Showing posts with label Glynn Cardey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glynn Cardey. Show all posts

Saturday, October 05, 2019

The blessing of a cat

Humans occasionally show their gratitude. This week, my human finally wrote something which I can fully appreciate, even if I longed to get my paws on it and change some of the sentiments... 






My book not hers.

May you be blessed with a cat...


May you be blessed with a cat,
A starving stray from the street
Or a scruffy kitten from a shelter,
Who hides under the bed
For the first few days

May you be blessed with cat fur
On the new carpet,
On your best clothes,
On your bed and
In little balls in the washing machine

May you be blessed with scratches,
Happy scratches on the sofa,
Exploring scratches on wallpaper,
Greeting scratches on the door mat,
And sometimes even on the scratch post.

May you be blessed with a warm body
Close to you on the sofa,
On your lap while watching TV,
Spread out on the bed asleep
Or even snuggled under the duvet.

May you be blessed with purring.
Loud purring requesting food,
Happy purring when stroked in the right places.
Gentle purring during the night,
While both of you sink into sleep.

May you be blessed with that look,
The urgent look requesting food,
The look that says: “Play please,”
The look of loving contempt
That says “You are not my superior.”

You may not know if you own or are owned
But this love too is stronger than death.
                        c.. Celia Haddon
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Friday, October 20, 2006

Is God a Cat?

One of the oddest things about humans is the way they anthropomorphise their God. If you listen to them talking about God (any main religion god) you get a picture of a sort of super human - almost always male, a person, a father, a director, sometimes even new employer. My thoughts were prompted from sitting on Celia's desk reading the blog of Ruth Gledhill of the Times. It is as if humans can't imagine a God that isn't human. I say what if She was a Cat. If God was a Cat, things would be different. For one thing, She'd make it clear that some of the human activities had got to stop - trapping and killing cats, shooting cats with air guns, kicking cats, etc. Instead churches would open their doors not just to church mice but to church cats. They'd take collections and go and buy cat food for strays. And all the starving little strays that scrounge a living in busy towns would know there was a sanctuary for them - a dry sheltered place with lots of room and cat food given out free. There'd be less church ritual (what's the point of if?), less standing up and kneeling, less human music (though some caterwauling would be lovely at midnight mass), and more practical charity. Humans would be allowed in to serve others (cats) and, if they persisted with their 'services" (which aren't really anything of the kind in practical terms) we could sit on their warm laps for the duration. Some forward thinking churches have already taken a step in this direction by having resident felines. At the Tower of London chapel there is Teufel, a black tom who is known for enjoying weddings. He often sits down for a nap on the bride's train. Rupert was assistant organist at St Lawrence, Ludlow. And Lucky is a convent cat. She joins in as the nuns sing Alma Redemptoris Mater. As humans no longer go to church, perhaps we could take over.
Of course, it is pretty bad news for mice if She is a Cat.
And even worse news for us, if God is a Mouse.

Help for cats whose humans show behaviour problems.

This blog is devoted to the study of human behaviour. We cats, who live with this sometimes unpredictable and always feeble minded species, can benefit from seeing their behaviour in its proper scientific context. The study of feline dilemmas, training problems, and difficulties with humans, can only benefit all of us. All of us train our humans - to buy the right food, for instance, but many of us do not have knowledge of how to improve our training methods. The human species is obviously not as intelligent as the cat, but nevertheless can learn quite a lot - if properly managed. Topics of interest include the use of claw and order, purring as a human reward, rubbing your human up the right way, when to bite, spraying as a method of making our wishes known, ignoring the human, human harassment, human inattention and sheer human stupidity. I welcome your questions. Photos can be sent via my secretary's website, www.celiahaddon.com This blog has been chosen as one of the top 50 feline blogs by Online VetTechprogramms.org