Jasper's Page

It was May 1996, over a year since my beloved Ginnie was killed by a car. The time was right for me to take on another ginger cat so I advertised that I was offering a good home to a ginger kitten. That’s when I was told about Jasper.

Jasper is one of the lucky ones because he has never suffered in any way. His mother is Siamese, she was abandoned for being pregnant and luckily was found by a caring lady who took her in and helped her raise her kittens. I was very lucky to get him because he had already been chosen by someone else. The other person changed their mind at the last minute and missed out on a very special cat.

Jasper came to me when he was eight weeks old, nothing more than a scrap. He was a very bold and brave kitten, always getting up to mischief...... still does. Jasper is a hunter, much to my dismay. I do my best to rescue the poor animals he catches but am not always successful. One night he brought home a tiny baby rabbit, not a wild one, it was a pretty little albino pet from someone's hutch. The tiny thing was barely alive but I took it from him and started setting up a pen where the bunny would hopefully recover. Unfortunately it died before the pen was ready :(

I sat back down to watch quietly TV... all of a sudden I heard a horrible screaming noise in the garden so I jumped up to see what was happening. There was Jasper chasing another baby rabbit. This one was totally alive and very, very scared. My husband and I spent the next few minutes trying to catch the terrified baby, eventually we succeeded. We put the rabbit in the pen that was set up for the previous casualty. While we were settling it in our son, Rhys, walked in and saw it. He had wanted a rabbit for months and straight away assumed that we had got the baby for him.

Over the next few hours Jasper caught another five rabbits. He killed them before bringing them home, almost like he knew I would take them away if they were still alive. The next morning I went into the garden to pick up what was left of the tiny rabbits. Then I went to check on the lucky one who was saved, she was doing well. She had eaten over night and seemed quiet settled. Of course we had to keep her, Rhys would have been devastated if we had sent her away. So I bought a hutch and put it in Rhys’ bedroom, safely away from Jasper and the other cats.

We kept her for as long as we could but unfortunately it didn’t work out. Rhys had just turned three, he was too young to know how to treat animals properly and that poor rabbit was terrorised by him. He used to climb on top of the hutch and shake it. We made the decision to find a better home for the rabbit. Rhys was devastated, but as far as I know the rabbit is still happily living in her new home.