Being the tales of five cats and kittens whose tails were short and stumpy.

The Cat’s son Ana was the first cat to have a shortened tail. It hadn’t always been that way and he reached adulthood with a tail which was perfectly normal, perfectly formed and perfectly suited.

And then, one day, his tail was dragging behind him. He couldn’t hold it up or control it, and upon inspection, there were two places where it was kinked and the fur and flesh was missing, exposing the musculature. Ana did not seem bothered by it, and, over the next few weeks, it withered and fell off in two sections leaving him with a stump and earning him the surname ‘Half-Tail’; in fact, he became known locally as ‘the cat with the aerial’.

What caused it, we would never know. Maybe his tail had been trapped by falling stones or it had been caught in a door – who knows. Either way, it didn’t hold him back in the slightest and it was business as usual for The Cat’s Number One Son.

The next cat with a shortened tail was Tumbleweed who was born to Twilight’s daughter Storm in the fields. When we first saw Tumbleweed as a kitten of only a few weeks old, his tail was already bent and withered at the end. Even as a kitten, he had a fluffy coat so it was obvious that there was something amiss with end of his tail, and over the next few weeks, it just fell off.

Once again, we never knew what had happened, but we guessed that either his tail had been trapped in between stones in a wall and he had had to pull himself out, or he had been subject to an attack by rats. Once again, he was perfectly happy and healthy with his shortened tail.

Only a couple of months after Tumbleweed’s ‘tail incident’, Gypsy became the next cat to lose some of her tail. She had arrived during the pandemic, and she had a fine, fluffy plume of a tail.

But a few months later, she disappeared for a few days. When she returned (led back by her friend Dawn) her tail had been badly injured. Once again, we were not to know what had happened, but could only think that either she had been trapped somewhere and had to pull herself free, or maybe it had been shut in a door. The worst-case scenario was that she had returned to her previous home or feeder and not been made welcome.

During the summer months, problems with flies and maggots meant that Gypsy’s tail became even shorter, but by the time the end of the year came, it had healed well.

And then there was Flora’s daughter Satsuma who was the runt of her litter, and was simply born with a short tail.

It was perfectly formed and had fur all the way round – and that was just the way Satsuma was.

And lastly, one of Cheese and Souci’s kittens who we sadly lost during the summer virus was also born with a short tail. There was no sign of injury or accident – it just so happened that Trio had a stump instead of a longer tail like her siblings.

Thankfully all the cats with shortened tails were able to continue to live normal lives – they were none the wiser, and life continued as normal.