Reader Cats: FTC and Horatio a tale of two unwanted cats.
Discussion
Although i have mentioned my two on here occasionally and i was thinking of posting this in the Caturday thread. However i figured that they were worth their own thread.
I have two feline overlords FTC (Freya the Cat) and Horror (Horatio) this is the story of how a bloke who had grown up with dogs and horses ended up with not one but two bloody cats.
The story starts when i moved into this house (shown by the B) with my ex OH.
I had grown up there and moved out in my early 20s, then a few years later my Mother had moved out and after some wrangling with the owners (The Crown Estate) i was the first person on the list after it's refurb. As you can see it has a small amount of greenery around it and the Field at the back is my Mothers and the little dots you can just see are her horses (they play a crucial part of this story).
Now obviously my ex and my mother decide that the house needs pets, but due to working long hours the choice comes down to cats. The ex (who was called Freya) then finds, not 4 miles away a poor cat also called Freya that needs re-homing.
Now at this point you might comment about how crazy and egotistical you would have to be to want pets named after yourself, i sadly missed the signs.
What transpires is my ex goes off and fetches a cat that has lived outside for an unknown amount of time, a cat that was only caught when she was so ill she could no longer run/fight and has been kept in a cage since she was nuetered as she is "a bit scratchy" according to the local rescuers. The information we were given by the vets was that her litter had died inside her and this has meant that when she did give birth there were complications that finally weakened her enough for the local resident to catch her. They then took her to the vets and dumped her with the receptionist, we were also told she was approximately 3 years old, they were probably out by about 5 years.
Any way might i introduce you to the snarling, feral ball of hate filled vengance on foxes, dogs and at least one vetinary nurse that is Freya the Cat or as she is commonally known FTC.
(She is very shy in front of the camera)
Now, this meant i had a terrifed cat who had never really lived in a house before trapped in with these two humans who she would not trust for love nor food.
She settled in a tiny bit, never affectionate but much less fearful, sometimes going as far as to voluntarily enter a room that contained either me or the ex (much more commonly me) and then 4 weeks later when she was first allowed out to play she went and hid behind the stable at the bottom of the garden for over a day, i was beside myself.
I had grown quite attached to her aloofness and really wanted her to stay, but more than that where we lived had a number of large foxes that had been doing battle with my mothersteroriststerriers for a couple of years. I shouldn't have worried, her years as a feral cat had given her some little quicks that i would discover over the next few years, but that night we discovered that she really didn't like foxes. Like really. And soon we discovered that foxes liked her even less. At about 7 am the day after she had been let into the garden for the first time she sauntered back in through the window and took herself off to bed.
Life was good, i had a lovely (slightly crazy) OH, a cat that returned and the foxes no longer shat in my garden or in fact came within about 100m of my house. As is the way with these situations good things never last and on the 31st of March that year my Ex decided horse-riding was something she woul like to try again. I had a thread on that at the time but the end result was a OH with a broken back (she made a full recovery, eventually) and when i finally got out of hospital that night i was tired, emotionally drained and got home at 03:35, i opened a bottle of wine and sat down to let the tension out. Then something wonderful happened, FTC got up on the sofa next to me and curled up against my leg.
I don't have a icture of that moment because quite frankly i was too tired and overwhelmed to even think of taking a piccie, but it looked like this:
The Ex was in Hospital for 10 days and in that time FTC never left my side at home. When the ex returned home she was on bed rest for two months, then couldn't leave the house fo a further 6 weeks and then started the long recovery of getting back to normal and in that time FTC warmed to her, but every time i sat down she would come over and press up against me. I had kind of been adopted.
Even now (5 years later) i am the only person safe to pick her up, the only person whose lap she has ever sat on and the only person that can rub her belly.
Her she is at the moment, my old girl who according to the vets is now 8 and in really closer to 15. She as always hated getting her picture taken so this is one of the few picture i have of her where she is awake.
Now, about 10 months have passed since the horse accident and the Ex decides that working in a bar will give her be good for her re-habilitation as she will have to do some activity. Off she goes and gets a bar job and i can spend some quality time with my cat (or at The 3M pub in the village).
One saturday i am sitting at home contemplating my nice peacful life when i get a call from the OH,
"hi, theres a man in the pub who as just sold a load of kittens, there is only one left and he's threatening to drown him if no one buys him"
The upshot was a few animal lovers relieved him of the kitten and made their feelings clear about such statements and this is what came home that night.
He was tiny no more than 10 weeks, just a ball of fluff with the sharpest claws known to man and no idea how to stand up properly.
He was hard work from the start, inquisitive, fearless, really f
king stupid, all the best qualities in a creature that can fit in the palm of your hand. He had the nickname Horror within minutes and ended up with the official name Horatio a little later that evening.
A couple of sample images from the first few weeks to show you how tiny he was.
FTC did not like Horror, horror did not know what he liked and a relationship was born based on mutual disdain, the odd scrap (she still whips him even now he is much bigger) and the odd, very rare, bit of geniune affection between them.
So after a frought 6 weeks keeping him inside he was jabbed, chipped and collared and then he escaped out of the window where he played outside in the snow.
Once i had caught him we kept him in until it got warmer and he took his first documented steps outside.
A year later he looked like this:
And now he is even bigger. As you can see in the sunlight he is a very deep brown/red colour, unfortunatley the rest of the time he looks so black that getting a decent picture of him is almost impossible, he grew up with acres of land around him and is a truly massive cat (for an unknown breed) and a deadly hunter. He has picked up FTCs hatred of Foxes but his own personal vendetta is against Squirrels for some reason.
I must apologise for the long post but i got carried away looking through the old photos i had of them.
If we fast foward 5 years and i have moved away from that house, got shot of the crazy egotist ex and kept the cats. They are constant sources of entertainment and if i can dig out a few more pictures then i will try to get them up tomorrow.
I have two feline overlords FTC (Freya the Cat) and Horror (Horatio) this is the story of how a bloke who had grown up with dogs and horses ended up with not one but two bloody cats.
The story starts when i moved into this house (shown by the B) with my ex OH.
I had grown up there and moved out in my early 20s, then a few years later my Mother had moved out and after some wrangling with the owners (The Crown Estate) i was the first person on the list after it's refurb. As you can see it has a small amount of greenery around it and the Field at the back is my Mothers and the little dots you can just see are her horses (they play a crucial part of this story).
Now obviously my ex and my mother decide that the house needs pets, but due to working long hours the choice comes down to cats. The ex (who was called Freya) then finds, not 4 miles away a poor cat also called Freya that needs re-homing.
Now at this point you might comment about how crazy and egotistical you would have to be to want pets named after yourself, i sadly missed the signs.
What transpires is my ex goes off and fetches a cat that has lived outside for an unknown amount of time, a cat that was only caught when she was so ill she could no longer run/fight and has been kept in a cage since she was nuetered as she is "a bit scratchy" according to the local rescuers. The information we were given by the vets was that her litter had died inside her and this has meant that when she did give birth there were complications that finally weakened her enough for the local resident to catch her. They then took her to the vets and dumped her with the receptionist, we were also told she was approximately 3 years old, they were probably out by about 5 years.
Any way might i introduce you to the snarling, feral ball of hate filled vengance on foxes, dogs and at least one vetinary nurse that is Freya the Cat or as she is commonally known FTC.
(She is very shy in front of the camera)
Now, this meant i had a terrifed cat who had never really lived in a house before trapped in with these two humans who she would not trust for love nor food.
She settled in a tiny bit, never affectionate but much less fearful, sometimes going as far as to voluntarily enter a room that contained either me or the ex (much more commonly me) and then 4 weeks later when she was first allowed out to play she went and hid behind the stable at the bottom of the garden for over a day, i was beside myself.
I had grown quite attached to her aloofness and really wanted her to stay, but more than that where we lived had a number of large foxes that had been doing battle with my mothers
Life was good, i had a lovely (slightly crazy) OH, a cat that returned and the foxes no longer shat in my garden or in fact came within about 100m of my house. As is the way with these situations good things never last and on the 31st of March that year my Ex decided horse-riding was something she woul like to try again. I had a thread on that at the time but the end result was a OH with a broken back (she made a full recovery, eventually) and when i finally got out of hospital that night i was tired, emotionally drained and got home at 03:35, i opened a bottle of wine and sat down to let the tension out. Then something wonderful happened, FTC got up on the sofa next to me and curled up against my leg.
I don't have a icture of that moment because quite frankly i was too tired and overwhelmed to even think of taking a piccie, but it looked like this:
The Ex was in Hospital for 10 days and in that time FTC never left my side at home. When the ex returned home she was on bed rest for two months, then couldn't leave the house fo a further 6 weeks and then started the long recovery of getting back to normal and in that time FTC warmed to her, but every time i sat down she would come over and press up against me. I had kind of been adopted.
Even now (5 years later) i am the only person safe to pick her up, the only person whose lap she has ever sat on and the only person that can rub her belly.
Her she is at the moment, my old girl who according to the vets is now 8 and in really closer to 15. She as always hated getting her picture taken so this is one of the few picture i have of her where she is awake.
Now, about 10 months have passed since the horse accident and the Ex decides that working in a bar will give her be good for her re-habilitation as she will have to do some activity. Off she goes and gets a bar job and i can spend some quality time with my cat (or at The 3M pub in the village).
One saturday i am sitting at home contemplating my nice peacful life when i get a call from the OH,
"hi, theres a man in the pub who as just sold a load of kittens, there is only one left and he's threatening to drown him if no one buys him"
The upshot was a few animal lovers relieved him of the kitten and made their feelings clear about such statements and this is what came home that night.
He was tiny no more than 10 weeks, just a ball of fluff with the sharpest claws known to man and no idea how to stand up properly.
He was hard work from the start, inquisitive, fearless, really f
king stupid, all the best qualities in a creature that can fit in the palm of your hand. He had the nickname Horror within minutes and ended up with the official name Horatio a little later that evening.A couple of sample images from the first few weeks to show you how tiny he was.
FTC did not like Horror, horror did not know what he liked and a relationship was born based on mutual disdain, the odd scrap (she still whips him even now he is much bigger) and the odd, very rare, bit of geniune affection between them.
So after a frought 6 weeks keeping him inside he was jabbed, chipped and collared and then he escaped out of the window where he played outside in the snow.
Once i had caught him we kept him in until it got warmer and he took his first documented steps outside.
A year later he looked like this:
And now he is even bigger. As you can see in the sunlight he is a very deep brown/red colour, unfortunatley the rest of the time he looks so black that getting a decent picture of him is almost impossible, he grew up with acres of land around him and is a truly massive cat (for an unknown breed) and a deadly hunter. He has picked up FTCs hatred of Foxes but his own personal vendetta is against Squirrels for some reason.
I must apologise for the long post but i got carried away looking through the old photos i had of them.
If we fast foward 5 years and i have moved away from that house, got shot of the crazy egotist ex and kept the cats. They are constant sources of entertainment and if i can dig out a few more pictures then i will try to get them up tomorrow.
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