DAD DIARY: Feline family members

I never thought we would be a cat-keeping house, but here we are. We’ve two pet cats and the kids love them.
Well, they love the one who allows them to approach him.
Othello is our male cat, and I have never seen a cat like him for putting up with grief from kids. Well, particularly from Séimí. Our youngest will pick him up, carry him awkwardly and drop him unceremoniously despite our pleadings. Othello just sits there dutifully, motionless. He is incredibly agile, but if he sees Séimí approach, he won’t move. Maybe he likes it. Either that or he is incredibly stupid.
Indeed, the last day, myself and Séimí were sitting outside when Othello came over and jumped up on the bench beside the young fella. Asking for trouble. Séimí decided this time just to rub him. But it was a gamble.
The three kids love him. He’s not an indoors cat – although that’s our call rather than his. So when the kids are outside, Othello is usually following them around, loving the company, rubbing up against them, purring.
His mate Ophelia – one of us is very fond of Shakespeare – is a different matter. She turned up at our door one day two years ago and has been here since, but she is still not a fan of human contact. When the kids are around, she is always on guard and makes a run for it if any of them try to rub her. She lets me rub her only when she is eating food and particularly if she’s very hungry.
We’ve both cats over two years now and the only one who has been scraped is me, and it was with good reason. I was stupidly teasing Ophelia, holding a slice of ham in the air. Her indiscriminate claw took ham and hand – man and ball as we would say in Gaelic football.
The kids are learning a bit about the rules of nature too. Othello has turned up with mice at various stages. The way they play with and torment the poor mouse is chilling. Othello arrived one morning at our back door with a bird in his mouth. I opened the door to witness him munch it down. The crunch still haunts me.
Last week Ophelia caught a thrush. It was struggling bravely to escape, legs racing and a wing flapping. I tried to free it by throwing a ball at the cat. It nearly worked, but she caught it again. That’s any trust I’d gained with Ophelia gone for a while too.
The kids have witnessed all of this. They’re not impressed, but it is not freaking them out like I thought it might either.
But the cats are great to have around. They are much easier to leave behind than dogs for holidays. You only need to get someone to call once a day to feed them. Other than that, they’re very independent, sleeping in the shed or a kennel we have.
Everyone’s a winner.