Stop Already! in Scottish Meanderings

So on Thursday last week Snarf was nowhere to be seen at breakfast time. I wasn’t unduly worried because he’s gone AWOL for a day and night before and sauntered in quite the thing the following day right as rain.

However when he hadn’t appeared by Friday I began to get that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach which all pet owners know and took out my ‘vet’ folder to search and see if there was any documentation about him being microchipped. He was originally my niece, Jenny’s, cat and when she got pregnant with her first child, she was worried he would get jealous. Nikki had not long moved out of my house to live on her own and was hating it and missing the cats desperately so when Jenny asked her if she wanted Snarf she accepted gratefully.

He was an outdoor cat but she was too scared to let him out so kept him indoors and as a result he turned into a very frustrated ball of fur. He would occasionally lash out but was kind enough to give us warning first in the shape of a sort of low growl then we knew we had a few minutes to get out of the way rapid-like! We just thought he was crabby.

When Nikki got pregnant with Lily she moved back in with me so Snarf came too. Then when Lily was around 4 months old she got a rented flat but pets weren’t allowed so Snarf became part of Team Snarf, Willow and Bailey. Willow was also an outdoor cat and I had a catflap so I let Snarf decide what he wanted to do and he was off like a shot, having a whale of a time bringing me lots of ‘presents’ and the odd mouse for Willow to play with. And from that day on there was no more growling or lashing out - in fact he turned into the sweetest cat you could find.

So because of all that I wasn't sure if any documentation had been passed on to us but I found a microchip Certificate in the file with contact details which were hopelessly out of date. I was just in the process of checking what I had to do to change them when Nikki texted me. ‘Don’t want to worry you but I’ve just seen this.’ ‘This’ turned out to be a post on the local lost and found Facebook page (I couldn’t put anything on it because they don’t accept anything unless the pet has been missing for at least 4 days).

‘There’s a black and white cat lying in the gutter on the Parkway (a very busy road about 2 streets away from me) around 300 yards from the roundabout down to the Diamond Bridge. Unfortunately I was on the wrong side of the road to stop.’ The time it was posted was 8 a.m. on Thursday morning.

My heart began hammering and my legs turned to jelly.

I dropped everything and drove up there but it was rush hour so the Parkway was going to be chokka for a good couple of hours. I walked up and down on both sides of the roundabout because the guy who had posted the message had unfortunately not specified which side - it was so frustrating. I had replied to his post but nothing had come back and I couldn’t see anything ominous on the road. I contacted the page moderator and he assured me he would contact him and get him to get back to me.

There was nothing I could do until then so I went to ASDA to pass the time and at 6.30 when the traffic had died down a bit I drove the length of the Parkway, both sides, but could see nothing. It was so dark though and Snarf was mainly black plus it was really hard to see anything and drive at the same time. Meanwhile Nikki was also checking the Facebook page and she sent me a text asking if I wanted her to come through to help look for him. I knew she’d been to a Christmas Fayre at the school that night with the girls and would want to know quickly so that she didn’t go home and get settled in with them then get a reply from me saying yes! So I phoned her.

“I’m on my way in” she said. “I just decided to come anyway.” I nearly fell down with shock. This was exactly what the ‘old Nikki’ would have done but the one I’ve been dealing with for the past year wouldn’t have bothered in the slightest.

By the time she arrived the guy who posted the message had finally got back to me and had also stopped on the Parkway on his way home from work and walked from where he’d seen the cat right down to the roundabout which was such a nice thing to do. Apparently him and his partner had had a cat which went missing and they never found out what happened to him which kinda explained it. He said the cat he saw had definitely gone but I knew fine I’d never sleep that night if I didn’t check myself so Nikki drove me up there and while she sat in the car with the girls, I scoured nearby bushes, hedges, ominous looking boulders and clumps of leaves, walking once again down to the roundabout and back. Nothing.

The girls went home and I spent a miserable teatime in a house which was far too quiet with nobody trying to jump up on my lap spilling my tea down the sofa. I tried to think what somebody would do if they had stopped for him and on Saturday morning I phoned all the local vets, cat and dog home, SSPCA, PDSA, Cat’s Protection League and even the police as a last resort. Nothing. Then I remembered. The bin lorry had been round on Thursday morning. Would they stop for dead cats? That thought was too awful to contemplate but I made a mental note to phone the Council Cleansing Department on Monday morning.

In the afternoon we had planned to go to a local animal sanctuary about an hour’s drive away because Santa was paying a visit. I would normally have driven out to Nikki’s then we’d have gone in her car from there as it was further out in her direction but having only got 2 hours’ sleep and been awake stressed to the eyeballs from 3 a.m. onwards I knew the last thing I should do was drive. I texted her first thing in the morning to tell her.

‘How about if I pick you up at 1 then?’ Shock number 2. For her to pick me up she had to drive half an hour to me, drive half an hour in the direction she’d just come from then another half hour out to the sanctuary. And do it all again on the way back. Yes I’m ill. Yes it’s what you do for family. But it’s exactly what she hasn’t been doing for months and again, the ‘old Nikki’ would have done this no problem.

So I very gratefully said yes and when we got out there, treated them all to lunch as a thank you. It didn’t really hit me about where we were going until we were well on the way - this particular sanctuary has loads of cats which wander freely around the property and curl up cutely on bales of hay beside sheep or goats or donkeys - and when they want a bit of peace they have rows of pillows to choose from in one of the barns. Bit daunting given the situation.

However it turned out to be a lovely afternoon and it was actually pretty therapeutic for me stroking all the cats and not upsetting at all. We had a really nice lunch and the only dark spot to the day was after the girls had had a chat with Santa and got their presents, Lily nonchalantly said “It’s not really Santa - it’s only someone dressed up.” We have literally NO idea where that came from! And didn’t investigate because Lilah was in earshot at the time.

On Sunday morning I felt really crappy - the mornings were when Snarf and I had our main cuddles - he would lie on me, over me, alongside me, anywhere he could get close to me on the bed and then when I got up he was happy to let me get on with the day. Then when I lay down at teatime again he would climb up and drape himself over me nudging his wee face into mine.

At 10 to 12 the phone rang. It was Nikki.

“I’ve got him.”

“What?? How?”

“A neighbour in the houses up the back beside the Parkway posted this morning that there’s a cat lying in the grass behind the houses so I knew you’d struggle to get up to go get him so came straight in and we have him in the car. Do you want me to bring him round just now?”

Shock number 3. She’d never have done that normally.

I found myself asking “Is he dead?” It sounds such a stupid question but the fact I asked it made me realise there must have been a bit of me holding out for him, hoping against hope.

“Yeah. Stiff as a board.”

And that’s when the floodgates opened.

But OMG what a difference it made to have him home! The girls (it was Lily who spotted him actually) had been well primed but there were 2 very solemn faces at the sight of Granny in tears when they opened the door and as Nikki went to get Snarf out of the car I suddenly felt a little 6 year old body closing in on mine and a pair of arms went round me in a cuddle. 2 seconds later another pair of wee arms followed suit on the other side and I was enveloped in the sweetest pair of hugs you could imagine. Which just made me cry even more.

So. Only 4 months after I dug a hole to bury Willow I have to take up that damned spade once again and dig another one for Snarf. That’s far too soon. And of course I’m torturing myself on a regular basis with thoughts of my little boy lying on that bloody road, in the pouring rain and howling wind, injured and unable to get home, with all these cars racing past him, while I lay asleep in my warm, comfortable bed. It’ll be a while before that stops I should imagine.

But I will be forever grateful to that woman for telling us where he was. And giving me the chance to bring him back home.

And this morning I read this beautiful entry written by history of love. If any of you have been cruelly battered by grief in your lives, you might very much identify with the words here. By the way, I am not in any way comparing this with the death of a cat but would also just note that the death of a pet often taps into unresolved grief from previous losses. https://www.prosebox.net/entry/756284/

Maybe best read in private somewhere though.

Bye Snarfie.



You were a sweet, loving, feisty cat adapting to wherever you found yourself and you didn't deserve to go like that.