SUSANNA REID
What REALLY went on at the National TV Awards
WHen it comes to the great either/or of pet ownership, I am definitely a cat person. I would love to own a dog, but somehow a dog is just not me. I’ve always had the distinct impression that they are less like a pet and more like another child.
with three teenagers in the house already and a full-time job, I prefer the low maintenance requirements of a cat, who only wants your attention when they are hungry and who doesn’t need your company to go outside.
suki, our 11-year-old black rescue cat, has always been a bit of a wanderer, and I’m normally fairly relaxed about whether she is in or out of the house. But our casual domestic arrangement doesn’t mean that my feelings for her are anything like casual.
Yes, after years of kidding myself that I wasn’t that bothered about the cat, I now have to admit that I care very much indeed.
that has been brought home to me with great clarity over the past few weeks, because it looked like we were going to lose suki. On
A stormy evening before christmas, she spent the whole night outside before turning up the next day, bedraggled and limp and clearly having had a nasty shock.
I dropped everything and rushed her to the vet. He warned us it didn’t look good. she might have been attacked by a fox.
As a child, I was devastated by the loss of three family cats who were all run over in our village — and the fear of experiencing that grief again filled me with dread.
the thought of not having suki around made me realise how integral a role she plays in our home and how much I love her soothing presence. It felt like we were about to lose part of the family. when the vet couldn’t work out what was wrong with her, I thought she was dying and it broke my heart.
there’s no good way to lose a beloved pet, but surely the experience receives a unique twist of gall when they’re taken from you by someone else. so I feel terribly for the couple in west London who have had to wage a legal battle to stop their neighbour stealing theirs.
Ozzy — a Maine coon — is owned by John and Jackie Hall. But if you checked his collar, you’d be forgiven for thinking he belonged to nicola Lesbirel, who fed him, looked after him at her house and put her phone number around his neck alongside the words, ‘My Home’.
the Halls hired a barrister and, following a £24,000 court case, settled after Miss Lesbirel agreed to legally binding restrictions on her contact with the cat. Yikes!
cats are notoriously fickle. regular feeding at a different house might be enough to tempt them away, insensitive to your own feelings of attachment. no wonder ‘pet seduction’ like Miss Lesbirel’s causes great anxiety.
I’m lucky to have wonderful neighbours who have helped return suki to me many times.
worst of all was the time we thought we might have lost her to one of those deranged individuals who deliberately set out to harm cats. these cases are more common than any sensible person would imagine.
there’s a true crime documentary on netflix, which I watched through my fingers in horror, called don’t Mess with cats (it has a ruder title I’ll let you look up). don’t watch it expecting cute kitten videos. Yes, it contains cute kittens, but they come to a dismal end and the film follows internet vigilantes who track down the disgusting individual they believe is responsible.
It’s all a bit too close to home for me and suki, bringing back vivid memories of the days when all cat owners in south London lived in fear of a mysterious man attacking and mutilating cats.
dubbed the ‘ croydon cat Killer’, he was said to have hurt 250 pets and the Metropolitan Police set up a special unit to investigate. Just as it all kicked off, suki went missing and I went into a tailspin. I wandered the streets, sticking photographs to lampposts and putting them on car windscreens.
Luckily, some children spotted her a few roads away. she had become disoriented, so they wrapped her up in one of their coats and took her to the vet, who scanned her microchip.
After many months, scotland Yard dismissed the idea that the ‘cat Killer’ existed at all — and blamed foxes for all those damaged cat remains.
But no matter how often suki scares the living daylights out of me, I’ll always adore her.
I marvel at my attachment to a creature that remains so independent and ignores me until she needs food or a warm spot for a nap. come to think of it, she’s
exactly like one of the teenagers. no wonder I’d be so out of sorts with a dog.