A sliced-open sachet of pet food, a yogurt carton filled with water, pushed into a street’s corner, tucked under a bush, placed behind the storm wall in full view of a North Atlantic swell. Evidence that somebody, and invariably it will be a little old lady, is feeding the strays. That was then, this is now and I’m seeing the same scenario, only, there’s the taint of organised officialdom.
Need to know. Time to interview brainrot.com. I type… “gatos España”, to find myself sucked off in an unintended direction. Transpires that the residents of Madrid, amongst other terms can be known as ‘Gatos’…Cats. Some might be hairy, but as far as I can see most have two legs.
Back in 1085, with the Christians on the outside and the Moors on the inside, a soldier climbed over the town walls. He used a dagger as a clamber-pick, struck the Moor’s flag and replaced it with King Alfoso’s, so inspiring a successful attack. He might also have opened a gate. Supposedly. Either way, they named him ‘el Gato’ a cognomen that with hereditary expansion, spread through the local populace. However, not every Madrileño can claim the feline monicker; you need a complete set of grandparents with the capital on their birth certificates. Not a problem for the hairy, four-legged Gatos of Madrid.
All terribly interesting, but it doesn’t get me any closer to an answer. Time to change the search parameters.
Britons have always deluded themselves into believing they are the world leaders when it comes to pet loving.
Because we don’t eat pony or donkey, but are quite content to feed it to our dogs and cats; because we don’t eat white veal but are happy to ignore the export of the unwanted calves, makes for hypocritical pet lovers. We term ourselves ‘intrepid travelers’ when we find a stall selling guinea pig in the Andes, only to feed the pigeons then call them ‘flying rats’, whilst eating a tub of chicken nuggets.
We do have a convoluted relationship with food and the sentient beings we allow into and around our homes.
Our guardian angel, manifesting as David, the taxi driver who helped us on our retreat back to Burgos, was incredulous that someone would require a house sitter for their cats. Surely cats can look after themselves?
To which the obvious answer is yes, very successfully. They also very successfully breed, catch fleas, kill birds and become road-kill. Many ending up feral, then forming feline colonies that attract both well-wishers and detractors.
In most towns, it’s not uncommon to find a derelict building, an abandoned plot, a dark broken iron vent out of which four yellow eyes warily watch you as you pass by. Look further, there will be an official notice attached to a wall or on a post; indications of a ‘sanctioned feline colony’. Glance through the broken window, over esplanade’s wall and there will be that scatter of cat food, that water bowl, maybe a pile of blankets. You might on occasions even see a cat.
Two years ago the national government enacted animal welfare legislation, which in relation to cats created a licensing system for their control. Previously some would have used strychnine baited food, or the local authorities would react to complaints, by sending out the vermin controller to collect and exterminate.
As what always happens with these types of controls, a vacuum is created, which only sucks in more new recruits for the colony. It’s now a legal requirement to chip and snip, to neuter all kittens, illegal to buy them from shops and to feed them on the street unless licensed to do so. Effectively the local authorities have passed control to animal shelters, to the concerned groups who operate a policy of CES (trans: trap, neuter, release).
We’ve seen the results from two differing perspectives on this journey. Gone the shop windows displaying baskets of mewing kitten; now you’re more likely to see a sleek sunbather under a plaza bush than a fleabitten mangy-moggy slinking around corners, huddling under cars in the guise of decrepitude. Our second meeting with the Spanish Street Cat was of a more protracted encounter.
People own dogs; cats own people. It’s a cliche that holds a modicum of truth. Our house-sit in Madrid was to offer the full butlering services to two ex-street felines. Auto correct keeps wanting me to use the term ‘felons’, possibly prophetic as our ersatz employers have been released on parole, escaped from the street after two years in a colony. Snipped, chipped and discharged into house custody, there to become reformed, transformed house cats.
Still, our relationship with the domestic pet is convoluted. They’ve been melded, manipulated, defanged, we’ve emasculated all their natural instincts; to hunt, to replicate, to socialise. Selected for traits that correlate with the latest fashion, no matter the century. From the Egyptian Mau to the Canadian Sphinx, we’ve consistently fiddled around with their genetic code, often to the detriment of the pet. Witness the squitten, or kangaroo cat: that has to hop on its rear legs because its front legs are reduced to shrunken paddles.
Yet the biggest hypocrites are of course ourselves. Without the domesticated feline we wouldn’t have had a fortnight of free accommodation in central Madrid at peak holiday time. All for the less than onerous task of litter-tray cleaning and topping up the food bowl.
PostScript. Just for curiosity’s sake: the way to gender sex a street-cat is to checkout their ear tips. If there’s a nick in the left ear it was a ‘Molly’, if on the other side it was a ‘Tom’. Now, if they’ve been apprehended, they’re all ‘its’.
Postscript 2.0. Observational intelligence of Cádiz’ colonies suggests an apartheid policy is operating. Whether that discrimination is based on kindred allegiances, fur pigmentation or prejudice I can’t tell, for all appear to be matriarchal in nature. Yet all the black felines are segregated from the gingers by a jungle-gym of jumbled concrete blocks that they could easily negotiate.