SETH. | bowlandclimber

Seth has used up the last of his nine lives. He died peacefully a few days ago. As he has been mentioned several times in these pages, I am writing a little tribute.

I remember a previous cat, Arthur ( named long before the eponymous cat food), dying of feline leukaemia. He had not been vaccinated against it. That was back at the end of 2007. I had a few weeks in Egypt that winter, relevance later, and planned to walk the Haute Randonnée Pyrénéenne (HRP) from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean in the summer, having previously cancelled for a hernia operation. Knowing I would be away for long periods, I didn’t look for another cat.

I squeezed in a climbing trip to Valencia early in the year and then had some training for the HRP. The Pyrenees trip was exciting because of the late snowfall in June, but the pieman and I completed it, though not quite as planned; that’s another story.

Halfway across, I received a text telling me of my third grandchild’s arrival. He is a strapping 16 now. Another text arrived from Dor, my cat person. She had been visiting a friend’s farm, and Lily had just produced four delightful kittens. Knowing my catless state, she was excited and convinced I would take one of them on my return. I knew Lily as a beautiful, friendly cat; part Tabby, part Maine Coon, so I had high hopes for her kittens. Yes, I’m interested, was my reply, but I won’t be back for another month or so.

My first visit to the farm was when the kittens were about eight weeks old, but we couldn’t catch them in the woodpile. They did look cute, though, and I pointed out the one I preferred, an absolute ball of fluff. The plan was to return when the farmer had enticed the kittens into her porch. A few days later, I received the phone call and drove up with Dor and a cat basket in readiness.

Two of the kittens had already been taken by a local contractor to be used as ‘ratters’ in his premises. I wonder what sort of life they have had.

I was happy with my choice of kitten. Settled with a cup of tea and cake, the ladies then proceeded to convince me the two female kittens couldn’t be separated. I was ambushed, as was their plan. So, money was donated to a charity, and we drove home with the two kittens—my original choice of the fluffy one and the other wiser-looking one.

Naming the two of them was easy following my recent visit to Egypt, where cats have been given Godlike status.

BASTET is the Ancient Egyptian cat goddess associated with the home,  fertility, and childbirth. Thought also to protect against evil spirits. Probably the most famous of all the cat gods.  Images, in her most common form, depict the head of a cat and the body of a woman with an air of authority and disdain. That will be the fluffy one.

SEKHMET, a lesser-known Egyptian cat goddess. She was the goddess of war and would protect the pharaohs in battle. Like Bastet, she rode with the sun god Ra. Associated also with healing, she was the goddess Egyptians turned to when they needed to cure life’s problems. That will be the fierce one.

Not a bad pedigree for my two.

An appointment was made at the vet for a check-up, vaccination (this time including Leukaemia), and microchipping. The vet thought them both healthy, especially the lively male one. Oh! A quick change of sex and Sekhmet was renamed SETH on the spot. The name stuck.

They were both rendered infertile a few weeks later.

My cats have always had the freedom of the house and garden using a cat flap. I was keen to accustom Seth and B (as we now called her) to the surroundings without them running off. In the family album, I have found a picture of my grandchildren, J and S,  taking them around the garden on makeshift leashes. August 22 2008.
I have looked for earlier photographs, but my filing system is chaotic.

B and Seth became part of the household and tolerated each other rather than being bosom pals. They would spend as much time in the garden as possible in the better weather. But like all cats, they could sleep for hours by the radiator in Winter. They both had bells to warn the garden birds, but from the start, Seth was never interested in hunting; he didn’t have the patience to stay still before pouncing cat-like. It was B who would bring mice and rabbits into the kitchen.

October 2008  B and Seth.

We often visited A’s farm to update her on the kittens’s progress. Lily, their mother, always keen to hear the news. More kittens appeared.  Not long after, the lady farmer, unfortunately, died at a relatively young age. Her funeral was a fitting celebration of a lovely lady.

The farmhouse was left empty; her brother farmed the fields, but cats were low on his priorities. So what of the remaining kittens? Lily, the matriarch, had passed on. Each week, under Dor’s insistence, we would drive up with cat food for the abandoned kittens. They were wild and wouldn’t come to us; they would only take the food once we were back in the car. We left tins for the brother to feed the cats between our visits. As I said, we came weekly. One particular kitten always seemed to be pushed out by the others. We tried to offer her food in a different place, and she became more friendly.

Dor became attached to this kitten, whom we named Lily after her mother. As the weeks went on, the other kittens seemed to disperse. We were solely feeding Lily. She was understandably unkempt and thin. Why not adopt her?  Dor was all for kidnapping her on the spot. I felt it better to speak to the brother first. He was quite happy for us to look after her. Us? I thought Dor would take her, but she didn’t want the responsibility. That left me. Back with a cat box, which Lily happily entered. The next day, I took her to the vet, and they found she had a dislocated jaw, probably from a fight. The bill was rapidly rising.

Anyhow, she was introduced to her cousins, Seth and B, and all got along. I was now a three-cat family. Seth maintained his aloofness but was always the one to be stroked.

Here he is with the youngest grandson, A, in 2012 both aged three and a half. They do, after all, virtually share the same birthday.

Dor came often to interact with Lily. Somewhere, I have a photo of all three cats.

B and Seth 2014.

What went wrong? I can’t remember the year. I blame myself. As I said, they had the freedom of a catflap, but that was their undoing. Road works in Longridge diverted traffic past my house; what was once a quiet lane became a busy rat run. The inevitable happened: first, Lily and then B was run over. Seth, who didn’t venture far, thankfully survived. He becomes the king of the castle.

One day, he was unhappy, wouldn’t eat and seemed in pain. The vet diagnosed a jaw fracture with loss of teeth, possibly a brush with traffic or a fox. He survived but with ongoing eating difficulties—a near escape.

The years passed, they do seem to have merged into one. Seth was always there. He was waiting for me behind the door when he heard my car.  He became a firm favourite with my friends and family, who mostly liked cats. My local cattery welcomed him whenever I travelled abroad. His affectionate personality wooed several ladies who would regularly call in for coffee, not necessarily for my company, but to have the honour of Seth’s attention on their laps for an hour or so. He didn’t just rub up against you he licked you to death. The start of a legend.

 2018.

Around this time, Sept 2021. I am able to be more specific because I wrote a post about it. Seth didn’t return home for a couple of days. He bravely dragged himself back onto my bottom stairs one morning. He had dislocated one of his hips. The vet was brilliant in treating him. How many lives is that now?   Here, he is in his cage for 6 weeks after the operation.

Life drifts on for Seth and me. And then comes along Covid lockdown. He was so used to attention from visitors that he became visibly restless when none could come. Things slowly returned to normal, and Seth made even more fuss with visitors; he was particularly friendly with my cleaner on a Monday morning. She often brought him treats and didn’t like hoovering to disturb him if he was asleep in a room. He spent most of his time in the house, several favourite resting places picked randomly throughout the day.

One of his best, if the sun was shining, was on the car’s warm soft-top; up here, he also received the attention of passers-by.  He had to be physically removed if I was going out in the car. If the family were visiting, he always got in on the act. That’s those two grandchildren a decade later.

Around this time, one of my sons and his partner adopted two boisterous rescue dogs. When they visited, Seth just sat at the top of the stairs, daring them to come closer; they never did. He would happily trot downstairs the moment their car left the drive, secretly pleased with himself for remaining aloof.

Seth and all my other cats had gone to a trusted cattery for years until lockdown. The people running the cattery have been friends for all that time, and even when I wasn’t away, I kept in contact with them. They always asked after Seth and he received a Christmas card every year from them. I started going away on walking holidays again in 2021. So when I phoned to book him in, they were pleased to have him back, and I’m sure they gave him a lot of attention.  I don’t seem to have travelled far in 2022/23 for health reasons,  so I did not board Seth there. When I resumed last year, I obviously phoned them to book Seth in. They were somewhat embarrassed to say that a recent inspection by DEFRA  found their inner cages a few centimetres on the short side and had not renewed their license. What a daft decision; my cats had never complained. They are still appealing against this decision but couldn’t take Seth. I had to find another cattery. Fortunately, there was a local one with a good reputation, and Seth took to them with no difficulty on the few occasions he holidayed there. The last time I picked him up, the staff were keen for him to return; he had already become a favourite.

As I’ve said, he didn’t go out much as he aged; he was never a hunter. For years, he was the only cat at our end of the road, so he had no competitors. Slowly, housing has spread around us, and other cats have started appearing. One particular one, a fine-looking tom, visits regularly, as I think Seth had lost his territory. They would sit on either side of a window, hissing at each other. Worse, this other cat came into my house through the cat flap once or twice, and there was a proper standoff between them. I locked the catflap and started keeping Seth inside to avoid any stress. But I thought that was unfair to him, and the litter trays in my kitchen were not ideal. The obvious answer was to buy a fancy flap that only responded to Seth’s chip. He didn’t like this new gadget and just stayed in as before, but at least the other cat couldn’t come in. I do wonder how much the stress had affected him.

A week or so ago, he wasn’t eating much, which was not unusual for him. (In recent years, I had started buying him chicken pieces) When I picked him up, he winced with pain, so there was something amiss. He had never attempted to bite or scratch me all his life. He’d not been outside; hence, it was unlikely he was injured. A trip to the vet suggested an internal pathology or infection. Antibiotics made no difference, and he slowly deteriorated. The weekend, he was worse, and I was expecting to take him back to the vets on Monday to be euthanised as they were reluctant to operate. I gave him, rightly or wrongly, small doses of paracetamol to make him comfortable. He died in the night.

A legend indeed.