Never knowingly into mud

Just about the only chap on the Rectoryreserve who is never knowingly into mud is Cat - or Puddycat as she is officially known. Here you see Gunner chasing after her - a current pre-occupation since he cannot quite work out the purpose of cats. She is gradually getting him trained though; a series of withering looks - like this one which clearly says "get off my tail, mut" - and a few sharp decisive taps about the inquisitive nose with a paw - will soon put him in his proper place (several rungs below cat on the ladder of life). Back to the mud though - have you ever seen a dirty cat; how is it, eveything and everybody else around here gets muddy or slightly dirty much of the time and Cat remains utterly spotfree? Part of the answer clearly lies in her chief past-time - as in the second picture - no amount of preening will satisfy her but eventually food does call and she breaks off to go satisfy the hungry tum.

Cat was not always known as Puddycat. She started out in life as Harpo and, together with her brother, Chico, came here as a yard cat to keep down the unwanted wildlife population.... The following spring Chico, always the bolder of the two, went off wandering and, unfortunately, was never seen again. A month or two later, Harpo, always the follower, also disappeared, never to be seen again. That is, until some 3 months later when the photo we'd put up in the local vet's surgery was seen by the lady from the Cats Protection League - whom I'd coincidentally only spoken to about taking a couple of feral kittens a couple of days earlier. She rang to say somebody on the other side of town had reported a lost cat, which looked identical, wandering around their house over the past few days. Eventually, as the guys who'd 'found' the cat didn't really want us to re-find it, we drove down to see the cat and - yes - it did look identical to Harpo. Having not seen us for several months, he was a bit nervous of us but we did manage to catch him and, almost to tears from the other guys, we drove home with him. He remained nervous and anxious about going outside but we put that down to his traumatic experiences over the past few months. We did wonder that he had learned to use a litter tray in his absence - something we only 'learned' after he repeatedly did his 'business' in our downstairs loo! Several other habits, like sitting on newspaper, also made us wonder who had looked after him in the time he was away from home. Imagine our horror too when, about a month later, we noticed that he had been castrated in his absence! Several months elapsed and Harpo gradually settled down and became excessively fond of sitting on heads and shoulders and then it was time for his annual trip to the vet. Mentioning the story of his disappearance and lucky re-finding to the vet I also brought up the matter of his castration. Whereupon the vet examined cat in rather more detail and - yes - declared him to be a her! I was dumbstruck. Not Harpo at all. We had unwittingly re-homed someone else's much loved cat!!! I queried whether I should advertise the fact to find 'her' proper owner but the vet's attitude was that since cat had clearly settled down it would cause more trauma and disruption so "best to leave well alone".

Hence, Harpo became Puddycat, or, more familiarly, Cat and has lived happily ever since - particularly after training us all to her ways and needs!