‘A happy arrangement: many people prefer cats to other people, and many cats prefer people to other cats.’– American aphorist, Mason Cooley
I was busy yesterday morning picking up my male cat, Mimi, from the veterinary clinic. I had sent it there for spaying.
Because the girl at the clinic said the cat had to fast before the operation on Friday morning, I sent Mimi there a day earlier. Never mind I had to pay RM18 per night for the boarding.
At home, I know I cannot stop Mimi from eating. If I do not feed it when hungry, it will make a lot of noise.
I named the current adult male cat I received from my nephew, Ah Lai, Mimi, in memory of a former male orange cat. The new Mimi looks almost the same as the old Mimi. It is also gentle and loving like the old Mimi.
I don’t know how old the new Mimi is. But two weeks ago, it started displaying mating-related behaviours such as excessive vocalization.
One evening, it escaped from my house in the middle of a row of single-storey terraced houses to go to the last house on the left.
After I discovered Mimi was missing, I went to look for it in the dark. “Mimi, Mimi, Mimi,” I shouted as I walked to the end of the row of houses.
With me was my old male dog, Cookie. It obligingly showed me the way as I held it on a leash.
At the last house, I heard the sounds of cats fighting under a parked car. I called and called my cat’s name but there was no response. The cats just continued their fight. Cookie surprisingly also did not bark.
Unsure if Mimi was one of the noisy cats under the car because it was very dark, I continued walking to the back lane of our housing block. With me was Cookie.
Our walk eventually took us back to the front gate of my house.
Unwilling to lose Mimi forever just like that after all the trouble of introducing it to my two dogs in the house and getting them to get used to it, I decided to go to the last house on the left one more time.
Meanwhile, the two cats were still fighting under the car and making a lot of noise.
At the locked gate of the last house, I stopped and kept calling my cat’s name.
After a while, the two fighting cats moved from under the car to a space in the house compound.
That was when I saw a white cat with an orange marking on its tail. It was definitely Mimi!
“Mimi, Mimi, Mimi,” I called out to the cat. But Mimi continued to fight the black and white cat after glancing at me for a while.
Refusing to give up, I moved from the gate of the last house to its side fence and continued calling “Mimi, Mimi, Mimi” from there.
After a while, a young woman came out from the dark house. “Your cat?” she asked me. “Yes,” I replied.
“Male?” she asked again. “Yes,” I said.
The woman then approached the two male cats in an attempt to separate them.
The minute she approached the felines, Mimi stopped fighting and rushed out through a hole in the gate towards the direction of my house.
I found Mimi a few minutes later near the gate of my house. I grabbed it and quickly took it back to the house.
While this was going on, my younger female dog, Bailey, kept on barking.
Probably it was scolding Mimi on my behalf and saying to it, “It’s late already. Where did you go?”
Bailey actually likes Mimi. It likes to kiss the cat. Both of them often play together.
Both Cookie and Bailey had missed the cat when it was away at the veterinary clinic for two days and two nights. I also missed Mimi when it was away.
When Mimi was not around, the house was suddenly very quiet. You see, Mimi likes to complain. It complains when there is no more drinking water or no food in its bowl. It complains when the cat litter tray needs to be emptied or cleaned.
I did some research on the internet after Mimi went out to fight the neighbour’s cat and began yowling excessively, especially at night.
I found out such behaviours are driven by a cat’s instinct to find a mate.
I also learned that male cats can breed at any time after they reach puberty which can be as early as four months.
Although I don’t know how old Mimi is, I know now it is old enough to mate. I hate to look for the cat should it go missing again, especially in the evening or night.
Besides, I had been losing my beauty sleep lately because of Mimi’s excessive yowling at night. It kept going to the door in the hope I would open it and let it roam outside.
That was why I decided to neuter it this week.
