CONFESSIONS OF A CAT-SITTER
With the easing of lockdown, cat-sitter Chris Pascoe has wondered how it has affected his feline friends — and the answer is: not very much…
Chris considers how lockdown has affected the cats on his rounds.
Summed up in scientif ic terms,they simply didn't give a monkey's uncle.
Now that everything has sort of returned to normal and I can pretend I’m missing wiping down every single new can of Sheba Melting Hearts with a disinfectant wipe, I’ve been pondering, what did the cats make of it all?
There are a few cats on my cat-sitting rounds who live with, shall we say, slightly ‘over-enthusiastic’ canine companions — so enthusiastic that they need to be muzzled when mixing with polite society. So I think those cats, including tabby Penelope, Russian Blue Stalin, and the manically-affectionate Burmese Lester (big paw waves to you three if you’re reading!) probably just assumed their owners started wearing masks to stop them biting people.And yes, I don’t feel Stalin is a great name for a cat either — his brother Lenin certainly agrees.
What did all the other cats on my rounds think of it all though? Things like their cat-sitter looking like a masked burglar about to steal from their litter trays? Based on my experience of all the cats I managed to visit during lockdowns, they thought... absolutely nothing about it.Apart from my own cat Bodmin choosing to climb on to the roof and sleep cuddling the chimney, rather than spend time with me, I detected no change in any single one of the cats in my care. Summed up in scientific terms, they simply didn’t give a monkey’s uncle. No wait, that’s cockney terms, I meant to say lockdowns were observed to cause no discernible behavioural changes to the feline community. So yes, they couldn’t give a monkey’s uncle.
And that, for me, very much sums up my favourite thing about being a cat. Not a care in the world…except for sudden movements… or loud noises…um, and trips to the vet's, fleas, shared litter trays, toddlers, next door’s tabby… OK, this is ending up a bit like ‘What did the Romans ever do for us’ so I’ll change tack and tell you about a certain cat, mentioned in my articles here quite recently, who despite having a loving home, successfully managed to present as a stray at a nearby holiday home, thus securing double rations of everything, every day. Regular readers may recall that I was the cat-sitter charged with feeding him at the lockdown-empty holiday home in question and upon suspecting his deceit, followed him into the woods one day, only to see him being happily greeted at his real home. When asked by the owner why I was standing in the woods looking over her fence, I managed to blurt out “Ever so sorry, I was following your cat” before disappearing into the trees and leaving the impression there was something wrong with me.
Have I suffered the embarrassment of ever running into that owner again? Yes, this week, I coincidentally became her official cat-sitter, employed to feed ‘you-know-who.’ Upon my pre-visit, she said ‘I feel I know your face from somewhere?’ but I think I got away with it. Unless she reads Your Cat, of course.