded to crap in the carrier I had borrowed about halfway into the return journey, which really wasn't very pleasant at all.

I tried to make contact with the refuge, only to get a reply which said that because I have an association with another refuge (which I don't as such) that I should speak to them instead. Even in the animal-welfare world, there seem to be petty rivalries. Oh, so you can give that refuge some publicity (which I hadn't), well forget about coming to us.

Anyway, I did try the other refuge. They don't take cats, so they said. Only dogs. Sorry, doesn't like much of an animal refuge if it's only for one type of animal. Might be better to say it was a dog refuge, and then there could be no misunderstanding.

No luck with the refuges, it looked as though I was stuck with the kitten and with having to put up with it crapping under hedges. This was at the height of summer as well. But as chance would have it, I just happened to mention the kitten to another neighbour. He came, he looked, he borrowed the carrier that I had borrowed (which had been hosed down by then) and he took the cat away. Next door. His small nephew appeared delighted by the gift.

I am pleased to say that the kitten has now grown. It has lost its one-time scrawniness. It appears perfectly healthy. However, it seems also to be the neighbour's ratter. As with many houses, this is a house primarily for the summer, one that is visited perhaps only once or twice a week when it isn't summer. I assume it has feed if not regular human company, so now that summer has passed, the cat has remembered where it once used to live. The one thing you can say about it, though, is that it, unlike other local cats, is obviously grateful. What the hell do I do with it?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.