Merlin (1990-2005)

Merlin was the most remarkable of the many cats I've known. He was a handsome and gentle character and is dearly missed.

We picked Merlin from a litter of free moggies in 1990 and carried him home on the bike tucked into Helen's jacket. He was a robust cat even at that young age and was not fazed by this experience; on any car trip, or in any of the new houses he's moved to, he would just find a nice spot to curl up and go to sleep.


His first year (1990).	Helen and cat.	His last year (2005).

Merlin approached life with a mixture of friendliness and confusion. Virtually silent for his first dozen years, he would communicate exclusively through purring and headbutting. He would purr loudly when patted or talked to, and would also purr when eating - especially when drinking milk.

The headbutting started out as insistent nuzzling, but got to be quite formidable when he approached 10 kilograms and got excitable at meal times. If I slept in too late I'd be woken up by a hairy battering ram knocking into my head. He was a very big cat, not so much fat as solidly built and strong.


Merlin could squat on his triangular base for as long as it took to get food.	Not so sure about the outside world...	I don't know what possessed him here.

He was also physically robust and a tough little bugger. I actually saw him being hit by a car one day; he received a serious thump and took off into the bushes, but emerged for dinner shortly afterwards. He was fine in a couple of days but had been instilled with a mortal fear of cars. This was probably just as well given his general lack of understanding of the world, but meant that whenever he followed us on our evening walks he would shoot off in a random direction as soon as the first car came along. We had to mount more than one search mission for the little fellow, but would always find him sitting under a bush waiting for us, even hours later.


New cat versus old cat.	Mishka launches a successful assault.

Our other cat Persephone ran off while we were overseas, so we got a new kitten Mishka in 1996 to redress the balance. She immediately took to Merlin as a delinquent teenager might take to a punching bag, and he did his best to ignore her. He was very tolerant of other animals and would eat side-by-side with the possums without blinking an eyelid. The first time he met a dog he just wandered up and started sniffing it; it was only after Persephone fluffed up that he worked out the correct response.

"Piss off."

Merlin's life was dedicated to the conservation of energy. He would sometimes get frisky and run around the house for a while, but most days would spend at least 23 hours napping. In 2001 we rented a country manor on the outskirts of Sydney called Mad Dog Acres. Merlie just loved it and found a new lease on life, bounding through the paddocks to explore.


Merlin in his natural state.	Any time is nap time.

I work from home so spent a lot of time with the hairy little fellow. He was never far away and it was nice to know that no matter what I was doing (working, watching TV, in bed, having a bath) I could just stretch out and usually find him lying somewhere within reach. This is one of the things I miss now that he's gone.


My cat-infested workspace.	Helping straighten out some paperwork.	Lunch break.

He was often the only social contact I had for days at a time. I grew to value our increasingly philosophical debates, though in retrospect I'd have to admit that he was more of a sounding board than an active participant. However, he was an integral and willing subject in my many experiments over the years which yielded important insights into the human-cat condition.

He spent every day of the six months it took to write "Connection Games" sprawled over the manuscript notes on my desk. Unfortunately, this was the point at which he started to dribble.


Merlin keeps an eye on the junior staff.	"This bed ain't big enough for the two of us."

Merlin was something of a feline vacuum cleaner, and any food dropped onto the floor had to be retrieved quickly before it got sucked up. I once dropped a piece of leather, bent down to get it... too late. I also once saw a maggot crawling across the floor, went to get something with which to dispose of it, and upon my return found the maggot gone and Merlie licking his lips. He had a highly developed palate but was not averse to trying new tastes.

We conducted an experiment to test Helen's hypothesis that cats know how much they need to eat and will stop at that point. Merlin ate can after can until he threw up, and looked like he wanted more.

Another thing I miss is that there's now nobody to give the off-cuts to when preparing meals. He would just love anything non-vegetarian that came off the kitchen bench, but was especially fond of cheese. In fact an important part of my diet used to be a 10% Merlie tax on anything I was eating - sadly this check and balance is no longer in place.


Helping the possum clean up some bites.	Helping me clean up breakfast.	Bounding through Mad Dog Acres.

Unfortunately, Merlin's voracious appetite appeared to be a prelude to the hyperthyroidism that he developed in his later years, for which I had to give him a tablet before every meal. He would sit on my lap like a big fat lump, swallow his pill, then look up as if to say "what the hell was that for?" When any of our long-suffering friends tried to do this while we were away he would apparently shred them - I wondered if they had the wrong cat.

Having said that, he was extremely well-natured. The only time I heard him hiss at a person in his entire life was when he had a leg injury and I grabbed him to take him to the vet. Helen once operated on him to remove a cyst, and it took two of us to hold him down as blood and goo poured out. He struggled like mad to get away, but once let go he ran about four paces then turned around and wandered back, purring and nuzzling. That was one tough cat!


Looking rather gaunt on his last day...	...and shortly afterwards.

The hyperthyroidism eventually took its toll and Merlin wasted away to half his weight. He looked reasonably happy right to the end, and apart from his weight loss the only hint that he was unwell was that he'd occasionally stop eating or purring for a while.

When his time was up he just wandered off to lay down in next door's garden, in noble fashion. As Oates would have said: "I am just going outside and I may be some time".


Merlin in his heyday.	A typical action shot - how I will remember him.