‘Oh all right then,’ she said, purely to stop him whining. ‘If you want to start going inside, we’ll have to retrain the humans to feed us somewhere else, where we can get into the house more easily. We also need a place close by to hide very quickly if they come near us. This back courtyard won’t work anymore.’

‘Thanks, Mum,’ he purred. ‘It looks so nice and cosy in the big house. We have to give it a try.’

From her time of roaming around in the garden at night, she’d noticed some steps leading to a door. At the side of the steps was a large fan palm. The perfect hidey hole. They began to sleep on the steps under the palm leaves during the day, where the humans could see them and get the message that they wanted food deliveries at this spot. The Pink Feet realised that quite quickly.

‘They are pretty good at getting our messages,’ she said to her son. ‘Maybe they have some cat psychic senses, though I doubt it.’

At first the Pink Feet put the food on the steps, and then moved away. Mother and child were always very wary of them, but they couldn’t resist the food, so they would rush forward and gobble it up. Wild Child Mama Cat would do a lot of hissing and spitting and growling to make sure the Pink Feet knew their place and kept a distance! The Pink Feet kept on making their funny psswssswsssssss hissing noise. They would pssswsssswssss and clank the plates to call the cats when dinner was served.

‘We’ve got them pretty well-trained already, Mum,’ noted the Boy Child.

‘We have, haven’t we?’ she responded. She was actually rather pleased with herself. She’d chosen well.

Soon the Pink Feet began putting the food on the carpet just inside the door. Was this an invitation to come in?  That was what her son wanted. She was nervous. Was it a trap? Was it a kindness? What were they planning? She often overheard them talking about the sad plight of homeless feral cats who, as she well knew, did breed very quickly. And yes, they were destined to have terrible lives. She also knew that if they wanted to eat they had to go inside. It was a bit scary, but the food was too enticing to ignore. So in they went – slowly and warily. The Pink Feet seemed very pleased when they first ventured in. They would eat – with one eye each on the Pink Feet who always stood a little way away, watching quietly. Then they would dash back out into the garden. Hanging around inside was not yet on their agenda.

She had noticed that they both felt very calm and serene after their meals, and assumed it was the full-tummy effect – they had not had full tummies all that often in their lives. Little did she know that the female Pink Foot was spiking their food with a magic natural remedy that would help them feel less anxious about humans. Rescue Remedy, to be precise – one of the greatest homeopathic inventions of all time. 

Made of flower essences, a concept originally developed by the English Physician Dr Edward Bach in the 1920s and 1930s, these herbal infusions – the Bach Flower Remedies -carry the vibrational energy and healing power of the infused flowers. Rescue Remedy is a special blend of five different wildflowers which help elicit a feeling of calm and alleviate stress and anxiety. It is completely safe and effective for animal use. 

Wild Child Mama Cat could sense that a plan was afoot. Exactly what the plan could be, she had no idea. She did know that life in the bush was harsh, and life in the big house became ever more appealing as the days went by.