PoD

black Bengal

born 23 August 2000

Originally christened Drumknott, PoD was quickly renamed the Prince of Darkness. He is a black Bengal (yes, yes, we know – there aren’t supposed to be black Bengals). Actually, we suspect that his mother, Inca, was no better than she should be with a neighbourhood cat, but we love him anyway.

His satanic moniker came about because a) he really is remarkably black, and b) when he first arrived here, on 14 January 2001, he was truly dreadful. We did actually consider returning him to the breeder, because of his anti social behaviour.

However, he eventually settled down, and the rest of the household learned to cope with him (Pepper still grumbles at him a lot, but we suspect she’s just going through the motions now). And he’s turned into a wonderful cat – black and sleek and cuddly.

PoD has a wonderful party trick – if you hug him, and put a little pressure on just the right place, he shouts – very endearing, and people are always entertained by it. And when he first comes in, he likes to roll about on his back, and wave his multitudinous long limbs in the air (which we call Podding). Another of his little idiosyncracies is to do with food – he gets really irritated if there is only one bowl of food down in the kitchen, and will sit where the other bowl should be and shout until more appears. Then he wanders from bowl to bowl, taking a mouthful from each, and often throwing the food on the floor.

So that’s PoD – black. Apart from bright green eyes, and white teeth and claws. Oh, and he has a wonky tooth – lord knows what he did to it.

A wonderful cat. And did we mention that he’s black?

Sadly, Pod disappeared in the autumn of 2003 – he was microchipped, but we never heard another word.  I still think I hear him shouting sometimes, and go out to look, but I’ve never seen him :(