Return to start page
As you may have already guessed, Growltiger was named after that moth eaten, beaten up, chew-eared hero of TS Eliott's poem. And he lived up to his name! Sometimes I wished I had named him "Beautiful quiet cat that sits on the mat and purrs" I'm sure it would have changed his nature completely.
However, Growltiger he was named, and Growltiger he remained, even though he was largely known as Puss. Even as a kitten he revealed something of what was to come. He would lie in wait under the dining room table for a likely victim, and pounce on their legs, scratching and biting as though they were the fiercest enemy you could imagine. My mother was always wary of him from the day he ambushed her in this manner, ripping her stockings to shreds from his hiding place under the white tablecloth.
I predicted that Growltiger would live a long and full life, growing ever uglier and more battle scarred - and I was right! Growltiger fully used all of his nine lives, and when he reached the end of the last one, he wandered off into the sunset, never to be seen again. Despite his unlikeable nature, he was a cat to be admired, a cat of great determination, and most importantly, he was a cat with ATTITUDE.
You may care to read some of the stories from his life;