Lord Herbert wrote on Jul 5
th, 2013 at 6:08pm:
But Sooty has turned out to be a lot more psychologically damaged than I had first thought. It's why he sticks to me like glue.
He suffers from fairly severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
I very strongly suspect that as a kitten he was well loved and well looked after. And then he went to a second home ~ either stolen, or picked up at a pound as lost.
And that's when he suffered cruelty and abuse. I think someone used to poke a lit cigarette or lighter at his hind-quarters. There's nothing physically wrong there, but most times ~ not always ~ he'll go crazy if you just touch him gently around the stump of the tail.
He's a big cat now, and all evidence of singed fur has long disappeared.
Another thing is he is terrified of walking through the house. He tries as much as possible to make his way to the backdoor by leaping from anything that keeps him above the floor. If there's no more furniture for him to leap from, then he'll hit the floor running in a terrified panic.
Needless to say, he sleeps hard-up against me every night. Poor little bugger. I think he was once somebody's plaything, and his reaction to acts of cruelty kept some evil person or persons thinking it was hilariously funny.
Lately I've had to turn my back on animal cruelty after spending many decades losing sleep, plotting how to rescue animals, looking after them and usually keeping them. There's too much of it around and it seems to be getting worse.
There is a big difference between getting a kitten from a loving home and raising it. My first two cats who lived till a ripe old age were spoilt from the moment they were born and had a great life. The latest edition - an adult cat - Sia - hate the name, but it's supposed to be my daughter's cat, looked like a young kitten when she arrived on my doorstep. She was so thin - malnourished and dehydrated that she couldn't have weighed more than half a kilo. She vomited up a stomach full of skink tails on my kitchen floor which were the sole contents of her tummy. She had a microchip, which of course had a disconnected phone number.
Her behaviour indicated that she'd been kept locked in a small space. I suspect someone got bored with her and dumped her on my doorstep.
I didn't want anymore cats and ended up taking her to the RSPCA after a couple of weeks, which was the wrong thing to do. It was too traumatic for her. My daughter's nagging got to me - so we ended up buying her back a few weeks later. A year later and she's sleek, plump and placid - but very aloof. Thankfully she's a homebody and doesn't wander and at least stops baby rodents from entering the house in exchange for her expensive diet.
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