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Whizzie joined us in 1997. Horrid Topsy had died aged 16 and we had mentioned to the vet that we would be interested in taking on another cat. They rang us to say they had a black cat there, who had been taken in with a damaged toe but his owners didn't want to pay for his treatment and had asked them to rehome him; he had been neutered and was being treated for ear mites. The poor creature had been over grooming with boredom or frustration from being kept caged up, so needed a home as soon as possible. We were shortly due to go away for a weekend but visited him and said we would take him as soon as we got back home from our break if no-one else wanted him. Oddly, black and mostly black cats are supposed to be hard to rehome, which is how the more recent Mad Moggies have all been of that colour!
This cat was around two years of age and had been named Whizzie by his previous owners and we soon found out why, as he raced around very fast, despite the damaged tendon in his toe, which left it 'loose'. He proved to be the complete opposite to Topsy in all ways! For a start, there was the colour. Topsy was pure white, though as a kitten, she had a couple of tiny grey spots the top of her head, which faded as she grew up. Whizzie is pure black, with a couple of tiny white spots on the top of his head. He is of more 'foreign' type than British (less obvious now than when he was younger), so we thought he must have some Siamese ancestry which Topsy had too, but his miaow was so much quieter and more gentle than hers or her brother Tigger's. Then it dawned on me that he was more like a Russian Blue apart from colour, of course, 'stomping' around on tippy-toes, with his tail held arched over his back. By this time, his coat had thickened up to a silky plush too.
It was fortunate that we lived in a cul-de-sac at that time, as he very soon found his way round from the back path to the front gardens and used to wait for us by the front gate. If there wasn't room to park in front of the house, he would follow the car down to wherever we could park it, running between me and my husband as we walked back to the house. This behaviour is what made us decide to keep him indoors here, where we are at the junction of two fairly busy residential roads, especially as he has the run of the whole house, including the nice big conservatory I had built onto the back after we'd been here three years. Whizzie got on well with the other cats, being a very laid back character but we then found him trying to stop Felix from reaching the front door and even our front garden. The two of them used to 'wrestle' play and chase each other backwards and forwards. Once we moved here, we were able to watch this behaviour more closely and it was quite amusing to see (though, of course the chases now all took place indoors). When Felix died in 2004, poor Whizzie was depressed for months. You see, when we took Felix to the vets' he was just off his food, but he never returned, having deteriorated while under observation and awaiting the results of tests, so when Whizzie last saw him he didn't appear to be ill.
I have never seen another cat race upstairs at such a speed as Whizzie does; he usually aims for the bedroom, leaps onto the bed with something akin to a 'Fosbury Flop' and rolls about with legs fully extended, opening and closing his paws rhythmically and purring deeply. He's fast at other things too; when a neighbouring house was being renovatted, a large number of house mice were evicted and Whizzie made quick work of them. He would catch a mouse and then whack it so hard that it flew the distance of the garden. The poor things must have either died instantly or from the shock of this. All this makes him sound the perfect pet but he does have his drawbacks. When we first had him, he used to appear to suffer from dreadful nightmares - he certainly seemed very grateful when we woke him up when he was kicking violently, apparently fleeing something chasing him. If we left him, the dream would end with him kicking very hard with both hind legs which sometimes propelled him off whatever he was asleep on and he would awake with the jolt. Unfortunately, this happened the one and only time that he ever went to sleep on my lap, since when he has never settled there. He still has active dreams but nowhere near as violent as they used to be.
His other problem was chewing things. Now, Topsy used to chew elastic bands but Whizzie extended it to other things. One day, I realised that the radio/hi-fi in the dining room had only one speaker working. On examination, I discovered that the wire to the second speaker had been partially chewed through. Fortunately, it was close to one end so not too much had to be cut off. He likes playing with watches and chews those too, with the result that he destroyed my everyday watch which had belonged to my late Father. It was only a cheap one and on its second strap but was still going strong on the original battery after seven or more years. Sometimes this chewing is to indicate to me that he wants something to eat. He has a quiet voice, so can't wail like some of his predecessors and his pal Felix. The other thing he will do is to make little silent miaows alternating with licking his lips loudly! Whizzy had problems with a toe during the winter of 2004-2005 (see this page for details) but this didn't affect him at all and he played with his new pal Pugwash as enthusuastically as he used to with Felix. Sadly, this didn't last long as he became ill in May 2006 and died six weeks later on the last day of June (see here if you want to read more about his sad demise). |
