Animals – Hazel

Earlier this month I posted about the companionship of the animals in our lives, that time in the form of my grey cat Lucy.

Now as all cat owners know, it really isn’t a good idea to favour one above the others, so this post is about another of my three cats, Hazel.

She’s a pretty tortoiseshell. Small in body but not in self-image, Hazel demands whatever she believes befits her status in life. She is a true elitist, disdaining to eat at the same time as the other cats, or to share my attention with them. If I pet one of the others while she’s in the room she will simply pretend to be very interested in something else. She will occasionally allow Lucy to curl up with her (see right), but this is never at her instigation and when she wakes, she gets up immediately and walks into another room without a backward glance.

She tolerates me, sometimes with a degree of frosty affection, but it is clear I’m regarded only as the can-opener and provider of occasional lap-warmth. She likes to go where the other cats are not allowed, and as I prefer them not to sleep in my bedroom, that is a prime target for her. She scratches on my door making a noise like fingernails on chalkboard, demanding to be let in. She’s hugely determined; once recently I stood it as long as I could, with a pillow over my ears: she scratched outside for two hours straight until I gave up and let her in. But if the other cats come into the bedroom, she simply isn’t interested, and goes to sleep somewhere else.

Another example of the way in which animals are as different from each other as people are, and how blessed we can be in their companionship.