PRUDENCE IS BEING MATERNAL ONCE AGAIN

After we got Squeaky-Biscuit earlier in the year, I said that we would not be getting any more kittens this is partly because Felis sylvestris catus is not, naturally a  sociable species and therefore should not be kept in large numbers, and partly because I am doing my best not to fall into any hippy stereotypes about mad couples in late middle age with enormous numbers of cats. I didn’t get where I am today by falling into any hippy stereotypes about mad couples in late middle age with enormous numbers of cats.

However, we have acquired another cat. It is the half sister to Squeaky, and is also a rescue. As well as it needing a home we got it in a vain hope that if squeaky has another young cat to play with she might be less viscous. The cats protection league have now been brought in to neuter the remaining feral cats from the Hartland farm from whence our two most recent kittens and those of our house keeper Helen all came, so – hopefully – this will mean that there will be no more kittens from this source, for a while at least.

However, one thing that is particularly interesting is how Prudence has ‘adopted’ the new kitten (whom Corinna christened Dotty- Perry winkle because my naming her predecessor inadvertently after a member on the Manson Family didn’t work out to well) just as she did Squeaky. Prudence was spayed very aggressively 5 years (half her lifetime) ago. She had, however, been rescued from a puppy farm where she had given birth to God knows how many litters of puppies, and it seems that her maternal instincts are still strong she has been known to wash her ‘puppies’ and even lie on her side for them to suckle.

It is just me who finds this extraordinarily touching?