Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales

Walking a paranoid cat on a harness can only lead to disaster…

No, no,” I stressed to my slightly annoyed cat-sitting client on the phone. “I’m certainly not saying Edcase is a nasty cat. I’m just saying he can be a bit feisty at times (read ‘violently psychotic’) and trying to take him for a walk might prove… problematic.”

My client wouldn’t be swayed, however. She often took Edcase for a walk on his harness, she told me, and he was fine about it. She also pointed out that he was never “feisty” with anyone else.

“OK,” I conceded, wondering how Edcase came about his name if he really was all sweetness and light, “I’ll definitely give it another try. It’s just last time he gave me a bit of a nip (viciously imprinted his dental records on my forearm) but if you say he’s fine now…”

It all started well. Edcase allowed me to fasten his harness with nothing but an interested meow, before being happily led into the garden for his morning constitutional. So happy was he, he skipped ahead of me, and it was at this point my problems began.

As Edcase walked on, he suddenly became aware that somebody was following him. Me. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked suspiciously over his

I desperately tried to help Edcase out. He desperately tried to kill me

shoulder. I stopped too. Edcase took another couple of steps, and so did I– I had to. Edcase was now almost certain he was being followed. He tried another couple of steps and, his suspicions confirmed, swung round and hissed.

Then, totally unexpectedly, he ran full pelt down the garden steps. Caught unawares and teetering dangerously on the top step, I had no choice but to go with him, running at breakneck speed down 15 steps before finally managing to bring myself to a halt just short of a fishpond.

The main problem with my sudden halt was that Edcase hadn’t stopped, and instead attempted to vault over the pond and away from me. There could be only one outcome. His leash twanged tight and he dropped like a stone straight into the middle of the pond.

Now I was in big trouble. As I desperately tried to help Edcase out of the water, Edcase desperately tried to kill me. When he finally did manage to clamber onto dry land, his next move was to take a sudden bolt to the right, draping his lead around an ornamental cat statue, causing me to send it splashing into the pond.

As I watched the statue’s face sink slowly out of sight, I couldn’t help but feel things weren’t going that well. Two cats in a pond in two minutes – that’s a record even for me.

After a lot of pulling and begging, I finally managed to get an absolutely livid Edcase back into his kitchen. I won’t go into too much detail about my efforts to remove the harness. Suffice to say that I did, and Edcase was soon happily purring again while I hunted for some plasters.

Cats hunt me, I hunt plasters. It’s what we do.