For the Love of Crete
I could write an article about the rugged beauty of the Crete coast, or the verdant interior dotted with olive groves and vineyards. I could talk about the challenges of an unfamiliar language with an indecipherable alphabet or about Greek hospitality.
I could essay on any of the magical moments during our recent one-week holiday in Gournes, but nothing affected me as much as the state of the feline condition.
Crete is the unfriendly home of thousands of stray cats and dogs which skulk and beg and live out of dumpsters. The few animal welfare organizations – most run by immigrants – are undermanned and underfunded. The island’s economy is reliant on tourism during the season, and this has prompted a few actions on the part of locals, in particular hotel owners, but the general disposition towards these animals is to treat them as vermin. Sickening reports of mass poisonings linger on the internet, and we found few natives willing to view the animals as creatures of value. We only found one kitten which seemed to be a pet – he was friendly and confident, healthy, and had a clean coat. Following my tradition of assigning my own name to cats (in my home of Penzance, I know many cats but few owners, and must have some way of referring to them!), this one became Niblic because of his habit of nibbling the ends of your fingers affectionately whilst being petted.
A Cowboy's Tale
Niblic may have been the only cat we found being truly cared for, but there was other evidence that cats might be treated as pets on a part-time basis. I’ve heard of this phenomenon before regarding Rome – that the Italians keep cats as pets, but when they leave for their summer holidays, often taking 3 months at a time, they simply lock their cats out of the house and leave them to fend for themselves. This prompted a group of Britons to start a rescue for cats near the ruins.
Cowboy was obviously accustomed to humans. He not only accepted attention from the visitors at our hotel, he craved it. He took any opportunity to cuddle the way a man lost in the desert takes to bottled water. The first time we saw Cowboy, he was sitting on a child’s slide. My husband invited him over, and knelt to pet the eager tomcat. Immediately Cowboy insinuated himself on top of my husband’s knees, forcing him to “make a lap.” His love of being held – and tendency to sleep contentedly for hours at a time – led us to carry him around with us whenever we were at the hotel. We’d go to the pool, and he’d lay with us. We’d sit in the shade, and he’d go with us. He even watched TV in the room with us one evening. He was never judgemental when we’d go out sightseeing during the day; he was always easy to locate near the hotel kitchen when we returned.
Cat-loving guests who had been there the previous week told us that he had had a collar on. There was still a part in the dense fur around his neck, but we never found the collar which may have told us of his previous residence. Although the owners and staff at the hotel were predominately neutral regarding the six or so cats that haunted the place, this is not a lifestyle any cat with a safe and reliable home would choose, so we must assume that his previous owner suffered a change in circumstances. And as we were in Crete at the absolute end of the season, when all the hotels were closing up and holiday-makers were vacating, we can make some unpleasant assumptions regarding the nature of the change.
Swipes’ Story
We have high hopes for Cowboy’s potential for rehoming. We’ve told one of the animal rescue centers about the cats at our hotel, and should Cowboy be taken in he would have no trouble charming his way into a new family. But we have deeper concerns regarding Swipes.
Swipes is a tiny tomcat, perhaps a year old. The cats on Crete tend to be smaller than the moggies in the UK, long and thin even when they are properly fed, and are almost all "white-and" – white and orange, white and black, white and tabby. So it’s difficult to say how old Swipes is for sure. He is not even half the size of our 18-month old boy but seems to have spent an eternity on the streets.
He has evolved very few social strategies, born of survival. There’s the beg: he will watch you while you are eating, come near, and mew. There’s the snatch: no matter how or what is offered, he swipes quickly, often catching the fingers of the tourist offering the treat with his needle-sharp claws. Then there’s the run, hopefully with a bit of food. Most travelers will respond to those eyes and that plaintive mew once – but few will persist after having been scratched.
My husband and I did what we could to improve the nutrition of at least these two cats. There were others at the hotel, and we’d feed them if they were around, but nearly every night we were able to locate both Cowboy and Swipes and feed them canned cat food from the corner shop. The first time we saw Swipes, we were eating a dessert with ice cream. I put a bit of cream on my spoon and set it on the floor. Swipes snuck up on it, swiped at the spoon, and ran off. The first time we introduced real cat food, he overcame his fear of cutlery and ate contentedly off the fork.
After the first meal, he brushed tentatively against my husband’s leg as a thank you. This emboldened me to try to pet him while he was distracted by eating. In the middle of a meal, he didn’t even bother to shrink away from a touch, and you could feel his purrs vibrating his whole body. Even in the afterglow of a good meal, you could pet him for a while, until he realized that he shouldn’t be enjoying it and would give you a good swipe. It hurt, but he meant it in play. He was cautious but not shy – he was getting to know us and he’d bounce around on us chasing the hand he wanted to “punish.”
Once he knew who we were, he became significantly more approachable. He also began to hang around the humans more incautiously, but his antisocial behaviour won him few fans. He quickly learned to be more discriminating when choosing human companionship. I certainly feel he needs to maintain wariness around strangers, but I also wanted to give him a wider arsenal of social skills, so one evening we worked on accepting chips (french fries) without maiming. The progress was minimal, but shows that he has enormous potential for learning. If someone were patient enough to offer him a home, in time he would settle into a playful and loving companion. But in the meantime, heavy gloves might not be a bad idea. He also craved acceptance from the older cats, hanging around and brushing against them, mostly receiving rebuffs. But Cowboy tolerated him at a distance.
The Challenge
I cannot in good conscience sit idly by while these cats, some of whom I have come to love, suffer. I am open to suggestions, but as financing another trip to Crete is not currently on the table, I am resolved to raise money for the charities that support animal rescue in Crete.
With the help of generous souls in Cornwall, I have launched a campaign I call Paw2Paw. It’s about cats throughout the world helping the less privileged. For the first endeavour, cats in Cornwall have posed for a calendar, all proceeds to help their brothers and sisters in Crete. You can find all the info at www.paw2paw.org.uk.
