Cicero

Ever wondered what domesticated cats think? Especially those rescued from the wild? Here are some snippets telepathically transmitted to the human caretaker.

The human tells me every day how beautiful I am. She reminds me how lucky I am to have a good home where I am loved, well fed and so on. She must think I have a very short memory. Luckily this doesn’t go on for too long. But then later once I’m sleeping she creeps up on me and starts patting me again. Of course I start purring but I know what’s coming – the flea comb. I let her comb me for about 4 minutes and then it gets annoying. My tail starts to slash left to right slowly and if she fails to notice she is rewarded with a sharp scratch with my claws that draws blood from her skin. She yells pathetically. I don’t know why she doesn’t expect anything different just because I’m purring as I slash her.

Anyway she is slowly getting trained. It’s only been about 4 years to this point and we still have major issues mainly around food and how often I am fed. My preference has always been to be fed in the middle of the night, morning, midday, afternoon, dinner and bedtime but she keeps feeling the size of my stomach and telling me I’m too fat and that if I don’t eat less I’ll end up with diabetes like her last cat, Ra. She tries to put me off by telling me that she had to put needles in him twice a day for 9 years to control his diabetes and how all her friends asked ‘When is she expecting kittens?’ I don’t believe it. My constitution, as a Main Coon mix, is to be a very big cat and especially since I was living in the bush for several years after my previous owner abandoned me. I became a huge tom cat. I won’t tell you why they abandoned me, will leave that up to your imagination.

As to my great physical beauty, I have huge paws like a tiger with long black fur growing between my toes. I have long white fur growing inside my ears that sometimes points up giving me the appearance of a bobcat. My tail is my pride and joy – bushy and sassy. My head is large and wide with green eyes. I have stripey tabby markings from grey to black and white under my chin. Handsome, eh?

The human tells her friends that for years she saw me streaking through the bush with bushy tail straight as an arrow flying behind me and always thought to herself ‘One day I’m going to catch that feral cat’. She doesn’t like the idea of cats in the bush killing native birds or anything but how else are we to survive? It’s not our fault that human owners throw us away, unwanted. We would rather be in a nice safe, warm house being fed our favourite foods instead of having to eat furry creatures (I just hate getting fur stuck in my throat) including part of their elimination canal. Yuck. Give me a can of human-grade salmon anytime.

Speaking of food again, the human is a pretty good hunter herself. I don’t know how she does it but she comes home with a big bag full of organic chicken necks and chicken breasts. No feathers, no grisly, stinky or bloody bits – just nice, clean, fresh, raw chicken meat. I follow her outside when we go for walks (my only escape from the verandah enclosure) but I don’t see her kill any chickens or anything for that matter. She doesn’t carry knives and she doesn’t have sharp claws so how does she do it? Some things will always be a mystery to our species about humans.