European Cats (and 1 Dog)

As some of you may know, I like cats and will usually stop to pet one if I see it nearby. I have even gone so far as to buy a little bag of cat treats to carry with me in my bag. Usually, we give the cats some names if we spend some enough time with them.



Here, Dean tries to pet Birthday Cat, a cat that wondered into our Amsterdam apartment on my birthday. He was very anxious to sniff around the place before settling in for some attention. It had a mixture of a little meow and a purr and we found it so cute that we kept him in until we heard its owner calling for it. Caught in the act of cat-nabbing, we set it outside and tried to explain in English that we were just petting it. She didn't understand a word but I think she got the idea.

For the dog lovers, we have seen some very cute dogs too. The Europeans are very good about walking their dogs everywhere and taking them along in the bars or shops. In the Netherlands, it was common to see little dogs riding in the back of bike baskets. This lady thought I was a bit strange to take her picture, but she couldn't protest while making her phone call.



The town of Cadiz, on the southern tip of Spain, was cat central! We called it Cat-iz. They had whole families of wild cats living out there, all looking similiar and seeming to live in relative harmony. Somebody (not me) was leaving large quantities of food and water for the cats and they all looked healty. At one point we counted 14 cats from where we were standing. But they are all too shy to be approached. To help with this stray problem, my friend Ashley (who lives nearby) volunteers for a shelter, RAWL.



In the tiny Spanish town of Cesares, I finally convinced this shy cat to come over. It was hungry but appreciated the rubs, I think. The rest of the cats in this town just ran away from me.



Tiger the German cat, pictured below, was a wild beast when awake. We had a string to get him to play with us. He would lie in wait under the table cloth and then spring out onto the chair in a fury. If he caught the string, he carried it in his mouth to a resting spot. The next day he caught a poor bird and left it dead under the table as a present.



Peter Cat, is actually one of the many strays from Hotel Maria in Kolkata, India (and featured in another post), but he can be included in this post too. He came into our room everyday and tried to rest on our already filthy beds. We got his name from a yummy restaurant called Peter Cat in Kolkata. He was a particularily curious cat and would give Dean the "soft paw" when he wanted attention.