I think I'd like a pet - a rabbit, perhaps

I have decided that I need a pet, a companion animal to enrich my life. I know I have two human pets. But they are so large and blundering. In a way humans don't make very good pets for us cats. They are dominating AND stupid. I think it would be nicer to have something smaller and cleverer. I thought about a worm. At one point, when I was only a kitten, I was very interested in worms. They wriggle very nicely and I found that intriguing. I would sit and look at them for hours and once or twice I brought one back home for Celia. She didn't appreciate it much but what human does gratitude when we bring things to them?
I'd like something more ambitious. Celia, whose daily misconduct includes going out instead of staying at home ready to service my needs when I pop in, came home smelling of rabbit yesterday. She had been sitting in the pen with Matilda, a large female rescue rabbit at the Blue Cross in Burford. The aim is to make Matilda more friendly and less feisty. She will get up on Celia's lap but if Celia tries to cuddle her, she is off doing a kind of rebel's lap round the enclosure. She also grunts with dislike if cornered. All in all, not a stupid bunny.
Matilda, I thought to myself, would make a nice companion animal for me. She smells delicious. She is warm and furry and I could snuggle up to her on the bed at night. She would take up less room than Celia on the bed. She is also brighter than Celia. Rabbits (unlike humans) understand scent marking. even if they do smell different. I am told some house rabbits live happily with cats and even intimidate them.
I am badly in need of some rabbit exercise. I haven't caught one for ages and ages. Matilda might fill the gap in my life and I wouldn't just leave her to Celia to look after. I would take a close interest in her every move.
If I got bored with her, I could just eat her.

I am showing my disapproval

She came back late last night. I could feel the adrenaline on her. If she had fur (poor human, she hasn't except in the wrong places) it would have been crackling with electricity. She was high as a kite with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Being a 63-year old antique human among the teenagers in an Agricultural college had really stressed her up.
I couldn't help showing my pleasure at her return. Of course, as any good human trainer knows, all obedience training must always be consistent. And I am afraid I wasn't. To err is human, to purr divine. I am afraid that by purring I was erring and letting her realise I was pleased to see her. I should have been punishing her for her absence.
Today I am making up for that lapse. I went out in the morning without noticing her. I hunted all through the morning and this afternoon, instead of coming in and perhaps sharing my bed with her for an afternoon nap, I am continuing to hunt. Active ignoring is the key to all human training. Reward good behaviour (such as feeding, petting etc) with purrs and ignore bad behaviour. Claw and teeth punishment should be reserved for truly bad behaviour only.
As I walked insolently past the glass of the kitchen door I heard her say: "Where IS George? He usually comes in about now." Good. I hope she misses me for a few hours. That's nothing to the six full days of her absense from cat duties. Tonight I shall sleep in the wastepaper basket instead of on my bed. I did this one night that she was away - to the mystification of Ronnie, deputy carer. The point about the wastepaper basket is that she can't get into it with me. That'll teach her.
PS. Special note for Oscar Snuggles and any US cats. Cheek is like chutzpah. So "the cheek of it" means "what insolence!"

She's leaving me.

She's leaving me. After all I have done for her - woken her up in the mornings nice and early, shared my bed with her, brought in mice for her to eat or chase (as she chooses only she doesn't). Now she is going off for a whole week deserting me, William and Ronnie. I am so upset I haven't bothered to blog a picture.
And - the cheek of it - she is deserting her post in order to study animal management. What sort of management is this! I extremely disappointed in her.

Is Celia having kittens? She smells of them. Bad, bad, bad.

Celia has been coming home smelling of kittens lately. I took careful sniff the other day and thought she had been handling about four of them. This is bad. Very bad. And her hands smelled not just of kittens but high quality kitten food. (I'd like some of it myself but I normally get adult food, which is not so rich.)
What on earth has she been up to? Fondling alien kittens is not what she is there for. Is she going to bring one home, I wonder. If so I definitely don't want it. I don't want any other cats of any kind at all ever. This is my territory and intruders are not welcome. William agrees with me - for once. He says it would be a second betrayal (what can he mean?) if she brings home a kitten. He hated it last time she did. Only then I realise that he is talking of my arrival in the household in the winter of 2006. Can't he see that this is completely different.
Further daily investigative smelling suggests that the number of kittens is falling, which is encouraging. Today she came home smelling of just one single kitten - Riley. I could tell (scent reveals so much) that he was small, ticked tabby, and quite frightened. Apparently she has been trying to help socialise four feral kittens by sitting in their pen and hand feeding them or playing with them with lengths of string. Riley (he's in the picture) is actually the nicest, but because he isn't as chubby and appealing to look at as the other three he has still not found a home.
I heard her telling Ronnie that after about eight visits, Riley was able to eat from her hand while sitting in her lap. Today she came back and she had been able to pick him up. He had purred loudly and rolled over to have his tummy tickled. She says she almost cried - she was so moved. He'll probaby always be a nervous cat with strangers (unlike me) but he will be wonderful for the human he loves. She promised Ronnie, who is presenting a united front with me and William, that she is not going to bring him home. No more cats are wanted here. Me and William are not dogs. We are not social animals. We don't want a pack of kittens, nor even a single extra one.
Pity the kittens couldn't have been like me. I was socialised by Cats Protection then handled by 24 different people in my first month with Celia - the postman, the man who delivers parcels, the passing farm manager, visitors, Tracy, Paul, Steffi, and many others. As a result I like humans a lot. William who is nervous and standoffish, says that I am like the school tart - I am anybody's. He is jealous, of course.

Why don't humans have proper hair?

And another thing. Humans don't have proper hair. They are, to put it baldly, more or less bald. If you look at them they look a bit like Chinese hairless dogs. There's a top knot of kinds, a bit of hair between the back legs, some under the front legs or armpits, and then a tiny scattering on the chest with the males. Males have a bit more body hair but their top knot goes manky in old age and sometimes vanishes altogether. Human hair also fades with age and eventually goes white. It seems to me absolutely mad to wear your hair at the crease where the leg meets the body. Most of us cats have a less hair there rather than more.
We cats vary, of course. There are the sleek short hairs like me, gleaming black all over except for a very tiny two or three white hairs on the chest. Then there are the long haired beauties like Catherine in the photo. And the semi-beauties like elderly William my companion. He is semi-longhaired with shorter tougher hairs on his back. Finally there are cats like Dragonheart (see last blog's comment from her domain at http://dragonheartsdomain.blogspot.com) who have no hair at all. She doesn't have ridiculous tufts of hair in her armpits. The result is far more beautiful than the bald but tufty humans.
The way feline hair varies is due to humans. They have selectively bred us for long, or no hair at all. They do this by restricting our right to choose partners over several generations. They bang up stud cats in a chalet to make them service females which are not chosen for them. Sounds good? Well it isn't because most of the stud cats sit around in their pens with nothing to do but occasional sex - no hunting, for instance, little human contact. It's a deprived life. They'd get much more sex, with partners they chose, if they were allowed out onto the tiles like the feral toms.
If humans can do this to cats, why on earth don't they selectively breed themselves for better hair? They would look far more attractive if they had short glossy fur all over their bodies like me, long hair like Catherine's or even be properly hairless all over like Dragonheart.
instead they have these pathetic tufts. They fuss endlessly about the tufts on their head. They brush, comb, fluff out, shave it all, cut it, dye it, condition it. But they're not willing breed selectively in order to develop nice glossy all over fur.
No sense at all.