I have little experience with any pets other than cats. Though I’ve been lucky enough to have two dogs, both were when I was over 65, so most dogs are still a mystery to me! I did have a bowlful of guppies when I was 9 or 10 but they all died one weekend when we had gone to Zanesville and forgot to clean their bowl and leave them some food!

Of those I have had, I can recommend cats or dogs. Each has its downside. If you own a cat on a busy road and it goes in and out, there is a chance that it will be injured or killed by a speeding car or even, a slow car. If you have a cat who stays inside, you have to provide it with a place to pee or poo which, itself, can be a big downside if you are unable or unwilling to change the contents of its toilet box pretty often.

I wrote, in an earlier post, about the pregnant cat who came out of the blue one day in 1968 or so, and produced five little kittens at my feet as I was sitting outside, enjoying a bit of sunshine. At that time we already had a cat whom we called Daisy. She was not a very friendly cat, particularly with other cats, and so we had to keep the babies and their mother apart from Daisy in our flat. The first few days were easy enough as the kittens and mother stayed in the box room at the top of the flat and Daisy had the roam of all the rest.

But, it soon became evident that they would have to live somewhere other than the box room as it was so far from the kitchen and, from there, the outside world. The kitchen was the “bottom” room of the flat, up a short flight of stairs was the lounge, up a longer flight were Judy’s bedroom with the bathroom opposite, then another short flight to the bedroom where Veronica and I slept, followed by another flight to Jennie’s bedroom and then another to the box room – and I had to go up and down many times a day, letting Mama (the mother cat), out of the room to go outside, then letting her back in to go upstairs and open the door to the box room, then close it so Daisy wouldn’t get in and cause havoc.

It was decided that Veronica’s and my bedroom would be ideal (!) so the kittens, Mama, the food and water bowls, and the toilet box all joined Veronica and me in our spacious bedroom. (It was very big as was the room below which was the lounge.)

So, that’s what happened.

Mama fed her babies for however long mother cats feed their babies then, one day, went out and never came back. I believe she was probably hit by a car in the busy road outside. Luckily, the babies had all started eating cat food and didn’t suffer too much from their mother’s disappearance.

We named the kittens Orpheus (who was all black), Poppy, Dudley, Frankenstein and Winnie (each one a mixture of black and white in varying amounts). Over the following months we found homes for Frankenstein and Dudley. Sadly, Poppy and Winnie, as well as the unrelated Daisy, all succumbed to cancers within the following year, leaving Orpheus to go on to live to a very healthy nineteen!

We moved two or three times in the following years and, where we went, so went Orpheus. He gained new brothers and sisters, losing some and finding others along the way. Our last cat was supposed to be a pedigree brown Burmese who was given to Veronica by a family friend called Georgia. His pedigree papers were “on their way” for the next twelve or fifteen years but never appeared – and I’m certain that, though Georgia paid for a pedigree cat, Dizzy was a mixture of breeds just as all our others were!

Dizzy (Disraeli Ozymandias) was named by Veronica, who was obviously going through a history and literary phase. He was so tiny that he could sit on the palm of my hand and was possibly removed from his mother too soon. He had, what was at the beginning, a very endearing habit of sucking on earlobes as though he were suckling. He carried on doing it for another three years or so by which time it had become very painful and then, luckily, he stopped finding earlobes attractive!

After Julian and I met and married, we moved, with Veronica and four cats to our first house which was on the outskirts of East Malling. The house was set in a lovely area with fields and orchards all around and the four cats led a lovely life there. Orpheus and Dizzy along with sisters Piggy and Tiggy seemed to enjoy their new home and also welcomed a new sister who appeared one summer in the space under the shed/workshop. When I discovered Mitzi I offered her food and she would come out to eat but always spent the nights under the shed. In the late autumn, winter and early spring, though, Mitzi gave in and spent her time indoors – and often there was a pile of cats sleeping altogether at one end of the settee, keeping each other warm.

Sadly, the inevitable happened and – one by one Piggy, Tiggy and Orpheus crossed the so-called rainbow bridge. My sweet baby, Dizzy went on for a few months before, he too, left me.

Julian and I were moving house in the summer of 1994 and Mitzi, who still spent her summers under the shed, was a problem. Should we take her with us? Luckily, our next door neighbours, Sue and Keith, said they would look after Mitzi and also our tortoise. (We were moving to a house with a vast garden and couldn’t be sure that the tortoise wouldn’t wander away or bury herself or simply hide.)

We lived in our next house for three years with no cats of our own but were visited by Belle and No-belle. (Two black cats with small white patches, both wearing collars, one with a bell and the other without.) The two cats obviously had a home as their collars changed from time to time.

Then, one night, Julian found an orange cat in our garden who was bleeding from wounds we assumed were made in a fight with another cat. We took Sandy to the vet and bathed his wounds and he decided he loved Julian and wanted to stay near him forever! So, we had another cat who chose to live with us for a couple of years before his demise.

By this time we lived in West Malling in a flat above our shop which was in the High Street. After Sandy died, we could only have an indoor cat. Our friends, Sue and Keith, had a cat named Ozzie, who only lived indoors, having got very old so they gave him to us. He was a very pleasant old cat who appreciated our flat and spent his last years rarely moving from his seat on the settee.

That was our last cat!

As for dogs, both of ours have been ‘rescue’ dogs. All dogs need ‘walkies’, feeding, and training. They also need worming, flea treatment, and injections every so often. Rescue dogs are usually not puppies and many have an unknown past.

Rosie was a mixture of ?Staffie and ?Lab? She had the wide jaw of a Staffie and was the colour of a golden lab. She looked like a smallish Rhodesian Ridgeback but she didn’t have a ridged back. The only thing the rescue centre could tell us was that she was found in Doncaster – which isn’t really helpful when it comes to knowing about a stray dog. What we learned by living with her was that she hated other dogs and there were some people of whom she was not fond! (And we never found out why!)

We had her for about 12 or 13 years. She was a very loving dog and she was especially fond of Julian, even though I was the one who fed her and spent each day with her. I took her for her walks many times until the day I ended up on my face on the pavement, as she had spotted two dogs on the other side of the street and tore her lead from my grasp before I knew what was happening. Luckily, the lady who was walking her well-behaved dogs who were Rosie’s target, was able to grab Rosie’s lead and hold her away from her dogs.

That was the last time I willingly took Rosie for a walk!

Our next dog was (and still is) Lola. Lola had not been a stray so we know that her birthday is in mid-May and that she will be10 years old in about a month. She was owned by someone who loved her and cared for her but had to give her up for one reason or another.

She is a ‘velcro’ dog in that she is always right there next to me, often demanding a cuddle, needing my attention. At the moment that I’m writing, she is around a foot away from me and turned away because I’m not paying attention to her. She is many times smaller than Rosie, though she is almost as good at pulling me along the pavement faster than I want to go! There are dog stories and one about our tortoise scattered among my earlier posts where you can find out more about Rosie and Lola – and the tortoise.