Night of the Leapist

No cat in my household likes food as much as my foster-cat, Parker. I’m sure he tells strangers that I starve him, because that’s how he acts. His weight hovers around a sturdy eight kilograms. Certainly, his frame suggests that he can handle a good amount of poundage, but in fact he could lose a little weight and still be healthy. Even so, he is hardly doing without, when it comes to food. Yet it remains his preoccupation.

Cammie, you may know by now, is on a special food, Z/D. Because it is, apparently, tasty, other cats want it, too. It is expensive, however, so I reserve it for the princess. I put it on a cloth, rather than in a dish - because it is easier for her to eat it that way - and I keep the cloth, with the food on it, handy - for me - to give to her whenever she wants it, or when I think she will eat it. Sometimes, I put the food on the micro-wave oven, sometimes on a cabinet, sometimes on a shelf of a bookcase; close to wherever Cammie is at the time.

Enter the sturdy-boy. Parker doesn’t let distance or height stop him when it comes to food. He saw or smelled the food I had left on a bookshelf. It was only a couple of feet from the end of the bed. Surely such a length is nothing to an active fellow like Parker.

I was in the sitting room when I heard a crash from the bedroom. Running to the scene of the fracas, I thought immediately that a fight had broken out, especially as I watched Parker trot out of the bedroom, followed by Cammie. Then I saw this.

What I suspect happened was that Parker launched himself at the bookshelf with its tempting supply of hard-food kernels. He misjudged the depth of the shelf not covered by books, and thus available for landing. He also misjudged his aim. He hit the shelf next to the food, realised that he had a surface about one tenth of what his body required to stay aloft, and plummeted to the floor amid a scrabble at books. I have this image of Wile E. Coyote hitting a rock-wall next to the target he painted for himself, and slowly subsiding to the ground.

Fortunately, my own Wile E. was not hurt. As soon as I guessed what had occurred, I checked Parker over for injuries. He was unhurt. Cammie had followed him simply because she chases any noise or disturbance in the apartment. For my own part, I learned to keep the princess’s food even farther from the covetous grasp (or covetous attempt-to-grasp) of foster-cats, especially when their appetites can leap greater distances than their legs.