Life's ruff
The cat has lost his ruff again. I'm beginning to lose count, but I reckon that was his sixth since I started making him wear them less than a year ago. I don't know how he does it - on purpose or accidentally, using a tool or his paw - but it's getting a bit wearisome. Now I'll have to go and sew him another one. I actually just bought another length of fabric a few days ago for precisely this eventuality. Did he know, and want a change from the frankly insulting bird pattern of the most recent one - or is it just sneaky coincidence in operation again?
The purpose of the ruff is to make him more noticeable to the birds that I'm ashamed and frustrated to know he still hunts, being ex-feral. I first came across cats wearing ruffs in Reykjavik, and was more amused than anything to see what I assumed was Icelanders' preference for decorated cats - kind of fitted in with all the brightly-coloured buildings in the city. Later, I learned the true reason, and was converted.
Regular 😀 readers will be well aware, since I keep harping on about it, that I should at this very moment be in fabulous Iceland again, about to sail away to new-to-me Greenland, courtesy of also new-to-me luxury small-ship cruise line Seabourn. But instead, here I am stuck at home, being nagged for food by incontinent sparrows and doves outside my window, with nothing to look forward to.
I suppose I should be grateful to Barney for giving me something to do...
3 comments:
I didn’t know ex-feral was a demographic in NZ. Wasn’t there an effort to eradicate feral cats? Did you have to rescue the cat from a murderous mob?
Feral cats are just one item on a dispiritingly long list that starts with possums and includes rats, stoats, weasels, ferrets, deer, tahr, hedgehogs, wallabies, goats and more, that were all introduced to NZ, all prey on our native species or eat the vegetation they need, and are all subject to ongoing eradication efforts, which so far have only fully succeeded on islands and in fenced reserves.
Barney was trapped and looked after by the SPCA until I adopted him. Other groups trap them, de-sex them and then release them again, which is just stupid. If I'd known Barney would retain so many of his wild habits, I wouldn't have taken him on. Despite the ruff and the bells, he still catches birds and I hate that about him.
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