If I Could Talk To the Animals...

I had just been spat at, on the back of my head, by a large Alpaca. I felt like a pebbledashed wall. There was no malice towards me, I was just caught in the crossfire.

My son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter and daughter were visiting and we were enjoying the Alpaca experience in Sanzay. We spent a thoroughly enjoyable hour learning about, feeding, patting (though never on their backside), even kissing these intriguing animals.

As I was picking the regurgitated Alpaca feed from my hair, Anna, my wife, informed me we had to make a small detour on the way home. She had seen three kittens on Facebook, who needed a home. Oh gawd, I thought, this is only going one way.

As we stared at three Walt Disney kittens, and under mild pressure from certain family members we decided to have one. Wouldn't it be wonderful for our feral cat, who had been living with us for three years now, to have a little companion. How wrong we were.

Our cat is named Pantoufle (my wife's choice), but for the sake of this article shall be hereafter known as 'big cat'. The kitten, for some reason, was to be named after a French cheese, I liked Morbier, but was over ruled and Mimolette was decided upon...for this article she will be referred to as 'little cat'.

When we got home we sat in the garden and let the little cat explore its new surroundings. Big cat then came sauntering around the corner and spotted little cat. She froze. This was going to be lovely. No. Big cat emitted a noise I had never heard her make before; a sort of guttural moaning that you might hear in a horror film. She then ran at little cat. The next bit is a blur...but big cat tried to kill little cat, there was a lot of hissing and claws flying. Anna, being a good person, tried to break up the one sided fight, but became embroiled in the dust-up and was lacerated on the arm and leg.

What had we done? What we had NOT done was a modicum of research into introducing a cat into another cat's territory. My jaw clunked open as I read on the internet how the introduction process can take months...slowly, slowly catchy monkey. What you definitely should NOT do is what we had just done. We were now into operation 'Lock the stable door, after the horse had bolted'.

Thankfully little kitten was unharmed and remarkably unfazed post dust-up. We made the spare bedroom her safe area, adding cat friendly toys, toilet rolls hanging from the ceiling and the mandatory food, water and litter tray. And there she stayed, like Anne Frank, hiding away in the back bedroom, while big cat sat outside the door hissing.

I made a door frame covered in mesh, so big cat could see little cat without being able to rip its throat out. Big cat climbed the mesh and started shaking it like a prisoner in a prison riot. A cage was erected in the garden so little cat could get some fresh air, but big cat sat with its face pushed up against the bars whispering dark threats, like Hannibal Lecter, to the cowering new arrival. This was a nightmare and totally of our own making.

The little kitten was taken to the vet for her first lot of injections. Turns out she is a he, has fleas...and worms. A special defuser costing 50€! was purchased and plugged into the wall. The slow release pheromones are supposed to have a calming effect on the aggressor. It seemed to make no difference, other than Anna kept falling asleep after spending any length of time in the kitchen.

At the time of writing little cat has the run of the house, until big cat appears at the window and little cat is ushered back to the bedroom. Thankfully the weather has been fine so big cat has been out most of the day. But when the colder weather arrives...?

We have had a succession of guests over the summer who have all been good enough to partake in the lunacy; shutting doors, covering the cats food, moving litter trays, jumping into action when, like the Cheshire cat, big cat's face appears at the window (not smiling).

Will the 50€ pheromone diffuser have any effect? Will Anna stop falling asleep at the dinner table? Will big cat grow to love, befriend, tolerate little cat? Big questions. I will keep you posted.