May 2014
Bates was mostly an outdoor cat, having been adopted after he was found living in the street. His semi-feral disposition meant he needed extra time and space to get used to us.
He was hardly ever in the house, except if we got persistent rain during the day – otherwise he just came in at meal times and to curl up on the sofa to sleep at night.
He didn’t seek nor welcome physical affection, and he wasn’t fond of too much human proximity. Sometimes he would come over purring and gladly tolerated a few scratches on the top of the head, but mostly he just preferred to be left alone.
He would lose patience very quickly and lash out, fast as lightning, intent on hurting you with claws and teeth. Thankfully, we had learnt to read these signals after 14 months volunteering at our local SPCA, where we dealt with the full spectrum of cat behaviour, and managed to avoid stressing him out and at the same time stop him from causing any serious injury.
Needless to say, I could barely give credit to my eyes when he decided to move from his favourite sofa and curled up next to me instead one evening (hence the happy “selfie”!).
He had an amusing way of letting us know when it was time to feed him. Whilst most cats will vocalise it, or try to get your attention in other ways like rubbing against your legs or walking all over your laptop if you’re working (who cannot identify with this?), he would just place himself by his feeding mat and wait patiently for one of us to notice him.
For all his other feral traits, he didn’t show any food aggression at all and would happily and gently take treats and the occasional piece of chicken straight from our hands. And he didn’t mind posing for photos at all!
