Persephonies Korats

Kipper’s story

Kipper was our second cat, and came to us as a friend for Poppy. She’s a black cat who was born to a feral mother at a farm. The farmer had his own method for neutering the boys (stuff their heads down a welly and snip the tackle without breaking any skin!) but other male cats in the area were numerous, so his attempts at population control didn’t really work. On a positive note, he kept a freezer full of tripe in his tractor shed especially for the cats!

Kipper was our first entanglement with a feral. The kittens were rather wild, but Craig managed to catch one in the pig sty. She promptly bit him. Farmer George (that really is his name!), in the absence of a cat carrier, gave us a flour sack to keep her in the dark until we released her at home and began a socialising process. I now look back at this in horror as I wouldn’t dream of picking up a cat without a proper carrier!

Kipper was not happy. We realised that she hadn’t been touched by human hand during the critical period, although she’d come to recognise humans as a source of food. However, she soon made friends with Poppy, played pat-a-paw with our fingers from underneath the settee, and eventually, started to jump onto the sofa for a cuddle. Kipper still doesn’t like being picked up, and hates strangers, but has bonded with Poppy. The pair are now inseparable. She is no trouble at all and has a very sweet nature.

The only problem we have had with Kipper, is when she first began to call, just before we had her neutered. Kipper’s idea for finding a mate was to pee on any available soft furnishing, leaving her enticing scent for the mate she dreamed of. At the time, Sam was our only dog, and getting on a bit in years, became particularly arthritic after sleeping the night away on a damp bed courtesy of Kipper. We shut her out of the kitchen at night so she graduated onto the throws on the living room settees, and eventually our bed. As you can imagine, it was only a matter of 2 or 3 days before we said that’s enough, and thoroughly traumatised her by taking her down to the Vets to be spayed. We decided it was kinder to Kipper to have a dissolving stitch in her small wound, so that she wouldn’t have to endure another ride to the vets. She recovered well, and hasn’t blotted her copybook (or the soft furnishings, for that matter) since!  

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