Slave that I am to your good opinion, I feel compelled to offer a disclaimer before answering. It would be futile to deny that I’m fond of cats, however my fanaticism may have been exaggerated by a feedback loop of present buying and social media. Thus a single item of cat paraphernalia generates a domino effect whereby friends are encouraged that this is your kind of party and buy you more and more of the same. On last year’s tour alone I acquired a cat makeup bag, cat t-shirt, cat calendar, cat iphone cover, life-size cardboard cut-out cat, floral cat brooch, two books of cat anecdotes and cat cards more numerous than the stars. All of which are delightful – thank you – but allow yourself to be seen with more than one of these items together and people begin to talk. Similarly, reposting of memes on facebook (I’m prepared to shoulder the blame on this one) has led to a proliferation of ‘and thought of you’ tagging so my wall frequently contains nothing but cat videos of variable quality. It makes me look unhinged. (Please don’t stop.)

Anyway. Can you? Train a cat?

If the internet, and my thinly researched bullshit prior to obtaining a cat are to be believed, then the answer is yes. I urge all of you here in the spirit of procrastination to check this action out.

Hell yes.

J has always been a dog person and teased me remorselessly about the treachery of cats: calculating parasites who await only their opportunity to feast on your flesh as soon as you so much as sprain an ankle. He didn’t mean it of course, and I’ll happily snuggle anything furry (to a maximum of four legs) so we split the difference and got a siberian kitten. According to the breed info they’re quite doglike – loyal and obedient – and although I consider the implicit indictment of catkind to be wholly unfair, J was sold and I thought it would be cool to take her for walkies.

I’ll document progress on here as we go, but at the moment I’m hearing a pretty firm ‘no’ from Bijoux in the matter of the harness and lead. Following a major scuffle my limited success was answered with an enthusiastic suicide attempt; kitten duly caught and disentangled, a good deal of apologising was necessary on both sides for equanimity to be restored. I won’t say who bit who.

So the training may have to be postponed until her youthful high spirits have waned. Which, as she grows with alarming speed, doesn’t appear to be on the cards any time soon. Chief among her interests are frantic tunnelling (in the absence of an arctic tundra the underwear drawer is acceptable) and perennial kitten favourite Die-Hard / Spiderman mash-up. She’s also close to nailing the ‘thriller’ move which she practices daily in the bedroom mirror. I’m hoping to incorporate this and her equally impressive ninja cartwheel into the final cut of the training regimen. Quietly optimistic.

Needless to say her every move is judged to be uniquely adorable, particularly by ‘surprise’ cat convert J, who keeps dashing in from other rooms to tell me what she has just done. She dishes out plenty of the good stuff at cuddle time and is genuinely hypo-allergenic, as attested by several of my allergic friends who have rubbed her on their faces to no ill effect. (It’s an enzyme thing.)

There are of course minor misdemeanors. As if to demonstrate, a recent stroll across the keyboard replaced the previous paragraph with the word “juk7” (perhaps she’s trying to communicate with her home planet so I shouldn’t be too hard on her). Electrical cable munching raises the obvious concerns and comes within a wider remit of inappropriate snacking; I’m choosing to interpret her penchant for chewing on human ears as endearing although I promise to revise this stance if I ever find her with one not still attached to a person.

I’d hoped she would be a powerful ally in the coming battle with the seasonal horde of spiders lurking in ever more intimidating ranks outside (and now occasionally inside) the garden / bedroom window, but the crucial stroke of September has fallen and she’s still quite little. I found her lunching on one of the foot soldiers the other day but from the look of things he had died of natural causes – I don’t much fancy her chances against the massive bastard currently lording it on the bedroom ceiling.

Most importantly, though, my new oh-so-fluffy-and-precious friend (the cat not the spider) has made it fun to be stuck at home. If you read my last post you’ll know that’s no mean feat. Animals are just plain good for you, and despite bad press qua (much maligned) cat-ladies, make you considerably saner. It continues to astound me that given only time, nature can build such a thing out of water and a couple of boxes of Go-cat.  Here’s a picture of her looking adorable next to a cup of tea. Nice kitty.