A Special Post from The Assistant

This post is dedicated to The Bear, Tom Cox's Sad Cat who has recently died.

http://www.tom-cox.com/2016/12/goodbye-kind-friend-rip-bear-1995-2016
(sorry I can't get this link to go live....)

This is one of the most moving accounts of the loss of a companion animal that I have ever read.

Indirectly, The Bear was responsible for my adoption earlier this year of Jason (Othello/OJ) & his friend from the KCC rescue, Thomas.

I was following The Bear's Twitter postings as @MySadCat & had got to know members of #TheBearsArmy on there. Anna is one of them & she began to retweet @KeighleyCatCare's appeals for adopters for Othello, who had been in Rescue for far too long. His story was that he is a black & white cat, which is a colour people tend to overlook, & that he has one eye smaller than the other, so was perhaps being ignored because of that as well. He had been given his own Twitter account so I asked if he was OK with dogs & KCC were quick to respond.

I had had cats most of my adult life but since 2013 found myself with just Danny the Dog Monster, as OJ insists on calling him, & I began longing for another cat. Danny is pretty spoilt & was used to having my full attention so I worried that he might react badly to sharing. Of course I now know that he is really quite scared of felines & the two cats now in residence dominate him!

Anna encouraged me online to take the leap into the unknown & I brought Othello home in April this year. Once he was fairly well settled I went back for Thomas two months later. Funnily enough Danny & Thomas get on pretty well, despite Thomas's misgivings at first, as they have similar temperaments & tend to leave each other alone. OJ is a real character & makes a nuisance of himself with both of them!

I am so happy to have these two felines as well as my lovely canine. It feels like the best possible outcome for me, despite all the extra work the cats create! Several of #TheBearsArmy correspond about any cat difficulties & share their own cat stories online. None of this would happen if it hadn't been for The Bear &, of course, Tom Cox who wrote about him.

If you haven't read the books I do recommend them. They contain swearing & they are definitely not cosy, twee cat stories. They make you cry at times as well as laugh & they are beautifully written.

The books are available on Amazon although Tom does encourage the use of independent bookshops if you can