Cats In The West End Again (But Not In A TS Eliot Kind Of Way)

"Equity is to launch a campaign to reintroduce theatre cats into London’s historic theatres, as part of the union’s ongoing bid to improve actors’ working conditions in the West End," says The Stage...

I Can Has Paté... But For How Long?

Latest development in the ongoing saga of Janet and his hyperthyroid pills (Janet is a boy, btw, for newcomers to Under The Paw): it has been decided that submerging the pill in paté is a reliable Trojan device. This seems to be working so far, but I've thought the same with various other tactics that I've used to make him take the pill, and been proved wrong. First there was the Submerging The Pill In Reconstituted Meat method, then the Putting The Pill In A Pat Of Butter method, followed by the truly icky Cutting Open A Chunk Of Meaty Goodness And Putting The Pill Inside That Then Resealing It method. Of course, these have all been usurped at times by the Grabbing Him And Wrapping Him In A Towel And Shoving It Into His Mouth method, but I would, if possible, like to think I'm not the kind of person who would drive one of his pets to leave home for good and tell tales of cruelty to random strangers. Moreover, I wear a lot of t-shirts at the moment, and I don't relish having to repeatedly explain to friends that the state of my lower arm is not the result of self-harming. I have a pea shooter waiting in reserve, recommended to me by my Siamese-owning former neighbour, Bob, which I've used once on Janet and found quite effective (the expression on his face was possibly the most shocked I've seen since the time 8 years ago that he forgot he could fly and decided to jump out of a second storey window in pursuit of a wood pigeon). I hope things don't come to that, but they almost certainly will.

In the meantime, my main problem is a) how much paté actually costs and b) trying to explain to my other cats that, despite what some of my enemies and very good friends might claim, I cannot produce spreadable paste on demand. The latter is proving particularly difficult in the case of Pablo (see below, looking eager and unusually sane), who is currently stalking me on a near-24 hour basis and has taken his fondness for headbutting to new extremes. I mean: I like a friendly nudge from a cat as much as the next ailurophile, but I'm sure there's something wrong when an animal a tenth of your size nuts you so hard he almost sends you sprawling across your kitchen floor.

Fake Tans: How To Tell Them From The Real Thing

On their recent holiday, my parents took the above and below photos of a black cat they came across. I find that, with them, things like this happen more and more often: they say they're not massively fussed about cats these days, but it's really just a front they put on in the crooked belief that it will be a deciding factor in pulling me back from the brink of getting even more cats than I already have. In reality, they're always off on some adventure, and returning from it with photos like the two here. They call these adventures "walks" but from what I can work out they're essentially moggy-finding missions in disguise. Huge, previously untamable whiskery beasts will just mysteriously "appear" and clamber on top of my dad's back as he sleeps on a remote Derbyshire hillside. My mum will walk down a green lane and suddenly find a needy tabby at her heel. Personally, I don't know why the pair of them don't stop skirting the issue and just go ahead and get another cat to finally replace The Slink, but I suppose they're happy in their denial, and that's the important thing.

Anyway, my mum was telling me about how nice this cat was. "And of course it had that tan that some cats have," she added.

"What do you mean?" I asked

"You know, that cat tan. You can see it there - the ginger bits on the black."

"But surely that's just a black cat with a few bits of ginger on its fur."

"No, no. That's tan. It's obviously very keen on lounging in the sun, and that's why it's got it."

"But how do you know?"

"Oh, you can just tell. It obviously didn't have that colour in its fur originally."

I've done some research on this, and while it's led me to find a few cat forums where people are talking about buying special suntan lotion for cats, they seem to be referring to be stuff to put on their cat's skin, and not their fur. Then again, as my mum pointed out as our discussion continued, human hair changes colour with lots of exposure to the sun. But Shipley spends a huge amount of time basking outdoors in hot weather, and the only difference between his black fur now and his black fur when Dee and I first got him eight and a half years ago is that it is flecked with a few more streaks of grey.

I'm not entirely convinced by my mum's theory, but I'd be interested to hear anyone else's experience of cat tanning. If it is a genuine, common phenomenon, it might also explain exactly why Ralph starts to get so sensitive at this time of the year and invariably heads off to hide in one of his favourite bits of foliage. Maybe he doesn't have a special summer version of Seasonal Affective Disorder after all. I mean, I knew he was vain. But could it be that he's also a spiritual goth, and simply keen to keep his immaculate (and, to be quite honest - though I would never tell him this - not remotely goth in the first place) fur from harm?

Under A Bigger Paw

The week before last, I committed what my cats would probably consider the ultimate act of betrayal by taking a trip to Kent to The Wildlife Heritage Foundation, having been very kindly invited to have a look around by the UK's number one cat behavourist, Vicky Halls. Vicky has been extending her cat counselling repertoire recently by working with Ronja, a depressed, lame, agoraphobic female tiger originally from a German zoo, who's been living at WHF since 2004. Ronja didn't precisely seem overjoyed to see me, but is responding well to the toys and treatments that Vicky has suggested for her, which include extra-strength catnip and spare copies of the Yellow Pages*, which she rips up with her teeth in much the same way that Shipley does with my favourite paperbacks and draft manuscripts.

Since big cats don't meow or purr (although they do something vaguely similar to the latter, which WHF's keepers call "chuffling"), I found the idea that they would go loopy over catnip surprising at first, but less so the longer I spent at WHF. In the movements of the snow leopards, leopards, tigers, lynxes and cheetahs I met, I observed at the lazy swagger of my own cats, writ large. Although I was a bit nervous about putting my hand through the bars and feeding them chicken drumsticks initially, I soon became lulled into what was undoubtedly a false sense of security. Never was this more extreme than in the presence of the Pallas Cats, who, though ostensibly similar to my tabby narcissist, Ralph, would no doubt be more than happy to mess you up, ghetto-style, given half a chance. It was somewhat easier to stay circumspect around the snow leopards, Artur and Artem, whose paws are the size of Ralph's head, and whose tails work as in-built draft excluders (for warehouse fire doors, presumably). I'm glad that Vicky took the photos above, because I can put them on Facebook and make out to my friends that I'm really brave, but what they don't tell you is just how quickly my arm shot backwards 0.00001 of a second after Artem bit the chicken out of my hand.

I also got a peek inside "the dead shed", whose contents probably would have shocked me more were I not currently in the odd position of storing some horse's skulls on the balcony of my house for a family friend (more about this to come in the currently-in-progress sequel to Under The Paw). I've always thought of myself as the most squeamish of people, but I think after a few more hours at WHF, the site of blood, guts and dead rabbits would probably quickly become as quotidian as that of a freshly opened pouch of Felix. Having said this, I did wince a little when the volunteer keeper, Sarah, told me the story about one of the lions being semi-castrated in a fight. Apparently the claw went "all the way through". You could be the most rough and tumble, lion-cuddling outdoorsman, and you'd still find it hard not to suppress a shiver at that.

* It's good to know someone has some use for them these days.

Contribute to a vital cause:

The Wildlife Heritage Foundation.

Call Of The Wild: A Big Cat-Themed Song For Charity By Under The Paw Reader Paul Oakley.

Tiger Awareness.

The Snow Leopard Trust.

The Under The Paw Toughest Cat Competition: The Winners

Thanks to everyone who sent in photos for this year's Little Cat Diaries Toughest Cat competition (over 500 in total), and commiserations to those who missed out (although slightly less heartfelt commiserations to those who thought, through good shutter timing, they could pass a gentle yawn as an example of growling terror). A contest like this is always going to be tough to judge, but during last year's event there was at least a clear winner. This time it was much more closely run. I've even decided to give an extra prize, partly to acknowledge just how evenly matched the winners are (to narrow them down to four has been hard, but to narrow that four down to three would have been impossible). To be perfectly honest, on a different day, in slightly different moods, The Bear and I might have given any one of them first prize, but a decision had to be made, and we will just have to deal with the poison paw letters that inevitably result from it.

In first place, and winning a pen-and-paw-signed copy of the paperback of Under The Paw, a signed copy of Dewey by Vicki Myron, and a signed copy of Vicky Halls' The Complete Cat: Greebo, from Kate Viscardi. What's noticeable about Greebo is his effortless aura of malevolence, combined with the very definite sense that he is coiled for action. Unlike so many cats submitted, he's not trying to impress us. There are no props (although he does bear a certain resemblance to Prop Joe from the TV show The Wire). He's not growling or raising a paw. Yet there's something genuinely, awesomely immovable about him. I've spent a long time pondering what he's staring at in this picture. It could be a human, a rival cat, or a leaf. Whatever the case, you can be sure it's shortly going to Get It in a fairly major way.



Of his victory, Greebo says: "I worked so hard for this. Being small I had to work out twice as much to keep these muscles in trim. Look at them: rock hard! I'm small but tough. I was born under an outdoor aviary and grew up knowing it was my responsibility to kill rats and protect my family. I want to thank my adoptive mum, who was a collie-cross and put up with being attacked and walking round with me hanging off her tail. Jess, I still miss you!!"

In second place, and winning a pen-and-paw-signed copy of the paperback of Under The Paw: Cuba, from Naomi Kenton. Cuba, your narrowed eyes make me feel sure I have wronged you in some unforgivable way, you clearly have a large fanclub of terrified minions, and that fang really adds a finishing touch to your American Gangster aura of ice cold intimidation. Please rest assured that your failure to take first place has nothing to do with the other photo submitted by your human, where she had dressed you up in a camp little witch's hat.



In third place, and winning a pen-and-paw-signed copy of the paperback of Under The Paw: Scratch, from Hayley Hart. I have no idea what Scratch is attacking in this photo, but that probably doesn't matter, since it has clearly been torn limb from limb, and retains only the faintest resemblance to its original form. If this were a Most Psychotic Cats contest, Scratch would have taken first place (with birdman Luke - see posting below - a close second).



In fourth place, and winning a pen-signed and paw-signed copy of the paperback of Under The Paw: Furball, from Lindsey Jackson-Kay. I've tried not to be swayed be extraneous details about these hardest of cats. If someone has included a passage with their photo claiming that their cat once decked a squirrel with one paw behind their back, I have done my best to ignore it, and focus purely on the image in hand. That said, I'm not sure I can entirely claim that my decision to award an extra prize for Furball hasn't been influenced by hearing about her hardscrabble beginnings and her rehoming via Facebook. Furball is clearly a star of brilliant, unrivalled grumpiness, and I can only dream that one day I have a cat like this working as my house's own resident Greeter.

An Amazing Big Cat Video