The beginning

Badger came into our lives 5 weeks prior to this. The other half has always had cats, he’s taken a slight dislike to my dog Pickle and wanted a big ginger tom cat, so we skipped off to the cat rescue and were shown a 2 year old Bengal named Star. He immediately jumped out of the box, rubbed up and down us and seemed to approve of us as his new owners. The following week we turned up with the cat box and agreed to foster Star until we we’re sure he would get along with our dog Pickle. We also renamed him Badger, Star was way to girly for a big bad cat like this and after seeing a YouTube clip of ‘Badger attack dog’ and several more clips of feisty Bengals we figured Badger was the best name. Close second was Dave.

Since the night Badger disappeared he’s taken a liking to creating stories about himself, Not just us making up stories wherever we go we make jokes about the Badger or Leopard coming with us like the time we went to a drive in movie at Halloween and watched Scream, the windows kept misting up having the engine off and we were bumming cold, laughter kept us warm as we joked about bringing Badger – anyone walking past will see hand prints on the window being dragged down as Badger attacks but actual real Badger stories where what he’s done has been so hilarious he warrants his very own story.

Badgers first trip out

So over the weekend we let our cat, Badger out for the first time, he’s been with us 4 weeks and was itching to get out. We opened the front door and he shot off, we left the door pushed too assuming he would wander back once he’d had a sniff around.

Three hours passed and there was no sign of Badger, it was gone 11, freezing cold with the front door open (in November) and we went to bed assuming he’d be back in the morning. In the morning there was no sign of him, we we’re up at 7am, sat in the front room with the door open and a blanket over us to keep us warm, when the kids were up we spent the morning out the front tidying up the garden and keeping an eye out for him, My daughter Ems whose 6 was walking up and down the street looking for him and at one point thought she’d spotted him, my other half went running and sadly she’d just seen another cat.

That afternoon we went out, got home early evening and again sat with the front door open and no sign of the cat, just a black and white cat who heard us shake the food, now this little bugger wouldn’t leave and I got a little worried incase ours returned and thought he’d been replaced.

That night I put both children to bed in tears thinking the cat was gone for good, now I know cats can go wandering for days and come home as if nothing has happened, But to go out for the first time and be gone more than 24 hours didn’t seem a good sign. I tried preparing them for the worst explaining that as he came from a rescue it may well be he found his original Mummy and Daddy and went to them – it really didn’t work and I left them upstairs in tears after Emily announced she loved Badger, and Badger loved her.

We sat once again with the front door open, the blanket over us to keep warm at 11pm again admitted defeat and went to bed. That night 3am I was aware of Paul waking, he went downstairs and the next thing I heard was Mcmeooooooow. Badger was home! I ran downstairs and there was Badger, head in a cup of food, lifting his head to tell us off, meow and swear with food coming out of his mouth. Our poor little baby was cold, hungry and cross we weren’t up to welcome him. I’ve no idea if Paul heard his McMeow in his sleep and it woke him up, but nothing mattered Badger was home, and telling us off.