When your cat only has one functioning leg — but still gets stolen
The Early Scare:
First things first, I do realise that Jason is an odd name for a cat. For some reason, having initially chosen Jake, we concluded that it didn’t quite sit right with this particular ball of fur. Besides, Jason Donovan was huge at the time in the UK.
When Jason (not Donovan) was just four months old he was run over in a near-fatal car accident. Luckily, there is one word in that last sentence which prevents this from being a very brief, harrowing story. He somehow managed to haul himself towards our house on three broken legs, and my sister noticed him, otherwise he would have been a goner.
The vet said he would only survive because he was so young but we had to keep him in a little jail for several months while he recuperated slowly. His sister, Gemma, was a sweet little tabby but she controversially chose to disown him — there was hissing — and she clearly enjoyed being the only liberated cat in the vicinity. Empathy is not a feline characteristic whatever certain owners try to convince themselves.
An upsetting, near-death experience shouldn’t stop me saying that Jason was as thick as two short planks.
The Bell:
He once disappeared for 24 hours and was found quivering in a bush down the road. A bell had been put on his collar and it soon became clear he thought someone or something was out to get him. Every single time it rang. He would freeze, wait for the faceless enemy to pass, then eventually move, before the bell would scare him witless and motionless again. Poor little plonker. We did remove the bell I should add, before the NSPCA get in touch.
Jason always had a penchant for the melodramatic. Many a time he would come tearing through the cat-flip wailing; we’d look out the window and see it had just started drizzling. That was the entire cause of the commotion. A quick towelling down and he was right as, erm, rain.
The Tormentor:
He also had a Machiavellian streak, frequently demonstrated by his going over to the petrified dog who knew instinctively, and from experience, that he was dealing with a loose cannon. But every time he would disarm the big gormless mutt by nuzzling against him or rolling on his back coquettishly. And every time Rudi would take the bait hook line and sinker before a claw suddenly swung towards his wide, bewildered eyes.
At this point, the thought occurs that maybe Jason wasn’t entirely dense. An underrated genius? Well, perhaps. He enjoyed considerable success as the local flirt, traveling far from home with what I swear was an exaggerated limp, gaining the milk, treats and sympathy of many strangers. If one of us happened to catch him in the act of playing the feeble stray, he would completely blank us.
The exaggerated limp may also account for his surprisingly successful bird-capturing exploits, even into old age. His prey seemingly couldn’t believe that this doddery, pathetic looking farm cat could pose a viable threat. Underestimated at their great cost. He was like Columbo!
The Incident:
This backstory hopefully provides some context for the incident that Jason is most remembered for. To be clear, it can only really be described as a catnapping.
It all began with an unexplained disappearance in the 1990s, like all the best true crime dramas. Jason and Gemma had just completed a six-month stretch in solitary confinement after moving to America and back; they would always say that was a family decision they paid for. But that’s a story for another day. At any rate, until 2011, those were the quarantine rules in the UK — the present lockdown notwithstanding.
At this point we didn’t live a million miles away from a train track and we feared the worst when our little fractured friend went AWOL for a day or so. That was longer than his community flirtations tended to last and he hadn’t worn a bell in years.
I went round to ask neighbours if they had seen a scrawny black and white cat recently. Of course they all knew Jason, and had just assumed he was feral. I finally knocked on the door of an eccentric, older lady, Mrs Garrett, who gave us one hell of a lead. Apparently, a woman had pulled up in a car, got out, grabbed an unsuspecting cat, and driven off with it.
To add grist to the mill you could also say that Mrs Garrett had seen a lost cat sign on a tree and called the number provided, saying she had seen a little black and white cat, as described. She was just being a good citizen. But it got Jason nabbed.
Apparently, the lady who had lost her moggy had then driven over from a mile or so away and concluded ‘not my cat, but near enough.’ That may seem judgemental but it’s worth remembering at this point that our pet only had a 25% satisfaction rate when it came to legs. I’m not saying he was in a wheelchair, but he wasn’t easily mistaken for able-bodied.
The Pursuit:
Luckily, the missing cat poster had a home address on it so this wasn’t over. My mother walked me over there with the shrewd strategy of appealing to the catnapper’s softer side. Accidents happen, but her 12-year-old was really upset so…’can we have our cat back please?’ My parents had even decided ahead of time that they would offer to buy the elderly lady a new cat as a goodwill gesture. An unusual exchange with a stranger.
We were certainly in unusual social etiquette territory and my mother had decided that the best tack upon arrival would be to ask to see the old lady’s cat, just to put our minds at rest. It seemed a better approach than simply accusing a stranger of pet theft.
Yet, despite this meticulous preparation we were soon to have the door slammed in our faces. But not before we were pretty sure we’d seen Jason cowering in the background with two aggressive hounds tormenting him. An awful setback, but this wasn’t over. The offer of a replacement cat, however, was.
The Resolution:
There was only one thing for it now. We got the police involved. And to the credit of Sevenoaks’ finest, they took our concerns seriously and agreed to help. It must have been a quiet day in Crimesville, Kent.
A kind policewoman went round to the house of capture and used her authority to get Jason taken to the vet, for verification purposes. Fortunately for us, and him, evidence of three damaged limbs was about to be a positive for the first time ever. The vet was able to confirm, even before X-Ray, that this was indeed the legendary Jason Ballou.
The only part of this story that I don’t have the inside scoop on is what the conversation went like from there between the police and the alleged catnapper. Presumably, the news was broken in a professional manner that this wasn’t her cat, which glossed over the elephant in the room (it wouldn’t surprise me) — that surely she already knew this.
What I do know is that there was a Disney-style finale that you can choose to believe or not. The heroic policewoman returned Jason to us slightly ahead of schedule having been fully convinced by medical evidence. She put him down on the floor only to see him share a heartfelt nuzzle with Rudi the dog. There wasn’t even a lacerating claw follow-up. It’s enough to make you weep.
