When we moved to Steeple Leaze Farm we discovered we had neglected to ask the farm cat's permission. It took us a few days to relent on continuously putting him out after he "broke" into the house on numerous occasions, often we would come home to hear a thud upstairs as he jumped off the bed having found his way in during the day. Our next door neighbors had called him "PudPud" and explained that he had no owner but would rather go from house to house as he saw fit. The story goes that PudPud belonged to a lady over the hill who had sadly died and so just wanders around the countryside feeding on rabbits and choosing a family to lodge with.We sometimes find that PudPud has taken himself on holiday, returning weeks later looking fed and groomed with reports that he had been to a neighboring village, which is four miles away.
We believe he is a Norwegian Forest Cat as he is huge, very muscular and very fluffy, but his main trait is his character, he is so soft, you could literally put him any position and he would stay there for hours. You can rub him tummy without any reaction and I have never known him to bite or scratch.
He definitely rules the roost on the farm, all the farm dogs, including the resident Huntaway and all the working Border Collies are wary of him and he struts around the farm in the knowledge that he does in fact own the place.
We recently hatched a number of chicks and were worried that PudPud would choose one for supper, he had in the past been seen devouring a large pheasant, so a young chick would present no problem. To this day he has never bother with the chicks or chickens, strolling around with them as if his is part of the flock. He is definitely a bit of an anomaly.
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