Tales of a Cat Lover – My Cat Mallikai
I call him “My Big Black Boy”. But before I rant on in this post about my loving cat Mallikai, I want to let you in on a little secret… Pssst, you’ll need to come closer… (I wasn’t always a cat lover). Right, now that I’ve shared that I can move on with a clear conscience.
I have spent my whole life believing that cats were nothing but opportunistic creatures that serve no purpose at all for human beings, except to give us something to whinge about. I convinced myself that there was absolutely no benefit to having a feline companion around the home at all, and that acquiring one was to be avoided at all costs.
Fast forward to 2008, and you have a completely different man who now has moments of thinking what would life be like without my cat Mallikai.
My Wife and Her Pets!
It all started with my now wife – Deb, who brought her entourage into our relationship of a cat (Smudge) and two dogs with great initial resistance. I always had a lot of trouble bonding with Smudge because he didn’t grow up with me and there wasn’t that ‘connection’ with us that normally develops over time between owner and pet. But we did have our moments and he was growing on me in small ways.
Well one day Smudge went missing, which of course sent Deb into an absolute distraught state of panic. Over the following four days Deb and I searched relentlessly in the hope that Smudge had just gone on a wandering spree to discover his newer surroundings. Deb’s efforts led her to discover that Smudge had been (as feared) hit on a nearby road. This confirmed that growing sinking feeling in our minds that he of course wouldn’t be coming home.
Oh my God! It’s Smudge Re-Incarnated…
As fate would have it, a week later we saw an ad in our local supermarket offering kittens to good homes. When Deb looked into the supplier she discovered it was actually the same owner to the mother of Smudge. We quickly jumped in the car and drove to see this litter of kittens and were completely blown away with what we saw. Out of a litter of six, one little fluff ball came waddling over to where Deb and I were standing that was the spitting image of smudge. Well, Deb was absolutely convinced that this was in fact a little smudge re-incarnated and that he wasn’t going anywhere but home with us. . .
After choosing the name Mallikai, which means angel in Swahili, we settled him in at home. Of course he was a kitten, and to say there wasn’t times when I wanted to throttle him would be an understatement.
Truth be told though, It really didn’t take that that much effort for me to establish a connection between us as you can see in the pic above, but what really surprised me was how quick and effortless it happened. It was the ‘closet cat lover’ coming out in me that I really knew existed but didn’t want to acknowledge.
As I write this my boy is sitting outside my window meowing in an attempt to cajole some food out of me.
Well, I may as well go give him some now because ‘I know he loves me’ 
Filed under: My Cat Mallikai | Tagged: black cat, Cat Care, cat health, cat lovers, cats at home, closet cat lover, converted cat lover, do cats love us, kittens, my cat story, pets and your health, tabby cat, tales of a cat hater
