By Ruth aka Kattaddorra
Reading another PoC article about cats and goldfish prompted me to look out some old photos of our cats Walter and Jozef with the 3 goldfish we had until a few years ago. Walter was a very hyperactive kitten and needed a lot of amusing. Jozef did his best to keep up with his fun and games but he needed a rest sometimes….
…So we bought 3 tiny goldfish and a tank and set it up thinking it would keep Walter occupied watching them and so it did! He called them Caeser, Hercules and Achilles, well we actually named them and he purred his approval.
He often sat with them and all the fish used to come to the side of the tank to say hello, not at all frightened as they knew they were safe the other side of the glass and with a lid on the tank and all.
It’s said that goldfish have very short memories but they did seem to recognise Walter yet didn’t bother greeting Jozef, although he wasn’t that interested in them, just in sitting on the tank. He’s never been keen on fishy food at all.
The goldfish grew and grew and soon we had to buy a bigger tank, then they grew some more. Caeser was almost as big as a kipper! We worried what to do if they grew even more, we supposed a covered pond in the garden would be the next step.
But sadly, Achilles and Hercules died within days of each other at around 8 years old, they hadn’t been ill, starved or overfed, or put into icy cold water when the tank was cleaned, we had no idea why they died.
We debated whether Caeser would be lonely but he solved the problem himself as one morning we found him upside down on the top of the water, he had died too. What went wrong we don’t know but we decided it wasn’t fair to have any more goldfish, they had no luck living with us.
The goldfish ‘Fred’ we had when we were kids, was stolen and eaten by the ginger cat down our street. I think we are better sticking with having cats only! So since then the only fish Walter has seen are the ones in butter sauce he has for a treat occasionally, Jozef isn’t keen on that either, he licks a bit of the sauce just to show willing lol
You are one hell of a cat-man! I think I’ll have to define what a cat-man is by reference to what you do.
I do so love your articles and pictures Ruth ahh poor gold fish no they don’t seem to live long but anyway Walter’s fish had a good home and a happy life for their 8 years.
Yes I bet you can hardly wait to get home Marc, I hate being zaway from our boyz even for a short while, I miss them so much.
We have a ‘Kitty video’ our cats used to watch when the weather was too bad for them to go out, it’s lovely with birds and fish and mice and all the things cats love, but they soon realised they couldn’t get at them lol and prefer real life adventures.
I have a photo somewhere of them sitting on a chair each watching it.
Yes every living creature has the right to have a little funeral and a few tears shed for them. It was a sad lonely funeral for poor Caeser with only me at it, we had deep snow and Babz was poorly in bed with a bad dose of flu, even Walter and Jozef didn’t turn up for it.
You noticed the logo. I think it is pretty good. I am trying different things. Professional logo designers charge about £1,000 which I think is too much. Thanks for the painting and cat photos. Sounds good.
Kattadora Ruth, doesn’t it feel good to let them rest in peace under the soil in the garden? I do the same thing, burying ours in a spot whereupon I plant a new perennial to commemorate the fish’s personality or name. Beautiful flowers every season from that little pet. Thank you for sharing your tale! 🙂