If cats are capricious, the humans who love them are worse. To be a cat lover is to embrace confusion, rejection, austerity, frustration and chaos. To share your home with a cat is to seek comfort, beauty, affection and joy, but accept that such delights will be tightly rationed, allocated seemingly at random, and frequently withheld altogether. Cat lovers are philosophers, poets and perverts, and I wouldn’t be anything else.
Contrary as they are, cat lovers mistrust the undiscerning affection and allegiance of dogs. Naturally it’s possible to appreciate all animals, and I genuinely love dogs, but when a labrador bounds up to me like I’m some sort of human holy grail, I’m reminded of the words of Groucho Marx: “I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”
My cat, Elvis, by contrast, makes me feel like I have something to prove. Elvis keeps me on my toes; he holds me accountable for my actions. My cat makes me want to be a better human. And, like all pack animals, I respond well to being kept in check by my tiny furry overlord.
It’s been six months since Elvis came into my life, as an eight-month-old black longhair rescue. Speaking to the shelter, I explained that I didn’t care about colour, age or gender, but specifically requested a “dog-cat”. Dog-cats share some of the genial qualities more regularly attributed to a dog, by being social, confident and affectionate. Throughout my childhood, my mother excelled at selecting dog-cats: non-skittish, friendly little moggies who could handle the aggressive adulation and clumsy affection of three small children. Gingie, Coke and Parsley were all dog-cats. Now I’m an adult, I made certain that the first cat I chose was a dog-cat.
Elvis waits by the window when I return home from work in the evening. He thoughtfully inspects every new visitor to my flat, as if they are a second-hand Volvo he’s considering purchasing. He’s every inch the alpha, striding confidently into the room, announcing his presence with a succession of meows.
Green-eyed, long-haired and graceful, at times Elvis resembles a moving sculpture, and he is quite the prettiest object in my home. He’s also a breathing, purring hot water bottle, and his weight, warmth and rhythmic breathing make my shoulders slacken and my pulse slow at the end of a frantic day. He frequently makes me laugh out loud, play-fighting with my left foot, lolling voluptuously on the sofa, or playing football with purloined biros across the wooden floorboards. Sometimes he glares at me with barely disguised contempt and disapproval, when I come home late, smelling of another animal. It’s nice to know that he cares enough to be cross.
But Elvis allows me my independence. I’m permitted my frequent work trips, providing that I supply a temporary giant slave woman during my absence. When I come back, I stretch out on the sofa and he falls asleep on my chest, and then I know that the cat-sitter has not replaced me in his affections. One of the joys of owning a cat is building these little rituals together. Rituals that nobody else understands but Elvis and I.
Adopting a rescue cat like Elvis makes the owner-cat journey even more of an emotional melodrama. I watched him grow from being a slightly cagey kitten to a confident, strutting alpha cat. Today he acts like he doesn’t need me, but I take comfort in the knowledge that it was my love, attention and steady supply of edibles that turned him into the independent young man that he is. I don’t know anything about his background; we prefer not to dwell on the past, Elvis and I, and just look to our happy future together.
I know that to dog people, cat people are masochists, deluded fools for believing we’re anything more than glorified food dispensers to these skittish creatures. But we possess a sophisticated emotional palate– certainly, 90% of the time, Elvis’s treatment of me merely oscillates between mild disapproval and severe disapproval. Cat lovers live for the other 10%. And Elvis unfailingly detects when I require love, affection, weight and warmth. The affection of a cat is a hard-won treat, a gift rarely bestowed, and therefore one of life’s greatest luxuries. So, you see, owning a cat isn’t about accepting austerity. Owning a cat is about savouring love.
If you’re embarking on your own cat-owner journey, get off to happy, healthy and – here’s hoping – affectionate start with our advice on everything from prepping your home to the early days of kitten development and training, and make sure you start by feeding them correctly. Royal Canin cat food provides age- and breed-specific diets for optimum feline health and growth
