Jul 18th, 2015

Author: donich_admin

The grass is always greener…

I was trying to come up with an apt analogy for why the things we can’t get are always more desirable than the ones presented to us. I’m not sure the grass one is exact but the principal of the saying seems to apply to cats as much as humans…

To say that we don’t keep our two on short rations would be the understatement of the century. Not only do they have ham, prawns, chicken etc. at regular intervals, but they get as many pouches of Felix ‘As good as it looks’ as they want, and on top of that, just in case they feel a bit peckish, they have an always available big bowl of ‘Go Cat’ dried biscuits. Not surprisingly, with all the other things available, the dry biscuits in the bowl rarely get touched, but yesterday I left the box on the table, and Tora suddenly went nuts to get its contents, knocking it over, scooping the biscuits out with his paw and consuming them with great relish. All this was done with him obviously thinking he was being naughty and stealing a match on the humans, when in fact the exact same food was sitting in the bowl and we were only too glad to see him eat some (it is good for his teeth).

This tells us a lot about feline nature. Of course the other thing the cats would like is to catch a squirrel. A new batch have just left the dray and are coming to the feeding table (I think about eight of them), they are tiny, pale fawn and incredibly sweet. Both cats have taken to hiding in the bushes behind the main feeding area and it seems inevitable they will end up getting one as their love of nuts seems to outweigh the fear of the cats. Having said that, I think the fact that we provide such a lot of food has enabled a huge expansion in the squirrel population, hopefully greatly outweighing any negative effect from the cats.