The Unadulterated Cat

Hygiene

Cats have always had the same well-meaning but shaky grasp of hygiene as humans, viz, if you've covered it over, it isn't there. The important thing is not actually to have achieved Hygiene, but to have been seen to have made the effort—as in, for example, trying to claw the lino into the dirt box.

What's so hygienic about having a wash in your own spit?

However, the Real cat scores over other domestic pets in one unusual respect: Real cats know what the bathroom is for.

We returned one day to find that the incumbent Real cat, by means of the usual hyperspace travel, had been in when we thought she was Out. Thus no dirt box had been provided. Real cat, we thought, had a rather shifty expression, although this particular cat has a shifty expression all the time and even breathes as though it is stealing the air. A perfunctory search of the usual resorts of desperation—dark corners, the fireplace revealed nothing unpleasant that wasn't nor until, much later, we went to the bathroom. More specifically, the bath… You get mixed feelings at a time like this. There is, of course, the feeling of mild admiration that, in a house full of carpets, Real cat has chosen one of the few places that can easily be cleaned by gallons of hot water and an escalation of cleaning fluids (curiously, our book of household hints is definitely reticent about the whole, well, business of cats in the bath). On the other hand, there's the feeling that this is the bath, for God's sake, I was really looking forward to a soak and now I will never ever have a bath again as long as I live…

What was intriguing was the reaction of other Real cat owners. They said: oh, first time it's happened to you, is it? And went on to tell me about this cat someone heard about who knows how to use the lavatory.

It's bluetits and milk-bottle tops all over again, I tell you. Leave the lid down, that'll fox 'em.