A Month in the Country 8 - International Day of the Cat

We seem to have an 'International Day of….' So many things these days - but today is significant - it is, apparently, International Cat Day! This cannot be left unacknowledged. As anyone who is owned by a cat will be well aware, they are not creatures whose National Day can be ignored…so before I am brought up short with stares and meows, pitiful collapses at my feet or claws inserted deeply into my lap, let me remind you all to not forget to pay obeisance on this Very Important Day!

Joking apart…our companion animals *are* important to us, aren't they? - both in their presence, and in their absence when they die. They give us life-long company and love - for some people, the deepest love that they will experience, especially if human relationships in that department have been less than satisfactory. They teach us, in some of the first lessons in life, of what it means to care for and take responsibility for another living being.

I grew up with animals always being  a part of my life…my father was a Police Dog Handler in the Royal Air Force during WW2 - I learned to walk hanging on to the rump of a German Shepherd.

I was fortunate to have an aunt and grandmother living on a farm, so in my early days, I was also surrounded by dairy cattle, sheep, goats and chickens. Dad also - like most people who had space in Wartime Britain - kept backyard chickens and rabbits (but with little sentimentality - my 'pets' were often his Sunday Casserole).

We also, always, had a cat. Those at the farm were very much working animals, but the cats at home were allowed to be purely pets. At Autumn Cottage, not only are they 'allowed' to be whatever they want, but they - Fluffy and The Smooth One, Sandy (thrown out of a car outside the house when he was five weeks old). PussyCat, Tabitha, Spot, Sintra and Lissie, Lily and our dear and present Pip - live the life of Riley, with fields and garden to roam, coming and going as they please (but always locked in at night, against  Fox, Badger and other threats to feline lives).

This house is not a home without a cat - other friends feel the same about their dogs…what is common is that feeling of shared lives and being a part of the family. When they depart - as a couple of friends' beloved companions have done very recently, they leave a creature shaped hole that can take a long time to shrink. If we love them, we don't ever really forget them - and I, for one, am entirely happy with that.

 

Journal prompt. Do you have companion animals - or have you ever had them in the past? Who became your companions…cats…dogs…or ??? What memories do you have of them - of their quirks and idiosyncrasies? What did they give you in their lives? How have you remembered them when they have gone?

Memorial to Tiddles, the Church Cat, Fairford Church, Gloucestershire

Comments

[Diana Birchall]

Thank you for this lovely picture of Pip looking just a bit smug is a basket! Hail and obeisance to my beloved friend across the water, from me and my three equally entitled creature cat companions, Pindar, Martial, and Catullus!

[Ardi Butler]

Such truth you speak, Roz. Abby really does run the show. Even Baxter is afraid of her. She has no front claws (alas, done before we got her by daughter's ex) and yet she still swings a mean paw at Baxter whenever she walks by. I think she seems him as the usurper. Her personality is so unlike the dogs we've had over the years - she is much more independent and yet there are little tender things we have come to enjoy - watching her climb out the dining room window and sit on the soft towel we have placed on a chair for her so she can soak up the afternoon sun. Then as the sun drops, she climbs right back in and tidies herself and curls up on one or the other of us for another nap. Thanks for sharing. Pip looks quite pleased with having found that wee basket all for him.