Cats and Dogs part 1

This is Sophie as a kitten, she is the current boss....
 

 

Cats and Dogs

 

I always loved animals with one notable exception; our neighbour’s black cat called Sooty. I and my sisters who were young at the time remember it as the cat from hell.  This cat belonged to my later to be Aunt Alice’s family.  To let you understand we lived at that time in a two storey tenement (ground and first floor), we and this cat lived at opposite ends on the first floor, with us living nearest the stairs.  Sooty must have thought he was in cat heaven with these kids he could scare the living daylights out of, crouching in the close, or on the stairs. Or even more fun, jumping out of the hedges which led up to the front of the close catching us totally unaware.  To give you an idea how fearsome this beast was, it caught a rabbit and brought it home as a gift to our neighbours.  My Aunt’s Mum was in on her own I think, and was not best pleased to have this wild rabbit running around her house, so she had this brilliant solution to the problem, get John, the wee boy from next door to catch the rabbit which as it happened had got stuck behind her heavy wooden sideboard in her living room.  My Mum came with me I think now looking back, not to see her clever son catch the rabbit, but to give him moral support as he was as scared of the wild rabbit as it would be of him.  Of course, the cat was, as it were in the doghouse, knew (I could tell from his eyes) that he was going to hit the jackpot for here was this creature who was terrified of him coming into his territory.  He must have thought it was Christmas, his owner was beside herself, there was the terrified rabbit and there was me and of course we had an audience in my Mum.  Our neighbour edged the end of the sideboard to let me crawl in with the intention of catching the rabbit.  Heart pounding, blood thundering in my ear, I crawled in slowly arm outstretched.  The rabbit and I looked each other, scared eye to scared eye, then by some miracle it got loose and shot down the hall, out of the neighbours front door and then proceeded to skid on the lino which covered the top landing, it then slid out of control between the gap in the bottom rail and the landing floor, dropping through the air to land on the bottom floor where it picked itself up and raced out the door never to be seen again.  Sooty definitely coloured my sisters and my view of cats for many years.

 

Across the road from our tenement house there was an elderly couple (they probably were not that old) who had this small mongrel dog called Freda.  We used to go and knock their door and ask if we could take Freda for a walk.  She really was the cutest wee dog, but she had a terrible bad habit of wanting to lift things that she could, and hen run away with them.  One day she must have got out on her own and with this freedom who did she decide to visit but my family.  She came up the stairs and waited patiently until the door was opened, she then ran in, looked around, picked up a bundle of things in her mouth, including my Mum’s tights (pantyhose) and a slipper then she made a dash for the door.  My Mother shrieked not wanting such personal items to be displayed on the run in our street so the whole family swung into operation trying to catch Freda, but to no avail, and she had the time of her life.

 

It must have been a year or to later, a family who lived round the corner from us got a cat, now this cat was different from Sooty because it was friendly, that is until I decided to emulate one of my dad’s pranks from his childhood. I had remembered how he said that he, as a boy, and his friends in Dunoon used to tie cans to the tails of cats. So here was this poor cat who liked to come and visit us for titbits.  I got the can and the string, I even managed to hold the cat whilst I set into motion events which I am sure must have scarred the cat for life.  The mistakes I made I believe were quite innocent in a horrendous and funny way, firstly I tied a slip knot which meant as the cat ran about mad the knot got tighter, secondly, I performed the deed in my house…………. Needless to say, the whole family knew about it as the cat ran all over the place screeching.  My poor Father had to put on a pair of thick gloves as he tried to catch the cat because of its sharp claws.  Eventually and after what I am sure must have been some considerable silent cursing, my father never swore in front of any of us, he caught the cat and removed the offending can.  I don’t think the cat visited us again.

 

Gyp

 

Which brings me to Gyp, our first real pet.  A friend of my Mum’s who lived further along the street had two dogs who produced a litter.  It was nearing my wee sister’s birthday, so she and we, got this very small bundle called Gyp.  We had newspaper everywhere until he was house trained.  He nearly wasn’t with us for long, my dad who was as excited as we were when we got him, took him a walk when he was big enough.  This walk was down to the swing park and the burn (stream).  My Father let the dog of the lead when it was safe to do so and walked on whilst the pup done the usual two sniffs and a puddle.  The trouble started when my dad crossed the bridge over the burn (stream), the pup had no idea what a bridge was and decided to try walking across the water.  My Father rescued the pup from drowning, to this day I don’t know who got the biggest fright, my dad or Gyp.  I have to say though that after that Gyp had a very strong aversion to water which remained with him for the rest of his life.

 

As he got larger he got quite cocky although he was destined to be always small, standing maybe 18 inches to the tip of his ears.  He was particularly brave on the end of his lead when much bigger dogs than he was about, but what a great dog he was, always guaranteed to make you laugh. He was still with us when we moved house and I am sure our old neighbours and our new neighbours thought his name was spam.  In these days you could let your dog out off the lead to wander but never far from home, now Gyp had a mind of his own and you could shout on him until you were blue in the face, and he wouldn’t come, however if you shouted spam, well that was his favourite treat!  My Mother used to open the back door of our terraced house and shout SPAM! SPAM! On hearing this magic word filled with promise Gyp would normally return. 

 

Gyp hated water, going in the car or bus and the vets.  It was after we had moved to our house in Langside Crescent that I had taken Gyp out a walk, we had to cross the main road and the bus stop to get down to the burn.  As we crossed the road, I saw a friend of mine standing at the bus stop so over I went to say hello.  We stood and chatted until the bus arrived, Gyp was off the lead and had been sniffing some trees in the park.  My friend’s bus arrived, in these days the open access (no door) was at the rear and there were bus conductors.  My friend got on the bus and as it moved off, I whistled and called on Gyp, no sign of him, I tried again, same result.  At that I turned to look up the main road and the park to see if he had run off chasing a female dog (he was quite the Romeo).  Just then I saw this little head poking out of the entrance of the moving bus at which point I had to sprint like mad to try and catch the bus at the next stop.  When I got there Gyp got off the bus as if he owned it, turning his nose up at me trying to catch my breath and sat down calmly as if his face hadn’t been the sorriest thing only a few brief moments before.

 

One of the saddest days was when my Mum and I had to take him as an old worn-out dog to the Vet to get him put to sleep, my dad couldn’t bring himself to go.