Furry Muses

From Tots to Teens, The Star

12th June 2011

ABOUT three weeks ago, we adopted a cat (left). His name is Igor and he is four years old, which makes him about 32 in human years – a bachelor in his prime, although, as he’s been “fixed”, he won’t be fighting other Toms for the love of the neighbourhood she-cats.

Igor is beautiful – large and muscular, with white fur, touched with cream, and ice-blue eyes. He has a mean stare and I have this theory that he amuses himself by thinking of ways to kill us in our sleep. However, I don’t think he will act on his fantasies just yet as I feel he is rather pleased with his success in training us to scratch his back and tickle his chin and toss his catnip-filled mouse in the air.

Igor is a great source of amusement and joy to the whole family. I think it’s only a matter of time before he sneaks into my writing. Already, during my evening walk the other day, I was thinking him into a book. The things he gets up to – he got very excited over the unrolling of my yoga mat – and even his expressions, which range from dreamy to scathing, are all begging to be made into stories and turned into illustrations.

Well, as you probably know, many authors have been inspired by their pets. Judith Kerr, for example, based her most famous character, Mog, on her own family’s many pet cats. If you don’t know Mog, you need to get acquainted. She is round-faced and grey-striped, with a white bib, yellow eyes, and, by and large, a smiling countenance. Mog lives with her humans, the Thomas family. She loves eggs, dislikes vets, is nervous of the dark, and often dreams of flying. She also dreams of kittens, mouse-shaped snowflakes and, once, that she was a butterfly. Her bad dreams are of large birds ... with teeth.

In 2002, Kerr wrote her last Mog book (the first appeared in 1970), Goodbye Mog. In it, Mog dies peacefully (“Mog thought, ‘I want to sleep forever.’ And so she did.”), but “a little bit of her stayed awake to see what would happen next”. What happens next is the Thomas family weeps over the death of their beloved pet. They then decide to adopt a tiny ginger kitten. The little bit of Mog that has stayed awake disapproves of the new feline, but she ends up helping it to adapt to its new life. Once Mog’s work is done, she happily flies “up and up and up and up right into the sun”. And so, Mog’s dearest wish comes true.

The Mog books are a must for all cat-lovers of any age. There are about 17 of them – sorry to be so vague but I have only nine (including an alphabet book, Mog’s ABC) and I can’t seem to find a definitive list online.

Next week: More books for cat-lovers.