Shackleton in his usual spot Over the last year the Baldwin family has been slowly adopting a big black and white cat. This pussy has gradually got so comfortable in our home that it now sleeps at the foot of my bed every night.
Things weren’t always so domestically satisfactory for this moggy. In fact shortly after we fitted our cat flap in August 2012, this animal used to sneak in to scoff our young cats’ food and we had to chase it out regularly.
I asked around our Close to find out who the cat belonged to and drew a blank. Even Pauline our neighbour, who I am convinced knows every single person living in Daventry, had no ideas.
In the course of the investigations, it turned out that others in the Close had experienced similar break in issues with this creature and some had resorted to locking their cat flaps to keep this particular cat out.
During this time I had even observed the cat going through the bins but I always thought it was in too good a condition for it to be a stray.
Becoming ever more frustrated, I devised strategies to catch the blighter and on more than one occasion taught it a watery lesson that I thought would deter it from coming back. I’ll be honest I had even thought about catching it and then taking it for miles out of Daventry to release it; thankfully I never followed through on that idea.
After this cat’s second significant soaking at my hands, it still was prepared to come into our house and at that point my attitude toward it softened a lot. My view became ‘fair play, if you’re that brave, you are welcome in my home’. There was this additional thought at the back of my mind that any cat that was prepared to take such risks to get some food might actually be in real need of it.
The next time I caught the cat, we had a little one to one time where I explained that if it was going to take advantage of our hospitality, I expected it to make some effort to be a little more sociable.
It was at this point that I named the cat “Shackleton” – his name deemed appropriate by me because there was little doubt in my mind that he was a big, bold, brave and adventurous type. But even with these qualities, Shackleton didn’t show any aggression towards our two cats and that was fundamentally important to us.
Over the coming months Shackleton gained enough confidence not to run away from me, Mrs Baldwin or our children as soon as he saw us. Then he grew brave enough to be fussed by us all - eventually becoming as common place in our house as our two cats.
After a conversation with Mrs B. a few weeks ago, we decided that if we were going to take care of Shackleton we needed to find out if he had an owner and, if we couldn’t find one, we needed to get the cat insured and vaccinated. It had got to the point where we recognised that we couldn’t let Shackleton be poorly without doing something about it (and we couldn’t take the risk of facing high vet’s bills if we did).
Mrs B. subsequently took him to the vets. It turned out that Shackleton was chipped and that enabled the “owner” to be contacted.
That could have been the end of the story, except that it wasn’t!
The owner came around to our house and shared as much of the cat’s story as she could. Wilson, for that was his previous name, was a rescue cat (found abandoned in a cage on a green in Woodford Halse) and then rehomed (having been chipped, neutered, vaccinated). His supposed owners have a house on our estate but about half a mile away from us. Just one day after arriving at his new home, no doubt still a little traumatised, he managed to escape the house and was never seen again.
That was eighteen months ago and Shackleton has been technically homeless ever since. That cat has managed to stay fit and healthy for all that time – that means he stole a lot of food from other cats, raided many bins and probably hunted effectively too. Maybe he has played a successful ‘Littlest Hobo’ role and has lived in multiple households ever since. Whatever his adventure, his new name seems perfectly appropriate.
“The Secret Life of Cats” was shown on the BBC earlier this year, I watched it with fascination and thought how much I’d love to be able to track where Shackleton went in between visits to my home.
I like happy endings and this story, at least so far, has one. Shackleton’s previous (and temporary owners) have agreed that we can adopt him. We will shortly have his paperwork and at that point we’ll change his name and chip details, top up his vaccinations and insure him too.
Shackleton has managed to find a new home all by himself; he has had to get over his fear of people (and their retribution at his thieving) and he is now getting all the positive fuss/attention and food that he deserves.
Hopefully that will be enough for the new pussy in my life to stick around.
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Things weren’t always so domestically satisfactory for this moggy. In fact shortly after we fitted our cat flap in August 2012, this animal used to sneak in to scoff our young cats’ food and we had to chase it out regularly.
I asked around our Close to find out who the cat belonged to and drew a blank. Even Pauline our neighbour, who I am convinced knows every single person living in Daventry, had no ideas.
In the course of the investigations, it turned out that others in the Close had experienced similar break in issues with this creature and some had resorted to locking their cat flaps to keep this particular cat out.
During this time I had even observed the cat going through the bins but I always thought it was in too good a condition for it to be a stray.
Becoming ever more frustrated, I devised strategies to catch the blighter and on more than one occasion taught it a watery lesson that I thought would deter it from coming back. I’ll be honest I had even thought about catching it and then taking it for miles out of Daventry to release it; thankfully I never followed through on that idea.
After this cat’s second significant soaking at my hands, it still was prepared to come into our house and at that point my attitude toward it softened a lot. My view became ‘fair play, if you’re that brave, you are welcome in my home’. There was this additional thought at the back of my mind that any cat that was prepared to take such risks to get some food might actually be in real need of it.
The next time I caught the cat, we had a little one to one time where I explained that if it was going to take advantage of our hospitality, I expected it to make some effort to be a little more sociable.
It was at this point that I named the cat “Shackleton” – his name deemed appropriate by me because there was little doubt in my mind that he was a big, bold, brave and adventurous type. But even with these qualities, Shackleton didn’t show any aggression towards our two cats and that was fundamentally important to us.
Over the coming months Shackleton gained enough confidence not to run away from me, Mrs Baldwin or our children as soon as he saw us. Then he grew brave enough to be fussed by us all - eventually becoming as common place in our house as our two cats.
After a conversation with Mrs B. a few weeks ago, we decided that if we were going to take care of Shackleton we needed to find out if he had an owner and, if we couldn’t find one, we needed to get the cat insured and vaccinated. It had got to the point where we recognised that we couldn’t let Shackleton be poorly without doing something about it (and we couldn’t take the risk of facing high vet’s bills if we did).
Mrs B. subsequently took him to the vets. It turned out that Shackleton was chipped and that enabled the “owner” to be contacted.
That could have been the end of the story, except that it wasn’t!
The owner came around to our house and shared as much of the cat’s story as she could. Wilson, for that was his previous name, was a rescue cat (found abandoned in a cage on a green in Woodford Halse) and then rehomed (having been chipped, neutered, vaccinated). His supposed owners have a house on our estate but about half a mile away from us. Just one day after arriving at his new home, no doubt still a little traumatised, he managed to escape the house and was never seen again.
That was eighteen months ago and Shackleton has been technically homeless ever since. That cat has managed to stay fit and healthy for all that time – that means he stole a lot of food from other cats, raided many bins and probably hunted effectively too. Maybe he has played a successful ‘Littlest Hobo’ role and has lived in multiple households ever since. Whatever his adventure, his new name seems perfectly appropriate.
“The Secret Life of Cats” was shown on the BBC earlier this year, I watched it with fascination and thought how much I’d love to be able to track where Shackleton went in between visits to my home.
I like happy endings and this story, at least so far, has one. Shackleton’s previous (and temporary owners) have agreed that we can adopt him. We will shortly have his paperwork and at that point we’ll change his name and chip details, top up his vaccinations and insure him too.
Shackleton has managed to find a new home all by himself; he has had to get over his fear of people (and their retribution at his thieving) and he is now getting all the positive fuss/attention and food that he deserves.
Hopefully that will be enough for the new pussy in my life to stick around.
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