Cats have played a big part in my life. I have never purchased one. Our children usually brought them home or left them behind when they traveled.

          Cats in New Zealand and in Asia seem to have different personalities. The Asian cats move faster and are not so fussy eaters. In New Zealand, they are pampered and spoilt and the Vet bills can be high. They both catch birds and delight in bringing in a rat or a mouse for inspection – often still alive.

          Bronson one of our cats would only eat chicken livers in his old age. He lived to over 20. Originally he was called Grumpy but after he was spayed he moved home and adopted our daughter Lynette. Because of his attitude, she renamed him, Bronson. We inherited him.

          In Asia cats will eat any food scraps you like to feed them, they tend to eat rice.

          I will share one of my favorite cat stories with you. I was working at the Mekong Institute in Khon Kaen in Northern Thailand. I was staying with the Director, John, and Pen Askwith at the time. They adopted a cat called Miss Grey.

          Miss Grey had four kittens. She was an attractive half-wild Thai cat that shared her life with John and Pen.

          The time came when they decided the kittens needed to be spayed or neutered to prevent a tribe of cats from running wild in the district.

          John made an appointment at the Vet clinic for a double spaying session. I was invited to go for the ride.

          John parked the car and unloaded the cage with some pathetically meowing cats. Parked alongside was a Ute containing two large German Shepherd dogs. The dogs barked, the cats panicked and they sprang the door of the cage. I have never seen cats move so fast  – they bolted.

We hunted and called to no avail.

          Ultimately we gave up the hunt and returned home to get some replacement cats. But when we got home Miss Grey and the rest of her litter had vanished.

          John returned both morning and evening and ultimately he found only one half-staved cat in a drain pipe.

          After returning home to Wellington I received an email saying the neutering and the spraying were now complete.

          This was not the end of the story. On his last trip to the clinic, one of the females was still unconscious when he took it home. As they planned to go out that evening they left it in their bathroom and shut the door.

          When it woke it panicked and charged around the bathroom knocking over a pot plant that fell and smashed their ceramic wash-hand basin.

          Our son had a cat called Sandy Mac. When we were transferred from Taranaki to Wellington we nailed him up in a box and loaded him on our trailer and he meowed all the way to Wellington but he settled in well to his new environment. Our daughter had a cat on the farm that learned how to open doors but it never learned how to close them. During a cold southerly gale, it tended to drop the temperature of the house down.

          There certainly is a big difference in cat personalities in different countries I suspect due to both genetic and environmental factors.

Geoffrey Moss(mossassociates.co.nz)