It’s been a while since we had some decent weather here, it’s so rainy and wet that sometimes a quick walkies is all you want to just get out and play with the birdies. The days have been short, even us blind cats can tell the difference between day and night, the sounds are different, the air is different, cooler, quieter and somehow more echoey and night time smells different too.
Then, as the days seem to get a bit longer and the weather isn’t so cold and wet, it’s time to start getting back to having a proper walkies. So when mummy got in from her last day of work this week, as we explored the garden she said to me that she’d seen another intruder cat when she came home, it wasn’t the same one I’d met before but I knew that. My super blindie senses had always known that there was more than one intruder cat by the scents that they leave around my garden. Well, maybe I have been slacking a bit in getting my scent out there and making sure that everyone knows this is my garden so that’s it I was on a mission to start re-exploring the neighbourhood, to get a proper walkies in and get my scent out there so that any other creatures know that this is my neighbourhood too. So after we had checked our garden and all the perimeters to make sure that all the intruder cats had definitely gone, I ducked under the gate and off we went to explore the streets.
It was quiet down the street and so I could concentrate on all the interesting smells that I discovered, even though I haven’t been down the road for a while I remembered the way round. Down the road, past the rustling hedge, a bit further down and past the big tree that I can’t (yet) figure out how to climb then follow the fence round the corner and just keep going, if you follow the pathway then you come all the way back round to the beginning again. On the way though there’s lots of places to explore, bushes, grass, trees and some of it smells so good. I can smell the scent of my doggie furriend Melvin along the way. Sometimes, when I’m out on my walkies in the garden he stops by to say hello as he goes on his walkies. I seem meet lots of doggies as they go on their walkies past our garden and most of them seem happy to say hello but I think there’s some that are confused by a cat on a lead and woof at me as they go past. Maybe they’ve never seen a cat on walkies before? Still they’re all very well behaved (even if some are very excited – Fergus) and they’re always on a lead so mummy doesn’t have to worry about them coming too close.
Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, exploring the neighbourhood, well, it was the dead of night when mummy and I were out having adventures…well 5 o’clock mummy said to be precise but it’s much more exciting to pretend we were on a secret mission together to explore the neighbourhood wilderness. I know, I know, we don’t live in the wilderness but us blindies have a brilliant sense of imagination so as I’m adventuring around the neighbourhood I’m imagining where I might be, the smells and sounds paint a picture in my head and really I can be wherever I want to be, exploring the jungle (a bush), running across the vast countryside (our lawn), climbing in the forest (our trees).
Today I’m an urban explorer, sticking to the pathways as mummy keeps stopping me from exploring everywhere I want to go and keeps telling me we can’t explore in there Jenny that garden doesn’t belong to you. Belong to me? I’m a cat, everything belongs to me, it’s all my territory if I want it to be and besides if all the other animals can come and go through all these gardens why can’t I? “Jenny” mummy said “we can’t just go trapsing through other peoples property, you wouldn’t like it very much if everyone walked through our garden would you?” But mummy, they smell so good and I just wanna go in a little bit, just to find out where that scent trail goes. “Come on Jen, let’s stick to the path, there plenty of places we can explore instead” I know when mummy’s being serious and she wasn’t budging on this one, the lead was firmly locked so I couldn’t go any further, so off we went along the path.
I’m a very good girl while I’m exploring – other than wanting to go into gardens and always try my very best to walk on the pathway and not venture into he road. When mummy and I first explored down here she kept saying to me “stay on the pavement Jenny, don’t walk in the road” and so I’ve learnt where I can and can’t walk, and if I’m going a little in the wrong way I feel a little bit of sideways pressure on my harness, guiding me back in the right direction. This is something that mummy and I are really good at, over the years weve been walking together we got the almost secret lead language. I like the feeling of security this gives me and if I go exploring a bush or long grass, if I need to I can follow the pressure the lead has to find my way back out. If I explore a long way mummy will move the lead this way and that to help me find my way around things and get to where I’m going.
If I want to cross the road mummy makes me wait at the edge and she says I must listen in each direction before we cross. Mummy watches each way before saying “Come on Jen, it’s all clear, let’s cross” and gives my lead a gentle tug forwards. The road is very quiet, unlike the one that is by our garden and this is really why mummy doesn’t mind us going this way. We do have the odd car passing by but they go very slowly and as I’m close to mummy safe on the path I just crouch down by her feet until it passes and then we’re off again once it’s gone. Mummy always tells me what a brave girl I am and gives me a little stroke.
After our trip around the houses, we headed back up the road and I was feeling pretty confident and just when mummy thought I was going back in the side gate I carried on up the road, right to the top where all the cars go past and trotted round the end and in the driveway. I wasn’t even scared of the cats that went past and gave mummy a happy dance and a meow- reow when we got in. I forgot how fun it was being out and about properly and I think mummy was pretty impressed that I could still remember my way round even though we haven’t walked there for a while. All in all a good nights work.
Jenny’s Story 