Boo

Although big for his age, at just nine months old Boo is still a rather clumsy kitten. When not lying on his back with three paws in the air and one covering his face, Boo is slipping off shelves, sliding down backs of sofas and toppling off of tables. Yesterday I awoke to find him hanging precariously by one paw off of the clothes dryer. No sooner had I rescued him, than he had scaled the side of the dryer and was wobbling unsteadily from rail to rail. I watched as my socks, pants and t shirts popped free from their pegs and floated to the floor.

Later that morning Boo joined me for a spot of yoga, stretching out on the floor next to me. Whilst I attempted a shaky downward dog he yawned, rolled into the space beneath me and promptly fell asleep. Moments later, Boo clambered onto the back of the sofa and disappeared through the pass into the kitchen. Five minutes later, from the upside-down position of yet another downward dog I saw Boo saunterting past with his head high and a tiny bird ornament dangling by a feather from his mouth. After many attempts at rescuing the ornament from Boo, I gave up and instead watched as he expertly batted it in the air, caught it in his mouth and chewed the toy bird to his heart’s content. For the rest of Boo’s stay I would find the increasingly bedraggled bird on my pillow every morning.

The next day, a delivery of cat litter arrived in a huge cardboard box. I lined it with brown paper then tissue paper and Boo’s favourite blanket. I also put his long suffering bird into it. Boo put his two front paws flat to the ground, wiggled his bottom in the air, then pounced into the box landing happily on his hapless victim.

Later that evening one of my customers, whom sadly had recently lost a kitten, donated a box of cat toys to us. He tipped the bag into Boo’s box and out poured an assortment of cat toys. We spent the rest of the evening watching Boo bouncing in and out of his box and happily chasing the new toys.