A Cat Called Goose

So, Goose seems to have taken the scarecrow as a challenge. We were sat, enjoying the tweeting of the birds when I noticed that it was all getting rather vocal. The gentle birdsong had turned to frantic squawks and it seemed to be coming from the hedgerow. As was Goose. He was looking smug and clutching a struggling bird in his mouth which he would periodically drop to the floor, chase and snatch up again in his own form of catch and release.

Naturally, Sue began yelling at him which helped the chaos. I was torn between letting nature take its course, the bird I assumed was injured beyond repair, and rushing to the rescue. Because I love my wife there was only one course of action, so I wearily headed over in the hope that Goose was willing to listen to persuasive argument.

If I hadn’t mentioned it before, this was evening, as the sun began to set, and I had already set up the sprinkler to water the lawn. This, it turned out, was pure luck, because Goose was ignoring all of my best lines of reasoning, and somehow managing to avoid my lumbering form.

I headed to the tap.

It is a well-known fact that cats dislike water. Since water is quite naturally occurring in almost environments where cats once grew up in, I had assumed this to be a myth propagated by cartoons and Sunday papers. I was quite gratifying then, to immediately hear Goose yowl, drop his prey and then zig-zag across the garden, convinced he could avoid the falling water if only he ran fast enough, before slamming into the house like a bowling ball and disappearing upstairs.