Sushila Burgess Art
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Any cat-owner knows what a bad start it makes to the day, to tread with your bare feet in a pile of wet entrails as you first stumble out of bed in the morning. Non cat-owners are never sympathetic. "Well, it's just their natural instincts, so what can you expect?" they remark in a sanctimonious tone. The trouble is, you can forget what cats are like until you've already got one and it has decided that it is going to live with you for the rest of its life. And of course cats vary a great deal in their hunting prowess. Our previous cat was already elderly when we got him from an animal sanctuary, and only lived for another two years, and during that two years he never caught a thing. This lulled me into a false sense of security. I decided I didn't want another old cat, because I was sad that he had died so soon. So we got two bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, athletic young kittens. For a while they just brought leaves into the house. "How sweet!" we laughed. Next it was live worms on the carpet. We laughed a little less enthusiastically about that. And finally, a hideous cornucopia of bits of birds, mice, rats and frogs erupted into our lives. But it is true, you can't punish a cat for just following its natural instincts. Specially if you have two and so you wouldn't even know which one to punish. No, all I can do to let off steam is to paint a picture called Bad Cats.