Casper The Commuting Cat: The True Story Of The Cat Who Rode The Bus And Stole Our Hearts

Kuzya was by no means the widest travelling moggy, although he did seem to do it all by paw, unlike a kitty called Clyde from Tasmania in Australia. Clyde had been given to a little girl for her birthday, but had wandered off one day. The family got another cat, which unfortunately was run over. They decided they were unlucky and pets weren’t for them – until three years later, when they received a call from a vet in mainland Australia 2,500 miles away. Clyde had been found by a local nurse five months earlier when he’d wandered into a local hospital. She’d taken him home, but when she was moving house, she went to the vet to see if he could be re-homed. The vet discovered he had been chipped and could be returned to his original family. It seems likely that Clyde must have done some of his travelling by car or van, as it was such a long trip – and he made the return trip home by plane.

The capacity of cats to survive is unbelievable. One that was locked in a Cadillac by accident ended up being shipped from the US to Australia. The cat managed to survive for fifty-two days without any food, simply by licking engine grease and eventually eating the car’s instruction manual. I suppose that those were the only options available to the poor little thing.

Other cats have also had no choice but the most awful of options. A few years ago, a woman in California started to feed a group of feral cats near where she worked. They got to know her, and often ran to see what treats she had for them. Over time she started to distinguish one from the other and identify the various characters. She became concerned about one when she realized his whiskers had disappeared – they looked as if they had been burned off. When she investigated further, she noted that there was a big chunk missing from the fur on his rear leg, almost as if it had been bitten off.

The next morning, this young black and white male was in an even worse state. His entire left paw was missing. The lady contacted a pet rescue service and, together, they worked out what was happening. This little soul was gnawing off parts of his body that had been injured. He was slowly dying, even though he was trying to save himself the only way he knew how It was vital that he was captured and helped.

Every day he came to breakfast and managed to evade capture with the help of his mother, who would stand guard as he ate breakfast. The infection would surely kill him He had chewed at his feet so much that the front left leg was gnawed off almost to the shoulder, and the right rear leg to the knee. The fact that he was still eating and still trying to save himself was testament to an incredible survival instinct.

Finally, by following the cat, who was by now being called ‘Stubbs’, and his mum to where they slept, and with the judicious use of some Kentucky fried chicken as bait, they managed to capture him, take him to hospital and treat the injuries. It transpired that someone had set fire to him in a hideous act of cruelty. All four of his feet and lower back legs were terribly burned – so much so that the pain of gnawing them off had been more bearable than leaving them alone. Eventually, even with help, he did lose a back leg up to the knee, a front one to the elbow and a toe from the front, but his amazing will to live, a great deal of medical care and a new home meant that there was a happy ending.

These extraordinary stories show how determined and brave cats are. Casper was only one of many, and I’m sure there are hundreds of others with similar tales. What I was quickly discovering was that his adventures were making people open up about the many wonderful creatures who had shared their lives too.

One lady from Edinburgh wrote to me to say that, some years ago, she had got two little kittens from a rescue centre. She named them Harry and Maisie, and became very fond of them as they grew The two were completely different characters, despite being siblings. While Harry liked nothing better than to sit by the fire or on this lady’s lap, Maisie was never one to enjoy cuddles and seemed to come home only for food, sometimes disappearing for days on end.

The woman and her husband were planning to move house, and about a week before they left, she decided to prevent Maisie from going out. The cat was going walkabout for such long periods that it was possible she wouldn’t be back in time for the move if she got out. After three or four days, there was a knock at the door. Standing there was a burly man, who asked whether Maisie was at home. The lady had closed the door behind her to stop the cat from escaping and was rather bewildered by this request.

‘How do you know my cat?’ she said.

‘Everyone knows your cat,’ he replied.