How many wild or unacknowledged cats are there in the country? And what's the difference between a wild cat and those that just hang around, generation after generation, not having a normal roof over their heads, belonging to nobody but attaching themselves to front doors where they demand, in the morning with a faint squeak, just a bit of Brekkies or other cat food, and then don't harry you for feeding again until, at this time of year, 10 o'clock or so in the evening, just when the badgers get their nightly snack? Two side-by-side neighbours found that their moderately extensive gardens, well covered here and there by bushes and large trees, were being overrun by cats. When two produced a litter at almost the same time, they took action. They rounded up the mother cats - could find only one of the litters, so cutely had the other been tucked away - went to the vet, who promised to find a home for the kittens and who rendered the two mothers incapable of producing more offspring. And that was, more or less, that.
More or less, because the two mother cats attached themselves more than ever to one of the houses. In the morning they squeak gently when the front door opens, looking for no more than a scattering of Brekkies or whatever cat-biscuits are available. Then one of them climbs under the car, finding, apparently some nook off the ground where, now and again, she acquires a slight film of oil on her back. It should be said that these two - mother and daughter - have a normal tabby pattern of fur, but the luxuriance of it! Especially in the younger, it shows that somewhere down the line there was a Persian injection in the clan. They are brave cats. It is not unusual to see them feeding peacefully on the lawn near badgers when it comes to their turn to be fed. In fact, two or three badgers and a fox and one of these select cats have been seen eating on the lawn at the same time.
Night feeding of the two cats is now usually done on plates under the car, for shelter if it is raining, for privacy if it is not. There are a couple of rascal cats which have to be shooed off until the pair have had a reasonable fill of their dinner. A couple of nights ago, a surprise scavenger came to empty the plates - a small young fox. And there are odd ginger or black-and-white intruders. But the two dames, mother and daughter, have always the best attention. What's the life expectancy of a luxurious open-air cat like this?