Things you don't expect...(4)

Inability to defend his (or her) territory can be a great source of distress for an infirm cat. Intruders appear and leave their scents on doorposts and window sills. The sick cat looks out and howls helplessly. It was years, rather than months, after Banjo’s operation, before he could once again effectively defend his territory.

Banjo takes his responsibilities very seriously, and we are given the impression that he is carrying out his duties on behalf of the humans as well as the cats in the family. He expects to be rewarded when he knocks loudly to be admitted after time spent patrolling or on guard. Occasionally he demands that Sherpa relieve him. I have seen him come in and walk directly towards her before head butting her. Then she invariably asks to be let out, but returns soon after.

In the presence of an invader, Sherpa can change from a gentle pussy to a feline Amazon. Taking courage from my presence, I have seen her chase after and pounce on a large gib. Fearful for her safety I could only watch as, to the accompaniment of loud squawking, tufts of cat fur rose through the air before the gib vanished through a hole in the hedge.

We will never know for certain how she lost her beautiful tail. The vet who saved her life by amputating the already almost severed tail and dosed her with an antibiotic to treat a large abscess, said she could see on the patient the marks of a cat’s teeth.

Defence of territory can be a costly business.

Things you don't expect (3)

The time has come to broach the uncomfortable subject of Banjo’s diet. Our male cat feeds almost exclusively on raw beef mince, preferably the cheapest, pot-luck sort with excess fat removed. The meat must come from a certain butcher’s shop and it is a complete mystery to us how he can distinguish it from meat of similar quality bought elsewhere. Perhaps the secret lies in the mincing machine, perhaps not.

Banjo eats in the evening and early in the morning when he is prepared to ingest food he refuses at other times. He knows that at 5am there is no chance of fresh meat. After I have been to the butcher’s, I present him with a little of the older meat he has previously refused alongside some of the fresh meat and he usually eats both. Sherpa regularly prefers older meat to what has been recently minced.

Occasionally both cats enjoy a small piece of liver or a slice of chicken breast that has been for quick sale. They crunch small amounts of desiccated cat food and search for a saucer that contains milk, but this must not contain too much lactic acid. Conventional advice to cat owners is to provide a saucer full of water. Neither of our cats, to the best of my knowledge, has ever been remotely interested in drinking water.

People seeing Banjo are often surprised by his size. ‘He looks like a small dog,’ they say, scolding me. Banjo is a neutered male, a gib, and it is recognised that removal of testes can result in obesity. Activity and metabolism may be reduced, we are told, and a neutered male may eat more because of altered feeding behaviour. Normally a placid and contented animal, our gib can become annoyed when hungry and pouncing on Sherpa is the way his frustration finds expression.

I have learned not to leave cat food outside the back door having discovered that feline trespassers, on finding this bounty, return in hope day after day mewing piteously. On a couple of occasions I surprised Banjo as he stood on the top step outside the door eating processed cat food, all of which he really dislikes. He was defending his territory.

Sometimes I place food in front of both cats and a couple of minutes later find them looking at it while it is still untouched. When I stroke their heads they start to eat. I have sometimes wondered if Banjo, in particular, asks for food when what he really wants is attention and reassurance that he is still loved.

When I am serving food to visitors I can be sure that both cats will appear and expect to be fed. They find usurpers occupying their favourite seats so there is no question of compounding their discomfiture by ignoring them.

I used to believe that animals ate because of a simple biological instinct. Cats have taught me that I was wrong.

Things you don't expect - part 2

Through no fault of their own cats are not the easiest of patients. When Banjo was discharged after his operation, James, the vet, gave me a packet of antibiotic tablets with instructions that he was to be given two twice daily. It must have come as no surprise to those in the veterinary clinic when I rang up to say that their patient was refusing to take his medication, even though it was buried at the centre of a delicious meatball.

My experience of taking antibiotics at a time when treatment made me abnormally sensitive to smell has made me more sympathetic to cats. My antibiotics smelt so disgustingly of mould, the only way I could take them without being sick was to keep my nose pinched tightly with one hand while putting a tablet in my mouth with the other and immediately washing it down with water.

For most of the ten days following his operation I brought Banjo to the clinic for an injection. After Sherpa’s operation she was given a single injection of a slow-release antibiotic, for which I was deeply grateful.

Things you don't expect when you bring your cat to the vet

The phone rang one Monday morning while John and I were still in bed. A lady told us that a neighbour of hers had, while walking his dog, found a large charcoal cat that had been hit by a car.

Banjo was mewing pitifully at the mouth of the lane where he had been left. I brought his bed and he managed to climb into it. Sherpa watched as John drove out of the gate, with me sitting in the front passenger seat holding the box with her brother on my knee. I assumed that she must be feeling very distressed.

At the veterinary clinic Banjo was sedated, X-rayed and found to have a broken femur. The following day he had an operation to insert a metal plate and on Thursday he was discharged.

Sherpa came to meet the car. She had been very happy having the house to herself while Banjo was in hospital, but I expected her to feel pleased that her brother was still alive. Instead, when she caught sight of a cat with shaved and stitched legs and that smelt strongly of antiseptics, she hissed and disappeared. Terror kept her away from the patient for several weeks.

When Sherpa in turn had to have her tail amputated, she received no sympathy from Banjo. Her hostility to him during his recovery was fully reciprocated.

Cats are very different to us aren’t they? Since I started to write this I remembered an event from a time when I was twelve and a first-year pupil at grammar school. One Saturday afternoon I walked with a friend to visit someone she knew who was a patient at the local hospital. Years before, I had happily played in the grounds of this hospital while siblings were having arms encased in plaster of Paris, but on this occasion someone was burning rubber and that smell connected with illness disturbed me so much I avoided the road for a long time sfterwards.