I was recently given the task of looking after a cat I’d never met before. Potential for all sorts of problems, I felt.
It’s a complicated story but the gist of it is that its owner had gone away for three weeks and, according to the person who tasked me with the role, the cat was locked inside the house with no-one having access to a key. The cat had been alone for more than a day already.
Well, while I’m someone who’s content to keep my own counsel and not interfere with neighbours, I can’t let a cat starve to death. So I stepped in.
Some hours later, clutching a new set of keys and £600 lighter in the purse stakes, I went in search of kitty. I had heard she was reclusive and skittish. I trod carefully.
It was dark inside, with curtains closed and blinds shuttered. I’m not too sure about the eyesight of cats but I do remember things about being able to see in the dark, so I was hoping she’d managed to find her way around even without a light.
To my relief, there were signs of life, even though no actual sign of kitty. There was a water trail from the kitchen to the sitting room, some of those bullet-like biscuits left in the food bowl and the recognisable scent of a litter tray. For once, it cheered me up.
I declared myself – she’s heard my voice before, but I’ve never seen her – and kept up a reasonable steady stream of inane conversation as I turned on lights, plugged in a (my) radio and tuned it to Radio 4. I have no clue about housebound cats but, based on my own projections about me, I felt she might like some form of company if she were staying on her own for so long.
I felt rather than heard her presence. There was no immediate pitter patter of tiny feet but, as I turned my head slowly towards the staircase, I caught sight of a small black-and-white cat sitting halfway down the stairs.
We kept it casual. I crept towards the kitchen – it’s open plan – and she crept back up the stairs, both of us studiously ignoring the other with me in freeze mode in case I offended her, and kitty in flight mode, in case I did. It felt a bit like the beginning of a therapeutic relationship when a client may be uncertain and unconvinced of the process and the therapist is also feeling their way around the process. S/he may know more about what it entails but they still need to get to know their client and to understand what works best for them.
Unfortunately, kitty doesn’t communicate with words so an important aspect of the relationship was limited. After a little hesitancy when she turned tail and leapt further up those stairs, I discovered she recognised and liked the sound of the tin containing the cat food. I washed up bowls (I know cats are clean and I didn’t like the idea of her eating new food from an old bowl, ditto water) and set it down in what was clearly the usual place. I waited.
It wasn’t long before she was back. No sound at first but a stealthy sense of movement before the paws hit the floor and then the speedy trot to the kitchen corner and the bowls.
And so it went on. We developed our own rhythm whereby I’d come in twice a day, clean the bowls and the litter tray and lay the food out. I stayed for about an hour each time – morning and evening – so that she had some company and changed the radio station to Radio 3 in the evening so that she’d be able to have a calm sleep if she wanted, or enjoy the music when she woke. I know. I have no clue but at least I tried.
Around day three, there was a bit of excitement. Kitty’s head appeared between the upstairs rails and she actually meowed. I’d not heard that before and I didn’t realise she could. I was thrilled. I took it as an acknowledgement that we were entering into some sort of relationship and she was slightly pleased to see me.
I’m not daft, I didn’t push it. The temptation might have been to rush upstairs and make a grab for her. I resisted and behaved with decorum. The reward was that she tripped down to her comfortable position halfway down the stairs and rolled over, pawing both the carpet and stretching out towards me. A breakthrough!
Over the next day or so, we grew a little closer. She’d hear me arrive, observe me from her post upstairs, give a brief meow at the sound of my voice and come downstairs for her food and a bit of company. She brushed past me while I sat quietly and carefully on the sofa and, after further timidity on my part, allowed me to stroke her. All the while, I was careful not to be too pushy.
On day six, I’d come into my own. I was comfortable with the relationship and was beginning to enjoy cat minding.
At the end of our evening session, kitty was perched comfortably on a wooden chest in the sitting room and I was opposite her on the sofa. I stood up slowly, saying I was about to go and reached out my hand to say goodbye. I don’t know what it was I did – maybe my hand raised above her? – or how I offended but you should have heard that hiss and seen the demonstration of teeth that came with it. I had no idea I could move my hand that fast.
“Ah,” said a fellow counselling friend. “That’ll be the borderline personality disordered cat. You don’t know what you did but she does and she didn’t like it.”
There are various terms for people with BPD. Emotionally unstable was one; emotional intensity another. A general description would be: “Mental illness that severely impacts a person’s ability to regulate their emotions. It is considered to come from early childhood experiences and trauma which continues to affect the person into adulthood.”
Personally, I see it less as the problem of a person and more of the pain that that person has experienced and from which s/he has not been able to move on. It seems a disrespectful term somehow.
I subsequently learned that kitty had had an unfortunate past, hence her skittishness. I’d suggest her problem is not the cat with BPD but the cat with people problems. She’s learned from experience and she’s not going to allow some jumped-up cat minder to get one over her.
You know what they say. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. This is a work in progress. Kitty and I are back to being pals but I keep my hands to myself unless she indicates otherwise.