Rachael Hale McKenna - The New Zealand Cat

For all the cats we have loved,

who we still love, and for those

we will love in the future.

CONTENTS

Cats have always been really important to me. When I was a child, our first family cat, a classic brown tabby called Twinkle, gave birth to a litter of kittens at the foot of my sisters bed, and from this litter came Tiger, then Bubbles and Squeak, followed by Sebastian, Dominic and Chloe. Some cats stay in our lives longer than others, and some embed stronger footprints in our hearts than others, but they all leave us with fond memories of the time they sharedor should I say ruled?our lives.

I have loved all the cats who have shared my life, but one in particular managed to engrave himself into the souls of everyone who met him. He even converted cat haters into cat loverswell, into Eddie lovers! Edmund, more commonly known as Eddie, was my arrogant, cheeky, naughty, greedy and extremelyscruffy and dirty Himalayan Persian. He entered my life one day when I was taking photographs for the Auckland SPCA. As I walked into the reception area, I saw an adorable little fluffball strolling along the front desk. I soon learned that this was Hillary, one of two kittens who were the only survivors of a litter born from a neglected breeding cat. I was smitten. Is the other kitten up for adoption? I asked, and was thrilled to hear yes! in response.

Upon discovering that Hillary had been named after Sir Edmund Hillary, the first mountaineer to reach the summit of Mt Everest, I knew that my newly adopted little boy could only rightly be named Edmund. But Edmund didnt exactly follow in his namesakes footsteps: he was the clumsiest climber known to the cat world, and his best efforts took him to the top of the couch, where he would race back and forth, teasing my Newfoundland dog, Henry. He sometimes even used Henry as a stepping stool to get up to higher ground.

Eddie became quite well known in Ponsonby, the central Auckland suburb where I lived at the time. His local hangout was the Nosh grocery-store carpark, where he would wait patiently at the door for the locals to give him pats and feed him treats. Shredded chicken was his absolute favourite! Even an afternoon of heavy rain didnt stop Eddie from heading up the road for his afternoon food fix. I would often come home from my studio to find him sitting in the middle of the road, dripping wet and covered in wet leaves, snails, slugs and dirt, simply expecting the cars to drive around himwhich they did, thankfully. Luckily it wasnt a busy street at the time, and all the neighbours knew him and were happy to heed his rules and expectations. Eddie adored the outdoors and was always getting dirty, so I had to teach him while he was still a kitten to get used to the shower. I would joke that he should never have been born a Persian! It became so hard to manage that, in the end, I would get his fur clipped. Every couple of months, he would go off to the local dog groomer and sit among the dogs, with the same permanently grumpy expression on his face, getting his fur trimmed. He always looked adorable on his returna big, boofy head, tail and feet, and a tiny little body. My little Ewok!

When it came to photographing the cats for The New Zealand Cat, I had to take a rather different approach from my previous book, The French Cat. While roaming the streets of France, I had come across cats everywhere: they were in every little lane, sitting on window sills, lazing on the tops of walls, curled up on doorsteps, and were always keen for a pat and a play with my feather toys. It was often quite easy to encourage them to follow me down the road to a slightly better and more photogenic setting.

Photographing these New Zealand cats was a completely different experience. For a start, if I wandered the streets of New Zealand, I might perhaps come across a few cats, but most would disappear rapidly to the safety of their comfortable homes if I approached them. So the hunt began. I sought out cats with interesting stories, then went to their environment to try to capture a stunning portrait of them (hopefully). As we all know, cats have their own agenda, their own rules, so even if some of the cats I found had fantastic stories they wouldnt necessarily agree to having their portrait grace the pages of this book!