Living with Cats, 2

Charles.

Charles was found in a local branch of the RSPCA by friends. He was a small, if feisty, ball of fluff. Tortoiseshell beige and brown, long-haired. And of indeterminate breed. My friends loved him at first bite.

Charles settled in at the family home, rapidly showing that he was fond of biting. And clawing, almost anything he could reach, and in fact, many things my friends were absolutely certain there was no way he could reach, Charles educated them.

There is nothing, and nowhere, a determined kitten cannot get to if they put their mind to it.

They had some idea within the first week of what they had let themselves in for when they found him halfway up the wall. Attached, by his very sharp little claws, to the wallpaper. He had found that he could climb the walls if he wanted, and apparently, the sight of a fly on the wall was sufficient encouragement for him to want to. It was not unusual, when visiting, to be greeted by a peeping meow from the top of curtains, behind coats in a cupboard, on top of kitchen units, from inside the shower when visiting the bathroom, and we were assured, they had once come home to find him trying to puzzle out how to get down from one of the ceiling lights. Charles was a climber.

Charles was also growing.

He developed into a large cat and kept on developing, eventually growing into a very large cat. Not quite a Main Coon, but not far off. He would lay in his favourite spot in the front window, stretched out to get as much sunlight as he could, and from front paw to the base of tail he was 3 ft long, add in the very bushy tail and he could stretch almost across the full front bay windowsill. His penchant for climbing had not gone away, but he now had to seriously consider his climbing targets. Some of his climbing routes as a kitten could no longer take his size. A fact he found out when jumping on to a set of conveniently left out cardboard boxes he promptly fell through the top as the slightly damp material gave way.

Charles had developed that look cats can give when a human laugh at their loss of dignity. The haughty glare that promises retribution.

Inside the family home, Charles was quite content to be petted and to be the centre of attention. Outside he would ignore even family. His dignity would not allow acknowledgement, or recognition of anyone.

But Charles RULED the local block.

One of his favourite lounging places was in the guttering of the back, ground floor, roof, this extension to the terraced house had been built by a previous tenant of the house, a post war city 2 up two down, to fit a kitchen and extend the living area in the ground floor. The guttering was just above the back door to the property and caught the sun in a nice suntrap when his other favourite sunbathing post of the front window was not available, or when the morning sun had travelled across to shine in the back way of the house.

Here he could keep an eye on the comings and goings of the local neighbours, observe any interesting activities of birds, keep an eye out for the neighbouring Rottweilers getting their exercise in a back yard, ( the only dog in the city that had a truce with Charles, due to the fact that his owner had found out that using a fairy liquid bottle as a water cannon was the best way to separate the two, the dog loved the water stream, and the cat thought that wet fur was most definitely an insult to his dignity). And take a gentle swipe at people as they came out of the back door.

This gave everyone quite a surprise when not used to it. But Charles had the bigger surprise one day.

The people who gave him a place to stay, note again, (nobody owns a cat), had brought in the plumbers to sort out an outside pipe that emerged from the concrete to supply the house via a short length of Lead piping. This being the way in which all the houses on their street had been built. This pipe had a habit of freezing up in winter, thus cutting off the water supply to the house. The owners had decided to see if the pipe could be redirected or lagged to stop this happening. The pipe in question was just to the right of the back door where Charles had his resting place.

The plumber arrived to assess the work. Arriving at the front door had the job explained to him and said he would need to have a look at the offending pipe to see what work was involved. Showing him through the house the owner had no idea that Charles was in his throne on the guttering, in fact he had not even thought of warning the plumber.

The gent walked through the door, and down came the paw of his royalness, neatly swiping the hairpiece off the gents head.

Charles, apparently, sat up with the hairpiece attached to his paw, looking at it in curiosity, and a little bit of alarm. He shook his paw to get rid of the strange furry thing that had just come off his victims head. It did not come off, Charles had hooked his claws into the weave of the wig and it was tangled on to his paw. The cat's actions became more frantic as he waved it back and forward, starting to hiss in frustration, meanwhile, the plumber was shouting about his expensive hairpiece and threatening to charge the owner for the cost.

Eventually, the wig fell off Charles’s claw and fell to the roof, where the cat, now curious leant forward to sniff at the ‘dead furry thing’. The plumber made the mistake of jumping up to try to retrieve his now forlorn headpiece, and Charles not willing to give up his prize grabbed it in his mouth and ran off.

Plumber and owner stared at the disappearing cat and hairpiece before starting to argue over who was going to pay for the damage.

Charles came back that night without the wig, it was never seen again. The plumber refused to countenance working for the owner, and the pipe continued to freeze up in winter.

The owner put up a sign in the front door, “beware of the cat”.

Nobody local Laughed.

But Charles RULED the local block.

He first made an impression on the neighbors when he was seen in the street by a local Alsatian. This Dog, as is normal with some dogs, had a need to run after cats to bark, and chase or attack.

Charles was sat on the pavement, looking around for something of interest, casually grooming himself. An attitude described as surveying his kingdom by one of his house providers. (cats are NOT owned by anybody).

The Dog, seeing the Hated CAT. had pulled the lead out of its owner’s hands and ran snarling and barking towards Charles.

Charles seemed oblivious, there was a particularly intriguing, or irritating Knot of hair that was of much more importance than some mere dog.

That was until the dog got within 2 feet of Charles, who suddenly erupted into a 3 ft tall snarling screaming dervish with 10 Razor sharp claws slicing across the Dog's nose.

The dog rapidly turned whimpering and bleeding and ran back to its owner. Said owner later relating that the cat seemed to ignore the dog from then on and returned to the irritating hair knot it had been trying to untangle before being so rudely interrupted.

The dog refused point blank from that day to go anywhere near that street and would stare for a while at any cat it saw before doing its chase and bark routine. Apparently, it would still chase cats, just not tortoiseshell ones. Or large ones. Or ones on the street where its education had been.

Charles was king.

The years progressed, Charles mellowed, ever so slightly.

The neighbor's rottweiler and Charles struck up a truce, Charles would go over to visit when the dog was let out, and the two of them sat amiably together in the back yard, sunbathing. Now and again, when the dog did as dogs do and started barking at things, ( people knocking on the door, another cat going past, a piece of paper flying on the wind, whatever). The cat would wake up, give the dog That Stare and if the dog did not shut up, which the LOOK usually managed to convey, Charles would either wander back to his place above the door. Or, and this was attested to by the dogs owner, he would walk in front of the barking dog, sit down, stare at the dog, and if it did not shut up within a few minutes, Charles would swipe his paw at the dog as if to say “ that’s enough, next time its Claws Out”. Apparently, the Dog would sit down, look embarrassed, and shut up.

Charles had a reputation, the Rottie knew it.

As he aged he became more attached to his owner and started to follow whenever the owner left the house on foot. Following half a street behind to see where his friend was going. After a few blocks he would turn back, but over the years he went further and further until eventually, he would follow them where ever they went.

This caused a few incidents.

The first time Charles’s owner/Friend knew that he had followed them to their destination was when they were sat at the bar of their local pub, and Charles sauntered up, jumped up on the bar, sniffed at the pint of bitter his friend had in his hand then sat down to keep them company.

The Pub owner asked for my friend to take his cat down off the bar, and very carefully this was accomplished, two or three times, until Charles decided that this was not worth the fight, he sat down under the stool, meowed until his friend put his packet of open beef crisps down for him. Then curled up to wait for the journey home.

From then on Charles became a regular, and the pub Patrons accepted him as part of the fittings. The dogs who normally came in with their owners were all local dogs and knew Charles, so there was never any problem, the dogs sat quietly in their place, and Charles ignored them, situation normal. The publican even went so far as to leave a small bowl of water and a packet of crisps on the floor for him.

He went to the shops, the pub, on walks to the local park where the local dogs soon learned to leave him alone, and the local Squirrels soon learned to shut up and let him pass. The Ducks on the pond kept to the middle until he had left.