A friend instead of a pet

It all started when I found a cat in my closet

It’s true. One morning I left the window open to cool the bedroom. When I returned there was a cat sitting inside one of the closet’s shelfs. #wtfmoment The cat had no leash so it was a wild cat, however it wasn’t that scared and looked rather gentle. I politely invited the cat to leave the closet through the window. And so it did. The end. So I thought…

I have some almond trees and recently there’s a parrot pest eating all my almonds. I don’t mind that they eat the almonds at the top of the tree – after all, I wouldn’t be able to reach them anyway. However they already ate those and now they’re climbing down the tree to get the remaining almods.

To my surprise the mysterious cat came to the rescue. I watched the cat enter into predator mode when the parrots arrived. I saw it nimbly climb the tree, the parrots saw it too and started making noise before they all decided it was better to leave.

Now we’re friends. I see her usually once a week, while I’m lunching or watering the plants. She’s very inquisitive, either gazing at my moves or inspecting the water inside the buckets. She has a very carasteristic gaze (see photo above)

When I want to pet her, I squat and stretch my hand – if she’s on the mood, she’ll come and rub herself against my hand. But don’t be fooled, this is no pet: she won’t follow my commands, she won’t eat what I give her, and she won’t let me touch her if she doesn’t want it.

She doesn’t need me, after all she’s a wild cat! This is truly a friendship relation. No one owns or commands the other. And I trust her my physical integrity – while she’s playing with my hand she could easily slash or pierce it at any time without warning. And it wouldn’t even be considered biting the feeding hand, since she owes me nothing. She doesn’t hurt me because she doesn’t want to.

Because we’re friends.