Cat Christmas Countdown 3

The first cat I ever had of my own was a grey and white kitten called Misty who was my seventh birthday present. Sadly, she died of cat flu after only a couple of years, but I have loved grey cats ever since. So when I learned that the RSPCA had a grey and while kitten looking for a home, I knew that home had to be with me.

I might have gone to the RSPCA looking for a Misty type of kitten - what I got was Dylan aka Dyl the Vill (short for villain) and Misty he is not. Where Misty was petite and very feminine, a sweet natured cat, Dylan is a street fighting thug with a great interest in working men! If any electricians or plumbers come to the house to do repairs etc, Dylan is there like a shot, playing the ' I'm just a small, injured cat' look to perfection so that he gets their attention and, hopefully, strokes. He is not very good at purring - his purr sounds rusty as if it doesn't get used all that much - but when he gets stroked by men who work with their hands, he loves it. He also loves being stroked by Anne McAllister - not that I'm saying anything about the size of her hands - but she does know just the right spot on his head to rub in just the right way.


Dylan also gets attention because he is small - though as ' his girl' Biddy points out he had powerful shoulders which mean that he walks with a real swagger, like some gunslinger heading into the OK Corral. He also only has one eye that works because of a dose of cat flu (what is it with grey cats and cat flu?) that meant one eye totally sealed up and now has only partially opened again so he always looks like he's winking at you. He is by far the smallest of all the cat but he is the fierce one, the one you don't want to tackle on a dark night, the hunter who will tackle a pigeon as large as himself and will climb the tallest tree to go nesting.

He is also a cat who will follow his humans anywhere - if I leave the house and he is in the garden, then he sets off down the street with me. Which is fine if I'm only going to the post box, but not so great if, as happened once, he follows the BM right to the door of the local 6th form college where he (the BM that is) was teaching an evening class. As a result, Dylan is the most educated of our cats because he has attended a lesson on writing poetry.


Hero-wise, Dylan would like me to claim that his is the Tom Cruise of cats, small but perfectly formed, but the truth is that in character and behavious he is much more like Jack Nicholson, with that roguish wink, the swagger, and a charm all of his own.

Dylan also occasionally has ideas above his station - these are the result of his first trip to the vets, when a very new lady vet labelled him a'silver tabby' when he is in fact just as grey tabby - not silver at all. He is also Sid's Nemesis - the pair of them have never settled into any sort of affection and barely tolerate each other. Dylan however is the cat who always gets the firespot and once winter comes, he will remember the delights of the fire and head straight for the spot in front of the fireplace where he will sit and wait, knowing with absolute certainty that a fire will appear - because he wants one.

He is also brilliant at mind control. If the other cats need to go out in the night, they will come to our bedroom and scratch on the foot of the bed or throw things at us from the nightstand - but Dylan just sits in the hallway and thinks. And suddenly I will wake up and realise that downstairs a cat is waiting . . .

He can also do this in reverse by sitting on the lawn outside my bedroom window and sending 'let me in' commands to wake me up.

And as you can see from the first picture of Dylan in this post, he is also a cat who still believes in Santa - though he is a little worried about him coming down the chimney and disturbing him, because, of course, he already has the firespot.