In 2002 things were looking good for my daughter, she had a new relationship, new house and a great paying new job so she decided with her then boyfriend to get two kittens. With the money she was on, she could afford to get the longed-for pedigree cat she always wanted, but decided instead to share her good fortune and give a home to an abandoned or unwanted cat at the cat’s charity, Cats Protection League. To her, it was a kind of ‘pay it forward’.
When she contacted her local Cat’s Protection League in Maidenhead, they told her they only had two kittens left because no one wanted due to them being wild, proper wild! Luckily, my daughter had already experienced growing up with two wild cats when I had rescued two kittens that were just that. So she agreed to still go and have a look. The Cat’s Protection League could not have been more happier.
I still remember the day when she told me about them. She’d been to see them and, unlike my two wild kittens that were shy and scared and hid everywhere and hissed when you went past their cat igloo, the two she saw were housed in a large dog cage, hiding inside an open cat carrier and the carer had to use motorcycle gloves just to put food in the cage and still, my daughter adopted them!
Admittedly, she worked hard with them. The kittens were very small, very malnourished, very hissy, very scared of humans but she loved them. She named the female Nipper as you can guess why, and the male Buster, after the cartoon dog on Tom and Jerry because he had that same attitude and walked like him too almost as if looking for trouble! It took her some time but seemed no time at all before they both turned into loving and affectionate loyal cats. Mind you, the wildness in them still came out from time to time – vet trips were a nightmare on occasions but those are stories for a different time.
Fast forward to years later, the boyfriend and the house gone, several career changes, 8 moving of homes, a new boyfriend who came with a cat and dog of his own, whom she later married and had two children with…. and Nipper and Buster were on her lap through it all!
Until one Christmas, when Buster, at the age 18 suddenly became ill and died two days later. The family were heart broken. Admittedly, I was too as they were my Furbaby Grandchildren in a way – for years I was the pet sitter and I loved cuddling them all. Over the years, they slowly lost their pets, first his cat, Vienna, at 8 years old. Grendal, the German Shepherd at 12 years old and now Buster at 18 years old.
While we all consoled each other and focused on my daughter who felt like she’d lost a part of her heart that day, we didn’t realise the one missing him most was Nipper. 10 days was all it took for Nipper to go from a cat that ran around, even at 18 years old, to a cat that didn’t want to move. We didn’t realise that cat’s too can have a broken heart and she was slowly dying in front of us without us really understanding.
At first, we thought it was Nipper’s way of trying to console my daughter by always wanting to be on her lap, more than usual, as if to make up for the time that Buster could no longer be there instead and so was trying to do double shifts. When Nipper then started wanting to sleep on the settee next to my daughter, we again thought not much of it until she didn’t move to her usual spots around the house as was her habit. Usually she would stay in one place for a week and then move to another for the next week and another the following week and so on. The children grew up with ‘Hunt for Nipper’ game to find her new hiding place…. So by day 10, when she had stayed in the same place, it was instantly noticeable. It then became noticeable that she not only just stayed on the settee, all day, but that the cat litter wasn’t being used much and the food wasn’t being touched much and the water bowls that seemed to be refilled every day had hardly been touched but was at least being drank.
This was the first time in all my years, I’d seen a pet mourn for the loss of the other. My guess is that after all the years, there had always been another furry around but now she was the last one and all alone apart from her human babies.
My daughter gave her a pillow to sleep on next to her on the settee and she seemed a little happier with it, but it was still not enough to be motivated to be the happy little cat she had been. We started to try and make a fuss of her too. Fresh cooked fish, a little bit of ham or corned beef…. it was catnip sprinkled on a little bit of Cat mousse that got her eating again. I’d figured that if she was at least lapping up water, she might lap up her food so wet food and mousse seemed logical and it worked.
But Nipper still wasn’t really responding to ‘living’ again. She was now at least eating and drinking – not in great quantities, but enough to keep her alive. She was still mourning. A month later. And still sleeping in the one spot – on the pillow on the middle cushion of the settee! She was finding it harder to get up and down the settee, so again, my daughter put it down to her old age and put boxes as steps for her. But the story of Tiny Tim and Scrooge came to mind when Nipper walked from the settee to the kitchen to the Utility and back again…
2 months had passed. Nipper was clearly still sad. You could see the spark in her eyes not fully lit. And we were all very very worried about her. We’d just lost her brother and we certainly didn’t want to lose her too.
Then on one cold night in early March, sitting on the settee watching TV, with Nipper beside me on her pillow, I thought it a good idea to get a hot water bottle to help with my aches. When I got up for a comfort break, I put the hot water bottle down on my seat and when I came back, Nipper had moved off her pillow and cuddled up to the hot water bottle!
I was both shocked and amazed. The first time she showed true interest in something and it happened to be a fur covered hot water bottle…. then it clicked… it was another furry her size that felt like another of her kind. Needless to say that I didn’t take the hot water bottle back nor moved her. Instead, I kept an eye on her and for the rest of the evening, she would get up, turn around and move only on the hot water bottle. I moved the hot water bottle to her pillow and she seemed to love it. For the first time in nearly 3 months, she actually spread herself out across the bottle and the pillow and not the small little curled up ball she’d recently adopted.
It wasn’t long before we were all trained by Nipper as to when her hot bottle was too cold or too hot or if it wasn’t positioned right on the pillow… the old Nipper was coming back to us. A bright little cat that knew how to make us her slave, only we were no longer playing ‘Hunt for Nipper’ but more ‘Hotbotty time for Nipper’ instead.
Nipper insisted on it being filled no matter the weather outside. The hottest day outside and still she wanted that bottle! She never moved to find a new hiding place. The middle of the settee with her pillow and hot bottle was her spot. We knew the spark in her was back when she complained about her pillow being moved to one end of the settee so at least people could sit together and yes, my daughter duly moved it back and again. Nipper was happy being among people rather than at the side.
3 more years that hot water bottle kept Nipper with us. My daughter often commentated that had it not been for the humble hot water bottle, we would have lost her not long after Buster.
You don’t always need to buy expensive gadgets for our pets. The humble hot water bottle certainly saved our little one when she was deep in mourning and it then helped keep her with us until father time came for her peacefully at the age of 21 years old. And yes, it was with her till the end, along with my daughter and her family.