Perils of Being a Cat

Sadly, we said goodbye to Binks yesterday. He was hit by a car and must have been killed instantaneously by a blow to his head. My father found him lying on the road. By the time I came home, his little body had been placed in a box which was then swaddled with plastic bags. This comes after Inks' mysterious disappearance a few days after Christmas. So of the 3 kittens only Winks is left. However, as mentioned in a previous post the 3 kittens had a fourth sibling (who I call Minx) who we had been slowly cultivating just before Binks' death. So we have now accelerating the socialisation process by bringing Minx and Winks into our back yard to begin to accustom them to living in a house (including the not difficult, but rather smelly task of potty training). This also means that we have to accustom Casey cat to sharing her territory with other cats!

Maybe just a few words about Inks and Binks. Inks was the friendly one who loved playing with toys and people. I remember him trying to understand the nature of a car windscreen - how it was he could see someone inside the car but something was preventing him from getting closer! Binks was the shy one, the reserved cat who it was harder to get to know. But the effort was worth it - I cherish the memory of Binks lying on his back with his four paws in the air, playing with a toy or waiting to be stroked/tickled. Although Minx is very like him in appearance, it is not the same. It is sad to think they are no longer with us, sadder still that we did not get Binks adopted earlier even though we had offers for him. Whilst some of his potential adopters had some hazardous circumstances about their home, I should have better taken into account that we too have hazards around us which make the environment here unsafe for the cats and even more so, the kittens.

Sad though it has been to say goodbye to Binks, it was no where as traumatic as the loss of Mandy a few months earlier. Mandy was the first little kitten after Casey we wanted to adopt. She was friendly, trusting and affectionate. Sadly, she wandered into the front garden of the house next door. The dogs were let out of the house and poor Mandy was mauled to death. Sadly, I have no photo to remember her by. So this blog shall have to be her memorial.

Goodbye to my little dears... Inks, Binks, and Mandy.