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Arbor, Treebor, TC, Top Cat

 This is not Arbor, but it looks like him. His name is Cricket - great name for a cat.

I've only had one cat. I lived on my own as a student and walked past a pet shop. I went inside and looked at the kittens. One of them came to the grating to look at me and I asked to see it. The pet shop owner opened the cage and the kitten, a grey tabby, walked up my arm rubbed its side against my right ear and then walked across my shoulders, and then its fur tickled my left ear.

So I bought it and took him home and fed it and looked after it. No problems with toilet training.

I called him Arbor. I carefully dropped the 'u' to make it more of a cats name. The root suffix of arboreal - my arms, his branches.


For the next month, I woke up and opened my eyes and there Arbor was, his large green eyes looking straight into mine. He sat warmly on my chest and throat, purring. It frightened me.

I didn't normally sleep on my back. Why was I waking up on my back? Did the cat turn me over in the night?

I left the bay window of my house open and Arbor came in and out and it was almost summer and I realised that because I was going abroad I would have to find another home for him.

How irresponsible. To take on a cat and then to remember that you wouldn't be able to look after him.
So I found a student who wanted a cat and gave him to her, with no worries for his future. He was such a positive, outgoing, friendly cat.

Coming back from my travels I met the student. She had renamed him Treebor. A better name I think, but now she too was worried. She was going abroad too.

The next time I saw her she told me she had given him to a cat fancier who owned 5 cats and that Treebor was the sixth. I asked for the number of the cat fancier and phoned him.

He's absolutely fine, said the man's voice at the other end of the phone. Lively and very friendly and we've given him a new name. TC.

TC?

Top Cat.

If Arbor, Treebor, TC's owner reads this blog then I would love to know more about what happened to him.

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