On one occasion I stopped and disposed of the offending faeces into a roadside waste bin. Before I’d even got back in the car, a tramp appeared, assuming, I guess, that I might have chucked out a tasty morsel! I didn’t hang around to observe the aftermath but drove off smartly as I observed him in my rear view mirror, rummaging through the bin. With time I realised that Tigger was much happier, and would settle better, when he was not in a basket and indeed he would just curl up and sleep for most of the journey on a car seat or the rear parcel shelf, occasionally sitting up to observe the passing scenery much to the amusement of passers-by.
This is something that would be frowned upon now and some sort of restraint would be advocated but heck, this was the eighties, the hippie era was only just ending and seat belts for all human passengers were not even compulsory then. The first time we travelled like this to my parent’s home in Birmingham, Tigger jumped out of the car as I opened the door and, after an initial mini-panic that he’d run into the road, I realised he was just sitting waiting for me. He then followed me up the drive to the house, sat until the front door was opened and boldly walked in.
On subsequent occasions he didn’t bother waiting for me, but went up to the house door by himself and waited. He would follow this routine wherever we went. I was beginning to realise he was an exceptional cat. There are some dogs I wouldn’t trust with such learned behaviour and this notion was reinforced by an incident when we were travelling home one winter’s night.
I was involved in a minor traffic accident on the motorway and had got out to exchange details with the other driver. I drove home, but when I arrived, Tigger was nowhere to be seen. After a frantic and fruitless search, I had to conclude that he must have jumped out the car when the accident occurred. I retraced my journey as quickly as possible, fearing the worst. Fortunately I’d formed a pretty good cognitive map as to the location of the incident and was able to pull onto the hard shoulder within yards of it. Thankfully there was no evidence of road-kill on the carriageway, but the grass was very long and in the dark there would be little possibility of spotting a black cat. No worry, within just a few seconds of pulling up and one call there was meow, a soft furry shape brushed against my legs and there was Tigger. I’d been gone at least an hour, but he’d had the sense to stay put and trusted me to return for him.
Tigger’s finest hour, however, came one Christmas holiday. We’d travelled to Birmingham for the festive season now with an additional companion – Mummy Cat. Mummy Cat was so called because, surprise, surprise, she was an abandoned mother with a litter of kittens, and as with most veterinary staff pets, was yet another in need of re-homing. Mummy Cat was the intellectual antithesis of Tigger and could not be trusted with any of the freedom he enjoyed. Tigger could be let out as soon as we arrived wherever I went and I knew that as soon as I called him, even if he was nowhere to be seen, he’d come back within minutes, but no such privilege could be afforded to Mummy Cat.
However, towards the end of the week she seemed settled and it was deemed safe to let her out. When night fell, even after repeated calling, she was nowhere to be seen and it was starting to snow heavily so we were concerned. Tigger had, as usual, returned when summoned and come in for a feed and settled down for the night. We awoke next day to a foot of snow. I called intermittently all day for Mummy Cat but to no avail. I had resorted to clambering over garden fences calling her name continuously with no results. In the search I’d even put my foot through someone’s cold-frame that was buried in the snow and cut my leg.
As dusk fell on the second night, it was nearly time to return south and I began to be really worried that Mummy Cat had perished in the cold. It was getting late and looking like I’d have to go back without her, but I tried one last time. Tigger hadn’t bothered going out much because of the weather and had slept most of the day. By now he had risen from his slumber and, having been alerted by the commotion, came out to join me at the bottom of the garden. I looked at him and said, “go and find Mummy Cat, Tigger”.
To my amazement he stumbled off into the snow, now deeper than the length of his legs, meowing as he went until, after just a few seconds, a little head popped up out of a snow-covered bush just yards from where we’d been standing. It was Mummy Cat and she just walked out and followed Tigger back to me. He sat there with a smug look of, “aren’t I a clever boy? Why couldn’t you manage that?”, and she just looked relieved. If I hadn’t seen this with my own eyes I’d have dismissed it as a coincidence and maybe it was, but I’m prepared to believe he understood the predicament, if not my words. I’ve not experienced a cat as intelligent as him before or since. He would fetch things when instructed and play and retrieve just like a dog so long as it suited him – well he was a cat after all! He seemed to express emotions of pleasure and disappointment, guilt and disdain, just as a child would. If I went a way for just a day or two with someone else caring for him he would be obviously delighted to see me on my return, but if I went away for longer he would give me the cold shoulder for a few hours, seeming to say, “You left me on my own for too long so I’m not going to give you the pleasure of an emotional reunion until it suits me”. Even so the sceptic in me tends to concede that all this is just too anthropomorphic and was more likely the pet owner’s classical misinterpretation of basic animal body language... but I’m not so sure.
So to all vets reading this: remember this tale when you dismiss Mrs Smith’s assertion that Fluffy or Spot is really human and understands everything she says. Don’t scoff too much – she might just be right.
A double measure of spirits
I’d just come downstairs after refreshing myself following a busy day and was going out to the kennels to check my in-patients before retiring for the evening, when I heard the raised voices of the nurses coming from the staff room. “That’s it”, I heard Holly, the head nurse, scream from the next room, “I’m leaving. He’s done it again”. A few minutes earlier we’d finished evening surgery and I’d asked Holly if she’d like to come up to the flat for a drink after we’d tidied up. She made her excuses and said she was going out to clean the kennels and would let me know later.
As a newly qualified vet I had, shall we say, a bit of a reputation amongst the ladies. Surely, I thought, asking Holly upstairs for a drink hadn’t transgressed the boundaries of decency so much that it required such an outcry.
I could hear the other staff muttering amongst themselves about similar experiences. “He touched me on my bottom once”, squeaked Tina, the rather shapely receptionist. “And when I went up there, the door slammed and I was locked in”, added Vicky, the pretty junior nurse. So I waited a while before I dared show my face next door. Holly looked like she’d seen a ghost and was about to be revived with a cup of hot sweet tea or something stronger from the senior partner’s stash in the (not so secret) cupboard.
She was now beginning to calm down and, seeing the guilty and somewhat perplexed look on my face, started to explain, “It’s Old Tom we’re on about; he touched me on the shoulder again in the kennels”, she stuttered. I’d only been in the practice a short time and hadn’t yet heard about Tom, the kennel stalker. This was going to be the sort of story that one should ideally be listening to ensconced in a comfy armchair, armed with a glass of whisky, in front of roaring log fire, on a frosty winter’s night with a storm raging outside, but the dispensary room on a wet November evening would have to substitute for now.
It transpired that Old Tom was a practice caretaker who had lived in the surgery flat for many years. He had passed away mysteriously one night after being sacked by the senior partner. Suicide was feared; possibly more out of conscience than reality as there was no evidence to suspect this, but henceforth his ghostly presence allegedly manifested itself from time to time around the practice.
The nurses had long refused any invitation to come