Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales
Years as a stray have taught Bodmin strikingly subtle tactics for getting his way
Bodmin, the giant black stray cat who moved in a few years ago and never left (mainly because nobody had the nerve to ask him to) has been – to put it politely – taking the mickey just lately.
Remember, this is a cat who spent years in the wild, living on his wits, desperately seeking shelter from the rain, eating whatever he could lay his paws on. Why then, does he now turn his nose up at all but the most expensive cat foods, and insist on regular meals of cooked chicken and salmon? That’s quite a turnaround, isn’t it – rats to home cooking in two years.
And how does he communicate his preferences?
Quite cleverly, actually. Bodmin is a quiet cat – quietly intimidating.
He first displayed this trait when dealing with his two new housemate cats. He’d tolerate all their early growling and hissing, and simply stand staring at them, without moving a muscle. After around thirty seconds, he’d suddenly make a very sharp movement, usually an upward flick of the front paw in a motion resembling unsheathing of a sword.
The effect on his opponent was always dramatic – involving high-speed retreats, and very probably leading to a trip to the litter tray.
Bodmin would never pursue – he’d simply sit down and start licking the flicked front paw. A masterclass in feline passive aggression.
Now his housemates have grown to accept him, he’s turned this aggression on the fridge… and us. We’ll serve him a bowl of cat food, which he’ll sniff at before looking up at us with his tongue half out… very expressive.
Nowhere near as expressive as the next part of his routine though – he then starts making small diggingmotions all around his food bowl, as if burying something foul in a litter tray. Finally, he walks to the fridge, where he knows there’s better stuff, and stares at it.
You try to ignore him, washing the dishes, putting the kettle on, meowing to yourself (I’ve developed some strange habits), but all the time, out of the corner of your eye, you can’t help but notice there’s a huge silent cat in the middle of the floor staring intently at the fridge.
You try to hold your nerve and hope he goes back to his food bowl, now metaphorically buried in cat litter, but you can’t. He breaks you, just like he breaks cats.
So, our once desperate stray is now living in luxury, eating better food than us, but there are still some elements of being a pet he can’t quite got to grips with.
For instance his idea of luxury is crawling inside a box or lying on a carrier bag, ignoring every cushion in the house – which makes me quite sad, as I imagine all those years he spent seeking out anything to shield him from wet grass and cold wind.
His favourite thing of all though, is to sit staring out of the window, especially when it’s raining. As my daughter Maya quite poignantly pointed out, “He’s happy now because he’s inside looking out, not outside looking in…”
There’s a huge, silent cat staring intently at the fridge