Runnin' on

A new catflap

Anyone coming to our back door may well wonder if they ought to beat a hasty retreat when they come across someone kneeling at the new back door to the garage. It would appear to a normal person that some wierd ritual is being performed. Why else would I be shaking a large jar so enthusiasticaly at a sheet of plastic set into the door? Well it isn't a voodoo ritual; the jar contains our cat's favourite dried food. Usually a couple of vigourous shakes will make enough noise to inform Toby that his presence is required poste haste!

We did hope that a lovely new cat flap would appeal to our moggy, but the technicalities have put him off it completly. Knowing how greedily Toby eats the smelly biscuits we reckoned he'd soon dash through the dreaded cat flap for a feed. Brian took him into the garage and held him by the cat flap hoping that with me on the outside rattling the jar like a prize idiot, the cat would take the easy way out through the flap, have his reward of bisciuts and get a badge to show he'd passed the test!

It was obvious that Toby had no intention of leaving home that way, Brian even held the flap open for him but if Toby could have blown a rasberry at the idea he would have, eventually we held the flap up, pushed the cat out and gave him his treats!

This is the first Tilburn cat to fail the cat flap test, in the past we have always been able to leave a cat meal in the garage if we have to go out. One of our previous moggies always relied on escaping from the adult blackbirds via the old cat flap. An annoyed blackbird can terrify even the bravest moggy.

Janet Tilburn