Peter - The cat that started my obsession

I can’t really remember a time when I was not besotted by animals.  I was obsessed with elephants as a child, with orangutans as a teenager and now?  Well I love all animals but I adore cats in particular and I guess I always have.

My grandmother had a beautiful, friendly tabby called Tiger who I used to love to visit.  When I was about 10 years old Tiger had a litter of kittens and after much begging, I got my mum and dad to agree to let me have one.  I picked a beautiful tabby boy and called him Peter. 

My Peter - such a handsome boy

At the time, we had no other pets at home and Peter became my best friend.  Peter and I would hang out together all the time and he loved to sleep on my pillow, wrapped around my head.  I used to pop him in my dolly pram and he would happily be pushed around the house or garden, he was such a sociable boy!  He was also an incredibly affectionate cat, and when he was particularly happy he would knead away and dribble like mad!  After a few months Mum and Dad adopted a Springer Spaniel puppy which we called Penny.  The first meeting of Peter and Penny was an exciting time but it didn’t go as planned.  Peter was really not impressed with the bouncy puppy and decided to show his distaste by scratching her on the nose and giving her a big hiss!  As much as I adored the new puppy I was mega-protective of my best friend Peter and I bundled him up into my arms and took him off to my bedroom where we consoled each other with a good old snuggle.  Anyway, after a few more supervised interactions they got used to each other and over the next few months they became the best of friends.  They would play together, eat together and sleep together – it was adorable.  Peter was very loyal though and I like to think he was still my best friend.

Peter and I had many, many happy years together and I would rush home from school to see my beautiful boy but one terrible night Peter went out for his usual evening stroll and he never came home, I was devastated.  We put up posters and knocked on doors but nobody had seen him.

After months of living in hope, we had to accept that we might never see him again.  This was before the days of microchips so I like to think that he wandered off and maybe found a new wonderful home somewhere else, but we will never know.

I know this is a bit of a sad story but I have such wonderful memories of him and I am grateful to him for the years of companionship and I completely owe him for my cat obsession!

I’d love to hear your memories of the cats that started your love for cats/cat obsession….

Melly Boy - Slightly resembles Peter I think!