On this joyous celebratory weekend, let me introduce Moose, the cat. Moose's life started out tough, but now he gives hugs. First, some context. Singapore has lots of semi-stray cats, who live in HDB apartment complex ground floor open areas, and are generally well-fed, neutered, yet subject to the rain and various infections. They have short hair, clipped ears to show they've been fixed, and usually have bobtails:
Since lock-down, we've been brisk walking sauntering on the highway bridges, given fewer pedestrians and great views. (Also, for the record, in Singapore we wear our masks outside the home except when eating or exercising, as below.)
So, on this highway bridge over the river, nowhere near human sources of food or rodents, and we saw a little sad, wet cat sitting in the gutter. The first night, he fled to the precarious river-side ledge, so we fed him and left. The second night, I sat down and chatted with him. Then I called Barry to bring me some tuna, a duffel bag and his bike. Moose made no protest.
When we got him home, things started looking up for all three of us. First, having eaten (a lot), Moose cleaned himself up nicely.
Then after a short stint of hiding, he came out to say thanks, and we learnt that he's chocolate brown with medium-length fluffy fur!
I think he was happy with the situation.
We had to give him a bath to get rid of his lice. He said he was cold, so Barry ("not a cat person"?) warmed him up with a hot water bottle. (It's 27C in our house.)
Not pleased.
Moose let us de-louse, de-worm, vet-inspect, brush and cut out his matted fur, with nary a claw nor a hiss. And he managed to de-plastic himself with his improved diet.
He says he's better suited for working from home.
We were pretty sure he liked us.
Over 2 weeks, he gained nearly 25% of his body weight, and started to tell us that he was a pescatarian and preferred fish to meat, please.
He also liked our friends. Here you can see his forehead bald spot from sleeping on the pavement. (Moose's, not Raed's).
