chairman

You'd think butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, wouldn't you. But what a merry dance he's led me today! As soon as I pick him up out of the cage, he purrs madly, can be cuddled and played with, and shows not the slightest sign of fear or anxiety. But once down on the sitting room floor, he scoots under a chair if I get within touching distance, and keeps a watchful eye on me, ensuring that I can't pick him up again. He plays contentedly so long as I stay at least an arm's length away from him.

All very well, but he needs to be more people-friendly than this before he can be rehomed; potential adopters aren't going to be thrilled with a kitten who responds to their cooing overtures as though they were Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining'. Plus, if he would let me pick him up from the floor, I wouldn't need the cage again; he stays away from me, I suspect, because he knows the cage is waiting. Catch 22.....

I had to wait till he was really hungry before luring him back into the blasted cage tonight, and it took half an hour of sitting very still, dinner dish well inside the cage, sitting room garden cane ready in position to gently push the cage door closed once he gave in to his tummy's demands. (Why a garden cane in the sitting room? To poke under the sofa, of course, and sweep out Millie's tiny fur mice. No home should be without one.)

So this evening, I'm trying something else: he stays in the cage, where in fact he lolls and luxuriates in his hammock like some pasha of old on a divan, and every half hour or so I scoop him out and handle him for a while. Then he gets a treat - tonight it's the most voraciously-wolfed so far, a tiny bit of smoked mackerel - and in he goes again. Worth a try, I suppose. I don't mind being associated with oily fish; I've never sought glamour, really.