Award-winning children's author writes about her cat as "it" and hasn't given "it" a name!

The Guardian newspaper has an article today, online, written by Nova Weetman who describes herself as "an award-winning author of books for children and young adults". She is an accomplished writer. But I sense that she is not an accomplished cat caregiver.

Nova Weetman's no-name tabby-and-white female cat who she tolerates. Image: Nova Weetman

Like many people she adopted a domestic cat companion during the Covid-19 pandemic on the insistence of her children. Worryingly, she says that the kitten she adopted was "a perfect lockdown distraction". Not a good reason to adopt a cat. Not at all. 

We don't know where she adopted the kitten. It appears to have been a shelter which is great but I'm not sure. Weetman does not mention it but she adopted a tabby-and-white kitten.

Initially the kitten was great entertainment for her children while she appears to have tolerated "it".

But also worryingly throughout her entire article she never mentions the name of her cat companion with whom she is now stuck at home while the kids are at school. 

She says that her now adult cat scratches at her bedroom door which clearly indicates that she locks her cat out of her bedroom at night. This is something that any cat lover would disapprove of I'm sorry to say.

It doesn't really work very well as she is experiencing because they want to come into the bedroom at night and in any case the bedroom is a great place for a domestic cat to be because it smells of their owner. And domestic cats are very much into their owner's smells as we all know.

The great American cat behaviourist, Jackson Galaxy, agrees with me in that domestic cats should be allowed into the bedroom at night. He describes the bedroom as a "scent soaker" because it is soaked in the scent of the owner.

He also advises that you might make a little bed area for the cat because he understands that it can be a little bit troublesome to allow the cat on your bed at night while you are trying to sleep.

Okay, but Nova Weetman locks her no-name cat out out which I don't like. And she complains about her cat scratching furniture and so on. 

When she watches television they sit together "like an old couple on the couch". And describes her cat as the boss which I sense she doesn't quite accept.

She openly admits that her cat "annoys me most days, but then undoes me with her attempts to leap the height of the windows to catch a fly, or the hours she spends by the screen door watching the world pass by." Her cat is a full-time indoor cat at her insistence.

And it is quite clear to me that she has done nothing to enrich the environment in which her cat lives. Further, she lives in an apartment. 

Weetman doesn't want this no-name cat. That's pretty clear to me. Wrong home. And the kids are no longer looking after the cat and that was the deal when she adopted her. The cat's a burden to Weetman.

I feel for this cat to be honest because I think she is living in a pretty sterile environment from the cat's perspective. And I really wish she had given her cat a name or at least mention the name in the article. It would have indicated a much warmer relationship.

Meow..hiss. 😎😢

-----------

P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.