The arrival of Pikabu has been mentioned before, and the conclusion to the story still makes the humans laugh. So maybe his story is worth telling again.

It was during the long, hot summer months one year that a new cat was spotted eating at the food bowls in the front path. The bowls were strategically positioned so that the humans could see them through a window, and were also obvious to cats looking through the gate from the pavement. Any new feline visitor was of great interest to the humans (who had by now been subsumed into the fascinating world of cat-feeding) and we noted that the new visitor was a sturdy adult, full-grown, with a striking patterned grey coat to his back, and a white belly, nose and chin. He certainly didn’t look underfed or thin, but he ate urgently and hungrily, especially when it came to dried food or the more expensive wet foods (left over from The Cat and garden family’s meals).

After eating, he would jump up onto the wall and settle down in between the plant troughs, happy to sit and watch the comings and goings and have a doze.

One day, a human inside the house made eye-contact with Pikabu who was sitting on the wall. Rather than jumping down from the wall and running to hide as most feral cats did, Pikabu stared back, quizzically, bobbing his head as he did – and that was how he got his name – Pikabu, or peekaboo. He looked intrigued, but not worried or panicked (as a true feral would no doubt have been).

He soon became a regular visitor with a hearty appetite. He seemed accustomed to humans and started to solicit contact (as well as ever-increasing quantities of food); this was not a feral cat from the fields – this was a cat who spent time in human company, who was confident and self-assured when it came to human contact. And yet, here he was – eating with the cats from the fields, roaming here and there, living an independent life.

And it was as Pikabu became more familiar with the humans that we noticed that his left eye was clouded and he was in fact partially sighted (or possibly blind in one eye – it was hard to tell); this explained Pikabu’s peekaboo nature and head-bobbing.

After a couple of months of closer contact the penny dropped. Pikabu was neither feral nor stray, and he was certainly not as hungry as he appeared, as he was an owned cat. An owned cat who lived up the road. An owned cat who lived up the road – at the pet shop. The same pet shop at which the humans bought copious quantities of cat food, quite a lot of which was being eaten by Pikabu. Food which the pet shop owner said Pikabu refused to eat at home.

What is was about the surroundings of The Cat’s garden, drive and path that made Pikabu walk down the road to eat the same food he refused at home, we’ll never know. But so long as he observed the Garden Rules, he was welcome, just like any other cat.