Vincent

(The cat who wouldn't bounce)

A true story

It all started, as most stories do, with a perfectly innocent telephone call. The time was mid January 2004, the call was from our vet, to say that the sponsorship cheque for our annual non-pedigree charity cat show was at the surgery and could be collected any time. Simple. Straightforward. Easy.

Then came the fateful words ………………………….

“Oh, and I don’t know if Barbara told you but Nemo is back”.

“Nemo?”

“Yes, Nemo, the electrocution case, well anyway, he has come back to us and as there may be lasting brain damage he does not need to mix with traffic and we just thought ……, well, yours is a safe household and there are other cats to play with and, well, look, no pressure but you could always have look at him when you come to collect the cheque.”.

I knew better than to interrupt our vet in full flow so I just agreed with him and said I would be there soon. Not really intending to do anything other than collect the cheque, look at the cat, make the right sympathetic-but-sorry-can’t-help-have-more-than-enough-cats-already noises, and come home, I set off on the 5 minute drive to the vets. Cheque tucked safely away in pocket I agreed to have a look at Nemo.

The first surprise was his colour. Somehow, with a name like Nemo, and having seen the trailers, if not the film, I expected a ginger and white (Clown fish) cat. I was not prepared for the stunning blue boy who sat serenely on the office chair and gazed steadfastly at me, as if daring me to go home without him. Having been given a brief history of the abuse he had suffered, Pat & I already felt sorry for him, but sympathy was no reason to add to our already overflowing household. Nemo himself, however, was. There was just something about him, a mixture of silk and steel, and not only his coat, his personality too. Before I knew it the cat carrier that I carry routinely in the boot of the car (well doesn’t everyone?), was full of cat; the isolation/introduction pen was erected in the living room and we had our second abuse case within a year, the first being the previous July when tail-less Douglas who was thrown from a window and had his tail hacked off as a tiny kitten found his way into our hearts.

It was only later, however, through various conversations with the vets and vet nurses that we slowly pieced together the full horror of the atrocities Nemo, now renamed Vincent by us, had suffered. What follows is not for the faint-hearted.

Vincent’s first visit to our vets was, we understand, as an 8 week old kitten. He had electrocution burns to his mouth, an accident his owner said and, on this occasion, we and the vets tend to agree that, yes, it probably was self-inflicted; he still has a worrying penchant for chewing wires and cables. He was treated and taken home by his owner. Soon after, however, he was brought back with two broken hips and a crushed pelvis. I was later shown the X-rays by one of the vets. It was horrific. There was a visible gap between the bones of one hip. How he ever walked again is a mystery, the fact that when he walks his back legs tend to turn inwards and when he sits he leans slightly to one side is not, therefore, surprising. His owner, in apparent concern, said that it had been a terrible accident, no one’s fault, the kitten had just got under her feet and had accidentally been trodden on. The vets had their doubts but in the face of the woman’s distress and her willingness to pay the bill, they gave her the benefit of the doubt and let him go home once his treatment was completed.

The third and final visit is the one that makes the blood run cold. He was still only a very young kitten and was very slight in stature, bordering on being under-nourished. This time the owner remained in her car as he was rushed into the vets, trembling and shaking uncontrollably, literally on the point of death from trauma with cracked ribs and a broken and “de-gloved” jaw (for the uninitiated this describes an injury where the skin is ripped from the jaw, leaving the bone and teeth exposed). No one thought he would survive and this time no one believed the owner’s story that the injuries had been caused by her next door neighbour’s ten year old boy. It had actually been this very boy who had alerted his mother to the abuse being inflicted upon Vincent and his sibling, who sadly did not survive. His mother contacted the vets and in later conversations the true story emerged.

Apparently Vincent had, as any 3-4 month old kitten will, been playing and had ventured too close to his owner who had pushed him away. Believing this to be a new game, Vincent had leapt back at his owner and, in play, had accidentally scratched her. His punishment was a punch strong enough to strip the skin from his jaw and break the bone, then to be thrown to the floor in rage, thus sustaining the broken ribs. We are still not sure who exactly took him to the vets but certainly the owner was there, in her car, muttering the words “He wouldn’t bounce” over and over. How many times she had actually thrown him to the floor in an effort to make him bounce is unclear, suffice to say that it was a miracle he survived. But somehow this tiny, abused, undersized scrap of fur found the inner reserves and determination to fight back from the very edge of death and to make a full recovery.

Michael, our vet initially wanted to home him with his sister who lived in London but, as at the time the RSPCA were hoping to pursue a case, they would not allow him to be homed “out of area”. Later, when they dropped the case as the only witness, the next door neighbour, would not take a stand, having, as she put it, “to live next door to her and she has a violent streak”, he was homed to an older lady who had just lost her cat of old age. Vincent was still a kitten, and an extremely playful one at that. The new owner, having for many years been used only to an old cat, found it extremely difficult to cope with a bored, lonely 5 month old kitten that climbed her legs, scratched her accidentally and jumped on her to play in the night. She reluctantly brought him back. Her loss was most definitely our gain, his gentle and loving nature wins the heart of all who meet him, at home or at a show.

We really did not intend to show him, he had been through too much, we were just happy that he was fit and well and apparently contented. Every visitor from the cat world (friends, SRPCC committee members etc) who met him, however, told us we just had to show him. So many people could not be wrong, surely, so we talked it through and opted for a couple of small shows initially. Once again he amazed us. At his first show, the West Riding Cat Rescue pet cat show he had a red card day except for one class and took Best Adult. At his second, the Progressive Ragdoll Breed Cat Club Exemption show again he had an almost red card day and walked off with Best Shorthair. His first big show, the Teesside, was not as successful but he still did well, first Open and first Non-Pedigree Stakes amongst others, he behaved impeccably as always, and we always knew deep down that once he got to the bigger GCCF shows it was highly likely that he would meet with a certain amount of resistance/prejudice from judges, as a bit of a pedigree lookalike amongst the “true” mogs. But that was fine, and whilst he still enjoyed the shows and was as relaxed as ever, we continued to show him.

As to whether he really is half pedigree, well, that is open to discussion. According to one breeder of Russian Blues he is definitely half Russian, a breed he does strongly resemble. One of our vets, however, begs to differ, stating that his original owner most certainly would not have paid anything for him (he comes from a rough area of our nearby city) and that if his “breeder” had owned a pedigree then they just as certainly would have asked the earth for the kittens, half mog or not. We will never know for sure but, in the interests of fairness given his appearance, we did show him as a part pedigree, although very soon he decided he no longer enjoyed it and he was retired from the show bench.

What really amazes us is Vincent’s trusting and loving nature. He has every reason to be terrified of people yet he adores them, he seems to fear nothing and nobody. He settled into our multi-cat household instantly and was soon play-fighting and wrestling with Douglas who, at the time, was twice his size. He will take on Naz, our resident big bully, he really does not care how big or small the cat, if he wants to play, he plays.

To look at or meet Vincent you would never imagine he had gone through hell as a kitten, until you get to know him and see the tell-tale signs. He occasionally gets a sad look, one that is difficult to describe but one I think all abused cats get from time to time, Douglas has it, as if memories suddenly return for a fleeting moment. Then there is his reaction to accidentally being trodden on, as happens in all households, with the best will in the world occasionally a cat will run under your feet and a paw will be stepped on. Most cats screech and make you feel guilty, Vincent utters no sound at all, it is as if he just accepts all pain as his due. The only time he has ever reacted was once when, in order to get him out of a difficult to access place behind a chair we, very briefly only, “scruffed” him. He screamed; a scream to make your blood run cold; it is something we will never, ever do again, unless his very life depended on it. We cam only surmise that his abuser grabbed him like that when she threw him to the floor, when he “wouldn’t bounce”.