Rikki

My "Cat history" started in 1954, that is to say: we -my parents- had cats before in Indonesia, but they weren't mine. In 1954, during a fortnight's stay at the home in Renkum of friends of my parents from Indonesia, I was first acquainted with the Siamese Cat. She was a classical Sealpoint with a kinky tail and cross-eyed. But the colour of those eyes. They were so blue I could have drowned in them. As I lived at a boarding school at the time, however, I was not in a position to keep my own cat, so I couldn't take one of her kittens to Hilversum. This perhaps explains why I have forgotten her name, I was so disappointed!

So my Cat history has a break until 1960, when I was presented with the first cat of my very own by some soldiers of mine in the Field Artillery. Rikki, I called him, and he was of the tabby type with a white chest and belly, domestic variety. Although: not so very domesticated after all, being born from a mother, who did not have any human to care for her. She was one of the many cats roaming the Army base of Oirschot, and caring only for themselves and their offspring (for a limited period). She gave birth to this litter in the loft of one of the barracks, and it was all I could do to prevent the men -who knew I loved cats, and dared me to try and keep one in the military service- from getting a kitten away from its mother before it was eight weeks old. Rikki was shy and wild, and didn't want to have anything to do with me. So I decided to ignore him for the time being, only giving him a jacket of mine to sleep on -and of course to get accustomed to my smell, don't we humans always have ulterior motives.

I also put some tinned catfood out for him, hidden under my bed, and a "litter"box with sand in it. As was to be expected he did not understand the meaning of the box, and the next morning we were awakened by a horrible stench. Rikki had eaten all the food, and then had relieved himself on a corner -luckily- of my jacket. He was quite intelligent, however, once I caught him -you cannot imagine how wild a chase can get in a room only 4 by 4 metres- and showed him what to do with his "products" he never did it outside his litter box again.

Four nights after that I woke up because something furry tried to crawl under my blankets. Poor Rikki, those aaawwwful humans had turned off the central heating, and he was cóóóld so he tried to get some warmth in a place which at least smelled familiar. After that we bonded very nicely, and he sometimes even accompanied us to parade, mostly when I had to march the company to the parade ground. When the whole company was lined up finally -which he observed very closely, and sometimes even critically- he waited until I had reported the company present and complete to the company sergeant major, marched with me to the right of the company, and sat down "at attention" front feet together and tail neatly folded around them, ears alert and eyes straight forward.His presence was completely accepted by all officers, non-coms and men of the 12th Battallion of Field Artillery. He belonged, and that was that.

He used to go with us on manoeuvres in those big military trucks. Quite a sight he was, sitting on the inside hood of the truck because that was the warmest place in the cabin, and looking out and around as if he owned the whole caboodle. When the whole column of trucks, jeeps, weaponcarriers, and cannon had to stop, he was given the glove compartment as temporary residence, closed with a ball of socks between the lid and the compartment, so he could breathe. After all we couldn't afford to detain a whole battallion until my cat deigned to return from a most interesting reconnaissance. But Rikki bore no grudges, he always let himself be sequestered very obediently, as if he knew this just had to be endured. When he felt the urge to relieve himself, he always meeoowed very plaintively, until I gave him a wad of cotton waste, which he knew to be his mobile litter box.

As soon as we arrived in the bivouac, he was given food and water in the tent assigned to me. He then just had to reconnoiter during which ritual I had to accompany him to show him which tents he could and which he could not visit (the officers', I being a mere noncom and those of the kitchen of course),. He was very obedient in this, not cattish at all, he never entered where he was forbidden to. In bivouac he had another favourite sleeping place; he draped himself around the neck of an older NCO, who was in the habit of lying on his back in his sleeping bag, hands crossed on his chest, and not moving again until he woke up. He did not object at all to this furry shawl: "Soft and warm", he always commented, "Nice!" Rikki always knew when the battallion was going on manoeuvre; two hours before departure he was present: fresheyed and sleekly tailed, eager to join us. You can imagine my misery when at one particular time he didn't turn up. I just knew something must have happened to him. Departure, however, couldn't be postponed although the battallion's commanding officer was sympathetic, so there we went for the first time in two years without Rikki. I would never see him again, nor know what had become of him.

Bumipol

Again there was a break in my cat history. I was assigned to different Army bases, I got out of the service, I had a job as a buyer for a chain of delicatessen shops, and I married! On August 5th, 1969 to be exact, to Gerda, who is still my wife. I entered the civil service of the Dutch Ministry of the Interior in October 1971, and moved from Bussum to Leiderdorp. Our first son, Lucas, died -one month old- in January 1972, and our second son, Jeroen, was born in January 1973. A relative of Gerda's who knew of my love for Siamese cats, told us he could reserve a kitten with acquaintances of his, if I wanted him to. And did I?! Of course I did!!! In March 1973 Sappa's Apollo, a Sealpoint Siamese male, made his plaintively meowing entrance into our apartment, surveyed the premises and okayed them, and decided to adopt Jeroen as HIS child. This made rather a lot of work for Gerda. Each time Jeroen exercised his lungs, Bumipol -as we decided to call him, mistakenly thinking it the name of His Majesty Phumibol, King of Thailand- went to fetch Gerda, because he thought that crying kittens were always hungry and had to be fed! When she didn't get up soon enough to his liking, he even tried to drag her by the skirts or the pants, whatever. So to satisfy His Royal Pest she had to go and see whether everything was allright. Bumipol soon taught himself to "fetch", crumpled pieces of paper in his case.

Gerda decided that she was not "catpeople" after all, at least not so ardently as I was, so we decided to get a dog too. Friends of ours had a pedigree German Shepherd male and a mixed Dobermann-German Shepherd female, and a first litter of those two had turned out exceptionally well, adorable dogs really, so we bespoke a female of a second litter. Some months later we went and abducted Golda to our home. Gerda housetrained her, and went to an obedience school with her, all in all she was Gerda's dog. And the children's of course, a shepherd has to have something to guard. Bumipol quickly established who was the boss. He and nobody else! He grandly allowed the pup to chase him around the apartment, which was constructed in such a way that if you opened a few doors, animals -and children- could run around some sort of central column. As soon as Bumipol thought that enough was enough, however, he jumped on the table and gave the pup a "clunk" on her head with his -closed- right paw. After the first few times Golda understood and went to find something -or someone- else to play with.

The running around the central column gave Bumipol his own private game. He discovered that, if he developed enough speed and took a flying leap at one particular turning of the corridor he could run horizontally on a wall about 50 centimetres from ground level for about one and a half metres. This he considered the supreme game of them all, and we had to pay for repairing the tracks he'd made on his 'Wall of Death' when we left the apartment for a real house. Several times -when working overtime at the office -yes, there are some bureaucrats who work overtime- I was called by telephone by Gerda, who told me that Bumipol had gone mad: he'd entered the living room from the hall with his fur all standing up, his tail swollen to twice its normal size, angleing sideways into the room, and "His eyes, Hans, his eyes! They glowed like fiery coals!" Which told me that Bumipol had a lively imagination, like most Siamese cats, but Gerda still believes that Siamese are able to see the ghosts in a house, and that they want to protect their humans!

As soon as Jeroen started to talk, Bumipol actually showed whose cat he really was! Jeroen only had to say: "Bumipol, come!" in his baby-talk, and a very peremptory tone he used, and Bumipol came! The only things we didn't allow were: Bumipol sleeping in Jeroen's bed -to the chagrin of both- and Jeroen dressing Bumipol as a doll -to Jeroen's chagrin only! Bumipol sometimes accompanied Gerda and Jeroen on their daily walks in the park, properly leashed of course.

He preferred sitting in Jeroen's baby carriage, however, we have never been lucky in getting our cats to behave when leashed. He also went with us when we visited Gerda's parents or friends for more than a few hours. We drove a Fiat 850 Coupé at the time, and his favourite place was the back-shelf to the great astonishment and sometimes hilarity of other drivers and their passengers, especially children, who at first thought he was a stuffed animal, until he moved. As befitted a proper Siamese, Bumipol was quite brave. The first time he visited Gerda's parents he was confronted by their cat, Padde, also a male but of the domestic variety, and twice as old and as big as Bumipol was. Padde, who defended the garden against any other cat, and who was the terror of all neighbourhood cats. Of course he wanted to maintain his territorial rights, and so he attacked. Bumipol -not yet one year old- did not intend to behave as a proper guest: "Imagine that monster attacking Jeroen." So he fought, and how! We were just about to break up the fight, when it turned out that Padde had not reckoned with those long Siamese legs, and instead of really losing preferred to beat a retreat. Poor Padde, ousted from his own home for the duration of our not infrequent stays there.

Although his life was filled with adventures, we thought that Bumipol lacked cat-pany, and so Manja entered our home. Though to our human standards she was ready to leave her mother -13 weeks- she herself didn't think so. After having made the acquaintance of Bumipol, whom she liked, and of Golda, whom she did not like particularly, she adopted Bumipol as her wet nurse. He allowed that for a few weeks -which must have been very painful for him, his nipples became even longer than a nursing female's- and then weaned her in the same way a real mother would have. Not long after this our second child, and first daughter, Mei-lan, was born.

Manja

We had worried a bit about the cats accepting another child, so Gerda made every feeding a real happening, involving both cats and Golda in it. Well Golda took it in her stride: "More people, and especially children to guard, FUN!" The two cats also accepted the new addition to their humans, and Manja -presumably happy now that she had a child of her own- adopted Mei-lan. She used to spend hours and hours in Mei-lan's playpen, sitting next to her playing with her. Later on she allowed her to drive her around in the doll's carriage, and to dance with her, Manja on her hind feet her front paws held by Mei-lan, and turn and turn around in the living room.

As the children got bigger, living in an apartment building on the third floor became more of a burden for Gerda. The children wanted to play outside, but were too small to open the heavy doors for themselves, so they had to be accompanied every time. You know how children are; once they are outside, they decide that they want to play inside after all, and then again and again! So we moved to a real house with its own garden. We were very happy to be able to rent one from the same company that let us our old apartment, even though it was one in a row. We couldn't afford to buy.

Golda of course was very happy as home was where Gerda and the children were and now she had a garden to guard as well! Both Bumipol and Manja seemed to take the move in their stride. Bumipol, being a male although 'tutored', roamed the neighbourhood but always within calling distance, while Manja seemed more of a stay-at-home. We'd had some misgivings about this, although -knowing Siamese and having had the experience of Rikki- we shouldn't have. We did take the precaution of collaring them, and attaching those little brass tubes with their name and telephone number inside. As the months went by, and everything settled down, we were happy that accidents restricted themselves to Jeroen falling out of a first floor window and only breaking his wrist. You see I'm a firm believer in Murphy's Law: "Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong!" and we called ourselves lucky as we shouldn't. There still was a lot of building activity taking place in the neighbourhood, and one day Bumipol went missing. He didn't return at our calling him in at sunset. Now it was our turn to roam the neighbourhood, calling his name in all its different variations, but he didn't answer and we couldn't find him.

About ten days later we got a call from the hospital in our village: he had been found in the cellars in a very weak condition. We collected him, made an appointment with the weekend vet, who examined him and said that he was completely dehydrated. We should feed him minced meat, and try to get fluids, milk, inside him with a pipette. When we came home with him, Manja hissed and didn't want to have anything to do with him. Imagine, Bumipol, who had allowed her to suckle when she was a kitten! He seemed to have lost all his interest in life, and -weak as he was- struggled every time I tried to give him his milk and mincemeat. He also tried to hide in the attic, struggling up the stairs and crawling to his favourite hiding place, which -luckily- we knew. Two days after he was found he crossed the Rainbow Bridge in my arms -with a great cry- this was not a happy passing away, although he must have been relieved that now his suffering was at an end. We always wondered how he had gotten to the hospital; it was about a kilometre as the crow flies, but he would've had to cross water and a busy road. The only explanation we have been able to find was that he must have panicked at a sudden and very loud noise made by the builders, and run and run till he found himself at the hospital, where he hid in the cellars and so couldn't find any water to drink.

As with Bumipol we thought it wouldn't be good for Manja to be the only cat in the house, so we asked a kitten of the domestic variety (in Holland we call this a Home, Garden and Kitchen or HGK-variety) to come and stay with us. This -I'm sorry to say- was not appreciated by Manja. She chased the poor kitten all over the house, and beat him unmercilfully. He was covered with nail marks and rapidly becoming a nervous wreck, so we consulted people and vets about remedies for her disliking. We tried everything. We even covered him with catnip extract and later on with valerian, but to no avail. Manja really seemed to be one of those -rare- Siamese, who cannot abide other breeds. The only solution seemed to be to find Peppi another home. There, in Eindhoven, he turned out to be a girl after all, because she got pregnant and gave birth to a litter within a year. This left us with the same problem, however, Manja still did not have a feline companion, and she still didn't like Golda.

So we went to another Cat Show, and adopted another kitten. This was Esmeralda van Bitubar, a blue Oriental Shorthair, same build and character as a Siamese, but unicoloured. We called her Pooky, and she turned out to be so very much smarter than Peppi was. Pooky came to us with some diarrhoea, and her breeder had omitted to tell us that she was used to litters with shredded paper. So she didn't recognize our litterbox for what it was, and didn't want to go there. As she had to relieve herself quite a few times, she let it go wherever she was. One more reason for Manja not to like her, so Pooky got chased and scratched as well. Pooky, however, discovered Golda on her couch and -thinking that here might be a safe place- jumped up between Golda's legs, settled in the warm place against her belly, and thumbed her nose at Manja, who didn't dare to come at Pooky while she was -evidently- protected by Golda. Pooky and Golda have remained friends for all of Golda's life. At the end Manja turned out to be an exceptional aunt, when Pooky had her first and only litter, but that story belongs with Pooky's. Chronology always gets a bit haywired when you have more than one cat and try to tell their stories individually.

Some time later Manja got ill. She didn't eat, diminished rapidly in weight, didn't drink as she used to, and her fur's condition worsened in the same way that Bumipol's had. Because of our unhappy experience with that weekend vet, we went to another one who was reputedly a Cat lover, and a good Cat doctor as well. He diagnosed a bad throat infection and a bad case of dehydration. For the first ailment he prescribed antibiotics and for the second an infusion! This he gave her under the skin of her right shoulder. He also admonished us, after having been told Bumipol's story, that Siamese cats notwithstanding having the proverbial nine lives any cat has, often do not fight to get well when they're ill. So Gerda had to carry Manja around when she was housecleaning, always talking to her, and telling her we couldn't miss her so she really had to do her very best to get well.

Manja evidently thought all this attention quite nice, considered it her very own privilege, and didn't allow Gerda to leave the house for more than two hours afterwards. If she did, Manja sat herself in the opposite corner of the couch where Gerda was seated, pulled a very determined and angry face as if to say: "I told you not to leave me for so long," and sprayed the couch. Nothing we did could convince her that this was not the right thing to do, and our home started smelling of cat rather penetratingly. At our wits' end, after the demise of two couches, we consulted vets, cat experts, friends and relatives. The consensus seemed to be that the only remedies would be: Gerda's not going out for more than two hours, or a drastic change of environment, or doting humans who could and would occupy themselves with Manja's spiritual wellbeing every minute of the day. As we did not want to run any risk we decided to combine the two last possibilities, and found her a home in Groningen with two older people who had just been retired, and needed someone to care for. A month later we heard that Manja seemed to be perfectly happy, she didn't spray anymore, and the humans were overjoyed by her presence: such an appreciative cat! As Mei-lan emotionally blamed us for missing her cat, we decided not to keep on being informed. We thought a clean break best.

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Updated last on 08/05/99 14:45:10 by Hans