A Street Cat Named Bob

Bob watched quietly as the dog, his head hung in shame, walked away. Within a few seconds he’d reverted back to his previous position, snoozing at my feet. It was as if it was a minor annoyance for him, like swatting a pesky fly. But for me it was a really revealing moment. It told me so much more about my companion and the life he had led before our fateful meeting at the bottom of the stairs. He wasn’t afraid to defend himself. In fact, he knew how to look after himself rather well. He must have learned to do that somewhere, maybe in an environment where there were lots of dogs - and aggressive ones at that.

Once more I found myself fascinated by the same old questions. Where had he grown up? What adventures had he had before he had joined up with me and become the second Musketeer?

Living with Bob was fun. As our little run-in with the Staffie proved, there was never a dull moment. He was a real personality, of that there was no doubt. He had all sorts of quirks to his character, and I was discovering more and more of them every day.

By now there was little doubt in my mind that he must have grown up on the streets. It wasn’t just his street-fighter skills, he wasn’t really domesticated in any way, he was a bit rough around the edges. Even now, after he’d been living with me for the best part of a month, he still didn’t like using the litter trays I’d bought for him. He really hated those things and would scamper away whenever I put one down anywhere near him. Instead he would hold on until he saw me going out of the door, and then do his business downstairs in the gardens of the flats.

I didn’t want it to carry on like this. For a start, it wasn’t much fun walking down - and up - five flights of stairs to take the cat out whenever he wanted to go to the toilet. So I decided to try and give Bob no option but to use the litter trays. One day during that third week I said to myself that I would go twenty-four hours without letting him out, so that he would have no alternative but to use the litter tray. But he won that contest hands down. He bottled everything up and waited - and waited and waited until I had to go out. Then he squeezed past me as I went out the door and bolted down the stairwell to get outside. Game, set and match to Bob. I realised it was a fight I was unlikely to win.

He also had a wild side to his personality. He was calmer than when he’d first arrived, thanks largely to the fact that he’d been neutered. But he could still be a complete maniac around the flat and would frequently tear around the place, playing with anything that he could lay his paws on. One day I watched him amuse himself for the best part of an hour with a bottle top, flipping it around the floor of the living room with his paws. Another time he found a bumblebee. It was obviously injured – it had one wing damaged – so it was struggling around on the coffee table in the living room. The bee was rolling around and every now and again it would fall off the table on to the carpet. Every time this happened, Bob would very gently pick it up with his teeth and put it back on the table. It was really impressive the way he could delicately pick the bee up by the wing and place it safely on the flat surface. He’d then watch it while it struggled around again. It was a really comical sight. He didn’t want to eat it. He just wanted to play with it.

The street instinct was still apparent when it came to food as well. When I took him downstairs to do his toilet now, he made a beeline for the area at the back of the flats where the dustbins were kept. The large ‘wheelie bins’ were often left open and occasionally there were discarded black, plastic refuse sacks, that had been ripped open by urban foxes or stray dogs. Bob would always go and investigate them to see if there were any leftovers. On one occasion I’d caught him dragging a chicken drumstick that had somehow been overlooked by the other scavengers. Old habits die hard, I figured.

It was true, of course. Despite the fact I was feeding him on a regular basis, he still treated every meal as if it was going to be his last. At home in the flat, the moment I scooped some cat food into his bowl he would stick his face in it and start guzzling as if there was no tomorrow.

‘Slow down and enjoy your food, Bob,’ I’d tell him, but to no avail. Again, I figured he’d spent so long having to make the most of every eating opportunity that he hadn’t adapted to living in a place where he was guaranteed a square meal twice a day. I knew how that felt. I’d spent large chunks of my life living the same way. I couldn’t really blame him.

Bob and I had so much in common. Maybe that was why the bond had formed so fast - and was growing so deep.

The most irritating thing - literally - about him, however, was the fact that his fur had begun coating every corner of the flat.