Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales

Chris undertakes a satisfaction survey of his new clients…

In the course of my catsitting day job, it often crosses my mind whether cats in my care wonder what on earth I’m doing in their houses – a stranger appearing in your kitchen is always going to be a shock.

While my regular feline clients know me well and understand that I’m simply an annoyance that keeps food coming, first-time cats perhaps perceive me as a raider, a burglar who steals poo from their litter trays. Or perhaps the Santa Claws of cats, turning up with the gift of sloppy meat in jelly.

If the latter, I really wish they’d put a glass of sherry out for me rather than a dead rat.

Seriously though, what do those new cats think about my first visits? Due to people steadfastly refusing to go on holiday lately, I’ve had only three new starters recently, and their initial reactions were as follows:

1) Tommy Macdonald: Tommy, you’ll be surprised to hear, is female. While her name sounds as if it belongs to a rock-hard tabby lad stealing fish off an Aberdeen dockyard, she’s actually a pretty little Shorthair girl, more suited to sitting atop silk cushions than a pallet of haddock.

She owes her name to a kittenhood mix-up, and by the time a vet pointed it out Tommy was Tommy, and Tommy she stayed.

Her reaction to my arrival was pure annoyance. OK, your average British Shorthair always looks vaguely annoyed, but Tommy was very annoyed indeed – so much so that she greeted my hand of friendship with such a swipe I lost the skin off two knuckles.

It’s OK, I wasn’t planning to use them anyway – nobody messes with Tommy MacDonald. Official Reaction Number 1: Anger.

2) JR Ewing (that’s his real name – I suppose when your surname’s Ewing, it’s your public duty to name your cat JR). He stopped in his tracks as he ran down the hall to greet me, obviously expecting someone better, but within seconds he was welcoming me into his home like a long-lost friend, brushing round my legs and purring like a drill.

Unless JR treats all burglars this way, he certainly didn’t think I was a burglar, especially as he then happily led me straight to his most prized possession – his cat food collection – and invited me loudly to help myself. That’s if “helping myself’ meant giving it all to him. Official Reaction Number 2: Joy. 3) Suki-Sue Thompson is a lovely little tortie, “nervous of strangers but actually very affectionate and friendly”.

At least, that’s what they tell me. Four days in and I’ve yet to make her acquaintance.

Suki-Sue hears the front door, dives under a bed, and point-blank refuses to come out until I’ve gone. No amount of coaxing will convince her that I’m a nice cat-sitter, and not a psychopath hell-bent on giving her Dreamies cat treats. Official Reaction Number 3:

There’s possibly a burglar in the house.

You knew I’d totally fail to give a consistent answer to my own question, didn’t you?

Her swipe meant I lost the skin off two knuckles