{"id":214,"date":"2010-07-06T23:25:12","date_gmt":"2010-07-06T23:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meowseley.co.uk\/?p=214"},"modified":"2012-02-14T16:06:32","modified_gmt":"2012-02-14T16:06:32","slug":"new-contender-spencer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meowseley.co.uk\/?p=214","title":{"rendered":"New Contender: Spencer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.meowseley.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/spencer.jpg\" alt=\"spencer\" \/>Name:  Spencer (Identity confirmed)<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Agility &#8211; 8\/10\n<ul>\n<li>We think it is fair &nbsp;to say that there is both good agility and bad agility. On the one hand lurking on the top of a door to drop on a stranger, much like <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Pink_Panther#Cato_Fong\" target=\"_blank\">Cato<\/a>, is good agility. Jumping from a second story window is bad agility. &nbsp;Potentially amusing, but all the same bad. We&#8217;re happy to award points but are concerned that this could just be seen as condoning actions that will end in tears.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Health &amp; Vitality &#8211; 2\/10\n<ul>\n<li>Listing Spencer&#8217;s previous ailments is a bit like an episode of ER, early ER before &nbsp;all those new people came into it. Our favourite incident is when he was taken to the vet after developing &#8220;kitten asthma&#8221;. Now there isn&#8217;t anything funny about a kitten with asthma, but apparently it made him whistle, a bit like Roger Whittaker, but possibly smaller and cuter. Unfortunately as a result of this he has an inhaler and doesn&#8217;t have to play football. We&#8217;ve already mentioned that he jumps out of windows, you can imagine how that worked out (nor very well). He has an eating disorder and as a result has &nbsp;had to have a catheter. We imagine it was the bravest vet in the world that made that diagnosis. We have awarded a few points because &nbsp;he has his teeth surgically cleaned, though we&#8217;re not clear what that really means. It&#8217;s probably quite expensive.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Home invasion &#8211; 4\/10\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s not fair on Spencer, but as he&#8217;s not allowed out he&#8217;s not going to do very well on home invasion. We&#8217;ve given him some extra points because we know he&#8217;s tried to make a break for it. Jumping out of windows isn&#8217;t working but we reckon he should try a tunnel next. Nobody ever expects a tunnel. We do know that once he did manage to get into a neighbours house and stole 2 dinners and a loaf of bread. &nbsp;We assume that this is an ironic feline take on Beck&#8217;s, Where It&#8217;s At.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Meow &#8211; 7\/10\n<ul>\n<li>We like to think cats meow because they&#8217;re trying to tell us something. We&#8217;re not wrong they&#8217;re trying to tell us that they&#8217;re hungry. This is what it always mean. We know that sometimes &nbsp;you might think they&#8217;re telling you about their day or sparrow they saw earlier. It&#8217;s not true, they want dinner. Spencer has taken this to its most simplistic, and beautiful form. He knows to meow on the dot of 6:00am until 7:30am because he thinks this is when he should be fed. Obviously this is mind numbingly early but fair play to him, he&#8217;s a cat.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Fighting Ability &#8211; 3\/10\n<ul>\n<li>This is a category that &nbsp;is difficult to assess. We know he kills wasps (good) &nbsp;but we also know he isn&#8217;t allowed out. We understand that he can be a nasty little sod if you try and take his food off him. We&#8217;re not quite clear why you would want to take his &nbsp;food off him. Cat food isn&#8217;t that nice before they get a chance to spit on it. Afterwards it only gets worse. You might as well let them keep it, it&#8217;s not like you&#8217;re going to eat it yourself.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Overall cuteness &#8211; 7\/10\n<ul>\n<li>We like him. He&#8217;s got a nice &nbsp;face and a cheeky little bell which means he can&#8217;t sneak up on&#8230;&#8230;. the things inside the house. Nice big eyes as &nbsp;well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Friendliness &#8211; 6\/10\n<ul>\n<li>We&#8217;re told &nbsp;Spencer is friendly but worry this might be more symptomatic of his deep seated interest in our pot noodle rather than a wish to reach out across species. He&#8217;s a follower which can be good, initially. Though he is inclined &nbsp;to sit and watch you in the bath. That&#8217;s a bit creepy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Dignity &#8211; 3\/10\n<ul>\n<li>We&#8217;ve more than laboured the point that Spencer isn&#8217;t allowed out. This isn&#8217;t strictly true. He is allowed out but only on a lead. In many ways it is probably best that he doesn&#8217;t go out now. If he does he is likely &nbsp;to get his little head kicked in by any or the other cats that have seen him. In terms of dignity you might as well get to him to wear a hat, with a picture of a flower on it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Intelligence &#8211; 6\/10\n<ul>\n<li>Spencer can open doors. Doors with handles on. That&#8217;s pretty clever, they were invented for people with thumbs. It&#8217;s difficult to ignore the jumping out of windows thing. Not clever.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Remaining lives &#8211; 8\/10\n<ul>\n<li>He was abandoned, he was left &nbsp;for dead, he&#8217;s got asthma, he&#8217;s got an eating disorder, he&#8217;s had a &nbsp;catheter (more than once) and obviously done substantial base jumping damage. This cat shouldn&#8217;t be alive. He&#8217;s cheated &nbsp;the very essence of life.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Summary: 54%<\/p>\n<p>Spencer is certainly one of the more intriguing cats we&#8217;ve come across. If he wasn&#8217;t a bit mental then he&#8217;d probably have got a much better score. Whether we should be punishing him for what are purely environmental factors is a philosophical debate we probably won&#8217;t bother to have. &nbsp;We&#8217;ve been interested to meet him and hear his, frankly, bewildering story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Name: Spencer (Identity confirmed) Agility &#8211; 8\/10 We think it is fair &nbsp;to say that there is both good agility and bad agility. On the one hand lurking on the top of a door to drop on a stranger, much like Cato, is good agility. Jumping from a second story window is bad agility. &nbsp;Potentially amusing, but all the same bad. We&#8217;re happy to award points but are concerned that this could just be seen as condoning actions that will end in tears. Health &amp; Vitality &#8211; 2\/10 Listing Spencer&#8217;s previous ailments is a bit like an episode of ER, early ER before &nbsp;all those new people came into it. Our favourite incident is when he was taken to the vet after developing &#8220;kitten asthma&#8221;. Now there isn&#8217;t anything funny about a kitten with asthma, but apparently it made him whistle, a bit like Roger Whittaker, but possibly smaller and cuter. Unfortunately as a result of this he has an inhaler and doesn&#8217;t have to play football. We&#8217;ve already mentioned that he jumps out of windows, you can imagine how that worked out (nor very well). He has an eating disorder and as a result has &nbsp;had to have a catheter. We imagine it was the bravest vet in the world that made that diagnosis. We have awarded a few points because &nbsp;he has his teeth surgically cleaned, though we&#8217;re not clear what that really means. It&#8217;s probably quite expensive. Home invasion &#8211; 4\/10 It&#8217;s not fair on Spencer, but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[48],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contenders","tag-spencer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p48Cd2-3s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meowseley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meowseley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meowseley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meowseley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meowseley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.meowseley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":346,"href":"https:\/\/www.meowseley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions\/346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meowseley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meowseley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meowseley.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}