Monday 22 December 2014

Luna.

Angus, being a boisterous bull terrier, tends to hog the limelight.  There is no ignoring him even if you try and the same goes for Sam, our rather large ginger cat.  At first light Sam calls me for his food.  He shouts 'Mel, Mel, Mel' or 'Ma, ma, ma' as he plonks up the stairs.  If I do not immediately respond, he pats me in the face.  If he suspects that I am pretending to be asleep, (of course I am, who could sleep through Sam abuse?) he brings out his fail-safe, and somewhat painful, sneaky claw.  We do in fact have a third fur child, a very tiny, highly opinionated, grumpy black cat.  She chose my daughter at TEARS, the local animal shelter.  A rehabilitated feral cat, she had been completely disdainful of both her cat mates and the humans who tried to love her, but she greeted my daughter from her perch by putting her minute paws on her shoulders.  It was an instant bond.  As we left, this apparently solitary and unsociable cat, followed all the way down the enclosure and stretched her paw through the mesh of her cage. Cola came home and was renamed Luna.  It took some time and a lot of love from my daughter for Luna to settle in comfortably.  She slept on my daughter and helped with all her art projects.  Luna has never really meowed, she 'meeps' and makes bird-like squeaks.  When Angus arrived she still lived on the ground, but after she scratched his nose one day war was declared between the two.  From then on, if Angus saw Luna, the chase was with nasty intent.  Luna had to make hasty dash for the tree onto the roof or to the wall.  Luna, next to Sam, is a quarter of his size, but feisty.  She often boxed Sam even if he had done nothing.  He just sat there and took it with a silly look on his face!  Luna went missing once.  It was awful.  We put up posters and asked all over the neighbourhood.  I told my daughter who was heartbroken thinking Luna had left her, that Luna would be back if she could.  Two weeks later, while we were out, a kind neighbour phoned saying she thought she had seen Luna.  My daughter rushed home and phoned me in floods of tears because Luna had returned, very thin, but very happy to see her human.  We think she may have been shut in a garage when the neighbours went on holiday.  My daughter moved out last year into a block of flats where pets were not allowed.  Luna stayed at home and spent her time on the roof, off doing cat stuff or sitting in the middle of our, thankfully, quiet street, leg in the air, washing herself.  I worried that as she got older, her escaping skills would slow and Angus may catch her.  My daughter moved from the flat and into a pet-besotted house.  I suggested Luna move too.  I packed her little case with food, a bowl and her blanket and yesterday, Luna went to live a far more suitable cat life.  No chasing, lots of human contact, ground!  Queen Grumpy Cat, Looley Luna will rule the roost.  I will miss you little meeper, but your life is going to be wonderful from now on.

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