Crazy for Cats

It’s often presumed that people fall into one of two categories: You’re either a cat person or a dog person. I’m both. In fact, I’m an animal person. I find them endlessly endearing and entertaining. Growing up, we had somewhat of a menagerie at home, with a dog, cats, a rabbit, guinea pigs, hamsters, budgies, fish, chickens and even a goat delighting us at various stages of my childhood.

My love of cats began at the age of 8, when I excitedly went to the pet shop to choose a fluffy kitten. There I saw Sylvester, peering back at me from a mass of silky black fur. He was every little girl’s dream; soft, cute, cuddly and playful. I’ll never forget how proud and responsible I felt as I sat on the bus on the way home, protectively holding my box of precious cargo on my lap.

Sylvester was a sheer delight…who needs TV when you have a lively, loveable kitten to entertain you? Before long, he firmly cemented himself as one of the family and was a defining feature of our household. In time, his name got shortened to Syl, which then changed to Bill. For reasons I can’t quite remember, I also thought he was supremely talented, so he ended up being Billy Talent.

Billy Talent was a lovely balance of everything you could want from a cat. He would purr like an engine when he cuddled up to me on the sofa and slept like a baby on my bed, but he was also wonderfully playful and a formidable hunter who would prowl the countryside for miles around. I’d often call him from the house, only to hear a very faint miaow in the far distance, which gradually got closer as he ran full pelt to get to me.

Billy stands out as the alpha feline in my memories because he was all mine and was an enduring presence throughout my formative years, but of course they were other kitties who also made a deep impression on me. Phart was a gorgeous grey cat who belonged to one of my sisters. She was such an affectionate, unique little character who would often wake you up by licking your eyelids! I always felt she deserved a much prettier name but unfortunately she was lumbered with this moniker throughout her long life. We’d sometimes adopt kittens from friends who lived on farms too. I’ll never forget one such puss, with beautiful white fur, who turned out to be deaf. My older sister accidentally ran him over when she was learning how to drive and I distinctly remember cycling around my house the next day with a very heavy heart, wondering if I would ever feel happy again.

As I grew older and left home for university in London, disaster struck…I developed asthma and a severe cat allergy. I blamed the inferior air quality; after growing up in a market town, surrounded by green countryside, the big city pollution was an affront to my senses. Cuddles with Billy on my visits home were no longer possible unless I took an anti-histamine, which made me feel extraordinarily tired.

Not long afterwards, my mother moved to Bali, so Billy Talent and Phart moved to my father’s house, on the other side of town. Phart settled in well, she made a habit out of sitting on my father’s chest, purring loudly, as he fell asleep in front of the TV. Billy, however, missed his previous life and kept escaping to return home. I marveled at his intuitive sense of direction and how he instinctively navigated the streets in order to get back to his original hunting ground. He was brought back several times, but one day he set out on his journey again and never made it to his final destination. My poor Billy, he met his end by stubbornly following his heart and refusing to leave his happy home of thirteen years.

For a long time afterwards, I avoided getting any more cats because of my allergy. When I moved to Fiji, I took in several stray dogs but prevented myself from adopting any felines. Besides, dogs in need are much more visible than homeless cats in Fiji. In most areas you’ll see at least one or two street dogs, it’s a very noticeable problem, but cats are less obvious.

Here in Qatar, the opposite is true. There are stray cats everywhere. Of course, there are dogs in need too, and they’re often braving the extreme heat in very dismal circumstances, but it is a lot more common to see cats on the streets and they’re far more tolerated.

When we first moved into a company house in a compound, there were cats on our doorstep every day, begging for food. One of these cats, a beautiful pure white female with stunning blue eyes, was pregnant, so I set up a safe place for her to give birth. We called her Lucy and soon after she delivered her kittens I took her to the vets to get her spayed. When I went to pick her up after the operation, a tiny, thin ginger kitten on the pavement rubbed his little body against my ankles, purring and demanding attention. You’d have to have the skin of a rhino to leave such an affectionate, needy little thing on the street, so I scooped him up and took him home with me. We called him Ginger Biscuit, but he soon became known as Gingey.

Gingey was in a bad way. He had a huge umbilical hernia and mange. I successfully treated his mange at home and he had an operation to fix the hernia, but then he came down with a high fever and became terribly lethargic. I took him back to the vets who diagnosed a liver problem and told me to expect the worst. Thankfully, after a week of IV medications and fluids, Gingey pulled through, and he became a much loved member of our family.

When we moved into our villa, we took Gingey, Lucy and another black cat, Billy the Second, with us. However, Lucy and Billy both bolted back to our old compound at the first opportunity. The guards there confirmed that they had seen them again, but after that there were no more sightings. After a few months, I stopped going back to look for them and only Gingey remained. I suppose, as a young cat, Gingey was more attached to us than his surroundings, so he didn’t feel compelled to go looking for our old home, and I always loved him a bit more for that.

Meanwhile, before my twins started school, we’d often visit the local park, where there are vast numbers of stray cats living amongst the shady trees and bushy shrubs. I didn’t know then that the park is a known dumping ground for cats; people take their pets there when they’re no longer wanted or needed, when their children have tired of playing with them. As such, you find some incredibly beautiful strays, from Persians to Turkish Vans, struggling to survive amongst the more usual looking moggies. It’s heartbreaking to see these previously loved cats hiding in the greenery, scared and bewildered, unsure of whom they can trust. So, every time we visited the park we’d take along some cat food with us to feed their hungry bellies.

A mother at my childrens’ school, who was leaving the country, then made a request for someone to replace her as a cat feeder at the same park. Unbeknown to me, she and a couple of other people she knew were feeding the cats on separate days. I told her that I’d happily take over her role and commit to going on the same day every week as I was effectively doing that anyway. As time went on, I coordinated a group of wonderful volunteers and we managed to get every day of the week covered. The cats blossomed, transforming into solid, well-fed beauties who, in a harsh world of uncertainties, could at least rely on a daily feed to fulfill their needs.

Of course, it’s not advisable to feed cats without getting them neutered or spayed, as a well fed female is likely to produce kittens in high numbers. So we work in conjunction with a TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release) group, who regularly desex the cats and snip the top off one ear to show that the procedure’s been performed, before returning them to the park.

The colony population fluctuates, but most of the time there are about forty or fifty cats living there. During the cooler months the park is busy and I know I must seem like a crazy cat lady, lugging my super sized bag of cat food around the various feeding stations we’ve established, summoning the cats with a high-pitched call! In the baking hot months of summer, however, the park is usually deserted during the day, and so I trudge around alone, serving up food and water and checking on their general wellbeing.

Although my primary motive for doing this is to help the cats, I also get an enormous sense of personal satisfaction from feeding at the park. It’s a good feeling, knowing that I’m making a small difference to so many little lives, but I also enjoy being out in the open air, surrounded by trees and plants, with the sun on my skin and the breeze in my hair. I love taking photos of the cats too (the collage above consists of previous and current park residents) and I inevitably feel happy and invigorated after a feeding round. Hopefully I’m showing my children how to channel compassion into practical deeds as well.

Meanwhile, I vowed to myself that having one cat at home was enough for someone with a cat allergy, and Gingey satisfied all our cat needs…he’d greet the children when they came home from school, snuggle up to them on the sofa and was generally a perfectly lazy, happy pet.

However, one baking hot day last summer I pulled into a parking spot at the mall only to find a tiny, emaciated kitten in my space. As I got closer, it darted underneath another car, but I knew I couldn’t leave it there because it would have surely died on the scorching tarmac. So I got out, crouched under the car and reached for him. His grey and white fur was matted and dirty and he was panting with exhaustion. I put him in my car and gave him some water. My children were desperate to go to the play centre and I didn’t want to let them down, so I left the kitten in the car with the engine on to keep the AC running, and I asked a guard to keep an eye on it as we went inside.

When we returned, he was curled up in a ball and fast asleep. As soon as we got home, we set about making a little bed for him, complete with a hot water bottle, and went on the hunt for some kitten milk because he was still too small to eat solid food. I bottle fed him throughout the day and night until he was big enough to eat canned food and for the first few evenings I had to keep a YouTube video of a cat purring loudly on repeat next to him, because it was the only thing that stifled his cries. In a short amount of time, however, he flourished before our eyes. We called him Tommy, and as I’m writing this I can see him happily curled up asleep in my daughters’ basket of hairbands.

Unfortunately Gingey disappeared six months ago. It’s a total mystery and, after four years of having him around, we all miss him desperately. Gingey was neutered, so he didn’t wander, and he would spend his days lazing in sunny spots throughout our home. When we couldn’t find him, we reassured ourselves that he would be back soon, but the days rolled by and Gingey didn’t reappear. I’ve put up notices on all the animal welfare websites and distributed flyers to our neighbours, but to no avail. I haven’t lost hope that he’ll come back one day and I often trawl the streets nearby and check out possible sightings. The problem is, ginger cats are ten a penny here, nevertheless I still find myself crouching under cars in underground carparks, or hanging around rubbish skips, hoping that the stray ginger cat that someone’s seen there might be ours.

I take homeopathic pet allergy tablets nowadays, which do a reasonable job of keeping my symptoms at bay, but if I want a good cuddle with Tommy I still have to take an antihistamine. My third daughter, Mia, was diagnosed with a severe cat allergy at just two years old, when the doctor ran allergy tests to investigate her chronic asthma. Thankfully, we had no cats then, and by the time we moved to Qatar she had outgrown both her asthma and her cat allergy. Unfortunately, my cat allergy persists, much to my frustration. Obviously it would be unwise to take in any more cats, so I don’t plan on doing so, but who knows what needy case I’ll be unable to refuse in the future. Destiny does seem to have a habit of putting these pitiful cases in my pathway, knowing that I don’t have the heart to turn a blind eye.

What I do is no great feat. I’ve met countless amazing, inspirational people here in Qatar who totally devote themselves to animal welfare. They do their absolute best while swimming against the tide and they make my efforts look decidedly miniscule in comparison. However, I do think if everyone plays their part, however small, together we can make a big difference. Cats are relatively low maintenance pets; they don’t need to be taken for walks, they have neat toilet habits and they hardly make any noise. It doesn’t take much effort to keep them happy and healthy. In return they offer companionship, fun and endless affection and, while they may seem a small part of your world, to them you are the world. So, despite my very sensible intentions, I do suspect that there will always be a cat or two in our home…watch this space!