The Cat Detective
Chris is sure there’s something fishy about Wildcat-Toby…
My cat-sitting website clearly states that I feed your cat while you’re away. However, there’s a habit here on the Isle of Wight of not living in your own house. The reason is that there are a lot of holidayhome owners who only spend a certain amount of time on the island, and so obviously wouldn’t have a cat in their house.
So, how did I recently get asked to cat sit for someone who doesn’t live here? Well, there’s a second interesting paradox to that – I was asked to visit the house of people who don’t live there, to feed a cat that doesn’t live there either. It’s an odd world.
Wildcat-Toby is a stray. The owners of the house they don’t live in have been feeding him for years, even though Toby point-blank refuses to step inside their door. Whenever they’re in residence, Toby appears from woodland and waits patiently outside until fed. Then he’s gone. The non-residents have been worried about Toby not getting his meals, so employed me to visit daily.
Sure enough, every time I switch the kitchen light on, this long-haired tabby comes hammering out of the trees, eats his meal at break-neck speed, then legs it back through the undergrowth.
Now, although in my somewhat disastrous working life I’ve managed to foul up most jobs I’ve had (some readers may remember that as an electrician’s apprentice, I was fired due to all the explosions, and my carpetfitting boss stated he’d never known anyone so regularly miss the carpet and slash their own knees), I do know cats. I know all their lovably selfish ways, their cute stubborn natures, their gorgeous ignorance of all instructions as a point of principle, and all the other horrible things they do that I’m persisting in describing as adorable. I also know that cats are the animal kingdom’s biggest chancers, having been conned by a non-stray only recently, and the more I looked at Wildcat Toby, the more I realised… he probably wasn’t a stray either.
Three weeks into my feeding job, I decided to follow Toby into the trees. As any cat person will know, cats love being followed. Toby was livid, stopping every few yards to glare back at me as if to say, “Get back, you swine!”
I carried on, slowly, at a distance. Sure enough, after a few minutes the trees gave way to a garden and Toby was greeted at his own back door.
There are many moments in my life when I’ve totally embarrassed myself and this turned out to be one of them.
“Can I help you?” shouted not-so-Wildcat Toby’s owner upon noticing a strange man standing at her garden fence.
“No, no,” I laughed. “I was just following your cat…”
I really thought I’d get the chance to say more than that, but the door slammed and I realised I’d made myself sound like a complete lunatic.
So, do I let my clients know what Toby’s up to, or let him carry on embezzling all those extra meals? The tough decisions we have to take in the high-powered world of cat sitting…
Toby was livid at being followed and stopped to glare at me
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