Enter Pip and Maxi
In January 2014, when I arrived in the Philippines from India, I decided I needed a kitty. No wait – I did actually decide that I should have two. My former ginger in Sydney was a very friendly kitty and was lonely when I worked long hours or travelled. He made friends with all the neighbours and had more friends than I did! So I did make a conscious decision to get two cats so they would be companions for each other.
I visited CARA – the local Animal Welfare group and met Pip on a Monday morning. He was tiny! This little boy had been found at the tender age of four weeks on the median strip of a major arterial road in Manila called EDSA (Epifanio de los Santos Avenue). Someone rescued him and took him to CARA, where he was promptly named Edsell, and there he stayed in a cage for the next 3 months. So he was 4 months old when I first met him, so tiny, with huge eyes and ears and the loudest purr ever. It broke my heart to put him back in his cage, but I didn’t even have my own apartment yet, and no furniture. I returned a few days later on the Thursday morning to collect him.
I had wanted to name him Max. I liked the name and thought it would be cute for a cat. But when I got Edsell home, I reconsidered. He was so tiny! And had the silliest little squeak of a meow, Max just didn’t fit. I named him Pip because he was such a pipsqueak.
Once home he was a delight – not frightened, just friendly and playful and happy, like every ginger I’ve met before and since. When I put him in his room at night or when I went out, he went to his little bed and stayed there till I returned. He was, and still is, a good boy, a rule follower, the kitty that’s never in trouble.
Meanwhile there was a little kitten out there in Manila, raised by a breeder but in danger of abandonment as she had ringworm. I saw her and fell in love immediately – the most beautiful kitten I had ever seen. She was handed over to me in the car park of a petrol station, terrified at 8 weeks old, just two days after Pip arrived. When I got her home, she was twice the size of Pip despite being half his age! So she was promptly named Maxi. I got my “Max” after all! Maxi is half Persian, half Lynx-Point Siamese. I didn’t know much about Lynx-points then. They are not considered a “true” siamese as they are half tabby. But they have the “points” and the blue eyes.
Now back then I knew nothing about introducing cats to each other. Pip had been so easy, I assumed the same would apply to Maxi, who was absolutely terrified of everything. She was scared of me, scared of the apartment, terrified of the über-friendly Pip. If I had my time again I would handle Miss Maxi very differently, but back then I just thought she would settle with time. And she did to a degree. After a week, Pip and Maxi were snuggling together and playing.
It would be another 3 months before my container arrived from India so I had no furniture. I borrowed a table and chairs, bought a new bed and a cheap armchair and a second hand sofa. My apartment was huge and on the 30th floor in Makati – the central business district of Manila – so I had lots of space and light, huge windows and a fabulous view. It wasn’t long before I started acquiring cat furniture and realized that I loved to take photos of my cats with the view as a backdrop. Instagram followed although these early pics are really poor quality. And with it, was the birth of Kitty Central Salcedo.
