I have previously introduced you to Cinders. She was the loveable black and white family cat who had a taste for stick insects (see Cinders And The Stick Insects Post). She lived to quite an age and eventually succumbed to ill health. Prior to Cinders (and her predecessor Queenie) it is my understanding that mice could be a problem in the area where we lived so it made sense to keep the feline line going and get another cat.
Tibby was a male cat and was named by my mam. Something to do with his colouring (a variation on Tabby?).We bought him as a kitten and were told he was weaned but when I saw him for the first time I thought he looked quite small, even for a kitten. He was a crazy little fella and was more playful than Cinders was at the same age. He was also far more vocal than any cat I had ever heard before.
When he was less than 12 months old he came back in the house one day limping and dazed. We lived on a main road so the busy traffic was always a danger to cats. We weren't sure exactly what had happened to him so he was taken to the vets. He didn't have any broken bones but the vet concluded he had taken a blow to the head and he had bruising to his back legs. He was still young and the vet was confident he would recover. We concluded he may have taken a glancing blow from a vehicle on the main road.
Shortly after this episode we had him neutered and this seemed to keep him in the house more than previously, at least during the day. We also noted that his behaviour was even more erratic than before and he developed a few strange tics and mannerisms. He was also fond of playing with other male cats. After neutering this was maybe unsurprising but his behaviour with the other tom cats seemed to be a bit "too friendly". Within the family it was now thought Tibby had feline sexuality issues.
As time went by and Tibby got older he still hung around the gay cat village at the bottom of our back garden. When he was in his later years I moved to a different bedroom in the family house. This bedroom overlooked the driveway and the back door. He became virtually impossible to keep in the house overnight. Despite various different measures being taken he would always find a way to escape into the night.
This became a major source of irritation to me as between 3am and 5am every morning he would howl at the back door to be let back into the house. This was directly under my window and regularly awakened me. He was on the receiving end of my wrath when I let him in and I would sit him down and talk through his issues with him. The following night after one of these man to cat talks he escaped again. Sure enough at 4am there he was howling under my bedroom window. Bleary eyed I stumbled down the stairs to let him in as I had now done a hundred times before.This time he strutted past me with a half eaten pigeon in his mouth.
I managed to grab him and he let go of the mutilated pigeon on to the living room floor. He looked at me as if to say "I'm a cat and this is what we do". Tibby was known to us as the worst hunter in the feline world. We had observed him trying to catch birds in the past and it was a pathetic sight. So pathetic in fact that the local magpies would sometimes circle him and have a good cackle at his efforts. As he looked at me and down again at the pigeon I told him not to think he was so clever. It was obvious he hadn't caught this pigeon, he had just chanced across it and brought it home to annoy me.
Tibby passed away at around 10 years old. He life was not as long as Cinders but he more than left his mark in my world. So long Tibby you little rapscallion.
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