Goodnight Charlie

Last week we went through the awful experience of losing one of our beloved pets.

Charlie Whiskers was the kitten of our cat Coco. Coco has had a few litters in the past and most of the kittens have gone to our family members or friends, but we never kept any ourselves...except Charlie! I don't think we ever had any intention of keeping him we just never re-homed him, we got used to having him around and he became part of the family.

Charlie Whiskers had two names because we couldn't decide on just the one, he was just under a year old and was such a sweet natured kitten. He was so chilled out and would happily climb all over you to get attention and a snuggle. His sister Kitty lives next door with the neighbours and she always climbs the fence to come and visit. Coco would hiss at the two of them if they disturbed her but they would happily chase each other and roll around on the grass.

It was 8 o'clock in the morning when a lady that lives a few doors down came and knocked. She said she knew we had cats and that there was a black and white cat down the lane next to our house that was dead. There are a lot of black and white cats in our area, most of them are boys that sit on our back wall calling Coco, I know it sounds bad but I hoped it was one of them and not Charlie. We called Charlie and whistled but he didn't come running like he usually would when he knows he is being fed, that's when I knew it was him.

Funnily enough I never usually lock the cat-flap but Coco had just had her neutering operation and we were told not to let her outside for 10 days. I locked the cat-flap that night and pushed the bin up against it because I knew they can pull it out of the wall if they wanted to. Neither of them usually go out at night anyway as they are always waking us up climbing over us and deciding whose bed is the most comfy to sleep on.

I noticed the bin had been pushed aside and the flap must have been pulled up where Charlie had sneaked out.
The scene was horrendous, there wasn't blood and guts everywhere but poor Charlies head was gone, where it had gone I have no idea! I identified him from his tail which was black with a white tip. I couldn't touch him and although the kids knew he was there they hadn't come outside to see him so I decided to cover him up so they didn't have to witness the horrible scene.

A few years ago our cat Toffee (Coco's sister) had died and we buried her in the garden but the foxes continually dug where she was buried. We decided that as Charlie was out on the street we would call the council and get them to collect his body.

We don't know exactly what happened to Charlie, we hope it was a terrible accident or even that another animal such as a fox had attacked him because we know that in nature that sadly these things happen, but hopefully it wasn't something more sinister and Charlie was not taken purposely by another person.

We do know that we loved having him for the short time he was with us and that we will miss having him in our home!

RIP Charlie Whiskers