Back in August, I came home to my dead cat Tommy. He was a super sweet boy, affectionate, cheeky who had made the neighbourhood his territory over the 10 years plus we had him.
He led his life with panache and didn’t mind being the smallest cat on the block; even after a lost battle he would go back for more. He didn’t know he was small. I used to joke I should be more like Tommy. Fearless and living for now.
The morning he died, we had a lovely cuddle and he went off on his patrol.
He visited a communal garden across the road from our house and there, a greyhound had been let out off the lead into the same garden. We are not 100% sure of how it went but by the time a neighbour brought him back to us, he was still breathing but had been gutted by the dog.
He put up a fair fight and the dog was put on antibiotics.
We were crushed by his death, still are. It showed us how much we were a family, how much we relied on him on a daily basis to amuse us, to give and receive love.
Now, the dog belongs to an old lady who cannot walk very well. She didn’t seem too shaken by what had happened. I see her now and again, with the dog and have very mixed feelings. It is not the dog’s fault, greyhounds are renowned for their high prey drive and are trained to chase.
Our own lovely dog is hardly without her prey drive faults and we have to be super vigilant at all times: she often chases, kill and eat pigeons, rabbits, pheasant, mices but she will leave cats alone since we have trained her to do so.
On the other hand, she can randomly show aggressivity to some dogs. No breed in particular (although Alsatians tends to be on her top list). And she is most definitely super sweet with humans, so much so that children can pull her ears out, probe her eyes, she will just sit there, unphased.
So, to go back to the dog who killed my cat, well he broke our hearts but animals will be animals. And we must always be vigilant and keep the training up if the dog has issues, just like ours has, rescue from the streets to a few homes to us: her fear of being left behind is huge (nearly as huge as her love of bin savaging 😊)
I am not sure what this post is about, express my sadness, my disbelief that Tommy is gone, my weird emotions when I see the dog & its owner. Rescue dogs can be hard work, they can be unpredictable but still, to me they are the best. I am grateful for having had such a lovely creature as Tommy in my life and cherish the time we had.
During his life, he killed rats, mice, pigeons. Today as we walked onto our allotment where he was buried in the orchard, his corpse had been dug up by a badger who kindly shat in the hole (apparently it’s a badger thing) and then a fox did the same on Tommy’s decomposing body (apparently it’s a fox thing) which the badger had dragged out. He was strange to see him again. It had been 6-7 weeks since he died.
So we cremated him. And so it end.
Useful links 😊
