The Proper Care and Training of Cats

When our ancient three-legged cat died I swore there would be no more cats. Then Scary Tam called around and said they'd had another litter of kittens. "What are they like?" says I. "Totally gorgeous" says he. "I might take a look at them" says I. I phoned Zoe who agreed to accompany me on the viewing expedition. "I definitely want a female" says I. "I quite agree" says she.

So we landed at Scary Tam's and the kittens were rather nice. Zoe upended the three of them and pronounced them all males. She considered a career as a vet for a time.

"I'll take one anyway" says I. And so we landed home with Harry. He was always great fun. No fear of dogs at all and he used to take great running leps at them. Nowadays we have to dose him with catnip to get his violent urges going. Needless to say we got him castrated. My friend Vinny says that the average lifespan of an unneutered tom cat is two years.

But there was one huge problem. Harry had a thing about pissing on Bert, preferably when he was asleep. The duvets I had to dump! He got a name change for a while and was known as Pisher McGee. But he was still loads of fun and got away with it. "He'll grow out of it" says I. "He'd better, or I'll shoot him" says he.

Then one day that Bert happened to be up early and he went to the front door to have a piss. As we live in the country there was no one to see him but a few thrushes in the hornbeam hedge and Pisher McGee. Bert spotted the cat, adjusted his aim and sent a good morning strone all over Harry. And as God is my judge Harry never peed on Bert or anywhere in the house after it.