About eighteen months ago a young ginger cat appeared and was spotted eating our cat’s food. He was seen every now and again standing out from our assorted black and white mob. He learnt to use the cat flap and before long got bolder and came inside to take food. We wondered if he was the son of Marmalade, a ginger cat who appeared from nowhere some years back. This cat was tame but didn’t appear to have a home. He got a bad ear infection and we took him to the vet who had to remove the ear and at the same time castrated him as we didn’t want a full male on the premises. Marmalade never forgave us and as soon as he was allowed out of the cat cage after recuperating promptly vanished never to be seen again. I really can’t blame him although he would have died from the ear infection as it was so bad.

We wondered if this was son of Marmalade and as you can’t keep yelling, ‘Oi, you,’ we called him Alfie.

Our cats that had previously tolerated Marmalade ( his time with us was before some of the kittens were born ) but seemed to hate Alfie and he in turn chased any cat that moved. Alfie didn’t appear to be wild but he certainly wasn’t tame and was extremely wary of us. We reckoned someone had dumped him as he defied all attempts to trap him. Sometimes we hated him for disrupting our happy household but he miaowed so pitifully at us we felt so sorry for him. He had a split personality as one day he was attacking anyone and everyone, a really bad kitty but then after many months persuasion purred and allowed us to stroke him. You had to be ready to withdraw your hand before he turned on you but little by little the good kitty was showing through a little more.

The pattern was always the same, Alfie cornered one of ours and a fight ensued, there was a yowling from the garden and one or both of us would rush outside yelling ‘ALFIE’ before we found out what was going on. A black and white cat would hurtle past us to take cover inside and Alfie was spotted disappearing into the distance. We would follow in hot pursuit telling him he was a naughty boy until he vanished out of the garden. At this point puffing and panting we would go back to the house to console the victim usually to find Alfie sitting in the kitchen looking like butter wouldn’t melt. Clearly he did a circuit of the outside of the house and slid in the back way before we could get inside. 

The pattern changed after a while and Alfie either launched attacks or perhaps rushed up to one of our cats and said boo ! We never knew which, but our cats got to know if they even saw Alfie and howled, we would come running. Now we would find, by the time we got outside, he had thrown himself off the premises and reappeared inside, short circuiting the need for a chase and leaving us wondering if he was even involved.

We noticed Alfie had an eye problem and wondered at one stage if he was blind as he didn’t seem to be able to see what was under his nose. He wasn’t tame enough to allow us to clean his eye so we couldn’t help him.

The love hate relationship continued. Mal started to groom him and little by little he became tamer. The mission was to be able to handle him in case he ever needed help. We have lost too many cats in the past because we couldn’t handle them and when they got sick we couldn’t get them help.

Our cats hid every time Alfie appeared and he continued to loiter behind cat flaps ready to chase any cat that used them. K2 moved into the big tree outside the door and rarely came inside until we chaperoned him in and out for food. Alfie chased him up there at every opportunity but seemed unable or unwilling to follow so K2 knew he was safe aloft. The others wouldn’t go outside unless we were with them to check if the coast was clear.

Eventually Guiness plucked up the courage to challenge Alfie. We think Guiness won although he got a bad scratch on the side of his head which took ages to mend. After that Alfie seemed less keen to come inside and we wondered if a new pecking order had been established. We used the feliway spray to calm things down inside.

It got very cold outside and K2 came back inside to sleep as did all the others. Alfie skulked around in the background and we took food and water out to the courtyard for him and put a soft bed out there for him as well.

One night I found Alfie in the courtyard sleeping in one of the poo boxes, it did have clean litter in it but something was not right. The next night his behaviour was similar and the morning after we tried to coax him out of the box but he had blood coming from his rear end which was very bad. I wondered if he had cystitis of something similar. He scuttled outside and didn’t reappear. We worried he was very ill and had maybe even died. Two days later he was seen in the garden. He hadn’t eaten or drunk anything we had left for him and was now stopping to try and wee every few minutes but producing nothing. Luckily with Rachael and family here a plan to help him formed and we decided we would have to try and catch him. It took 5 of us but eventually we succeeded and got him to the vet who managed to save his life. After operating and doing lots of tests it was found he had a blocked urinary tract and a bad infection. At this point I have to thank Rach, Kev and Beth who chipped in with his vet bills which was brilliant and a big relief. If Alfie could thank you I’m sure he would.

After a couple of days we got Alfie home and had to keep him in Rolf and Sues cat cage which we made for them when they had a poorly cat and also lent us when Marmalade needed it. The cage was here as Rolf and Sue are moving and it came to the rescue again. We monitored him in the cage to check he was eating, drinking and more importantly being able to wee. 

Alfie made a steady recovery and was allowed out once he seemed to be back to normal........

It appears he has finally lost the aggression towards us. He still attempts to chase the others but hopefully he now knows this is his home. Also hopefully, sometime soon, the two sides of this kitty will become only one, the good side.