Nine cats under my care: a new record! In the house where this bunch is living, a framed piece of embroidery is standing on the sideboard: “One cat leads to another”. Sloane, Bailey, James, Ivan, Michael, Boris, Horace, Callie and Minnie are all, with the exception of Boris, from Doha, Qatar. Owner Chantal vividly describes how one cat after another crossed her path, usually in a pitiful state, so that she would end up taking care of them all. Often that lead to her trying to persuade others to adopt one of the cats, including an offer to pay for vaccinations and a stash of cat food. Sometimes she succeeded, but not always by far...
And that’s how eight Qatari cats ended up in the French Pyrenees. Number nine, the last one, is a local kitten that came to their doorstep and never left. He turned out to be a perfect addition to the Gulf Arabs as he had a soothing effect on Horace, initially the ‘enfant terrible’ after their arrival from Doha. During my stay she only startled me once by using my shoulder as an intermediate station between the top of the fridge and the kitchen table. Her owner Jari told me he lost at least five shirts due to her past outbursts. Those days were now over, and times were much cheaper now. Horace had only vice left: an obsession with the top floor of the house. It had been declared a much-needed cat free zone, to accommodate guests with allergies or dislikes for cats. Often Horace would be lurking for an opportunity to get to that forbidden place. As soon as the door would open, she’d run for it. Sometimes even faster than the speed of light, in which case I would find out only later that she’d done it again! Once upstairs she had no intention to leave anytime soon. She’d potter about for a bit, in spite of realising I wasn’t going to let her enjoy her victory for too long. Her favourite hiding place was one of the big armchairs. Luckily it was not too hard to tilt them and catch the little tiger from underneath. One of these moments that I had won.. for now.
