Meet Jasper the Gentle Giant
Jasper is a big lad. Seek, an Android app that's supposed to identify animals, plants, and insects, has repeatedly classified him as a "Domestic Dog." Five or six times. Which, understandably, pissed him right off.
The Athletic Heavyweight
Despite being built like a furry rugby forward, Jasper is the most athletic of our three rescue cats. He leaps onto furniture with the grace of a ninja and lands without a sound... but when he jumps down, it's like someone dropping a sack of potatoes onto the floorboards.
Tippy, by contrast, has all the coordination of a drunk toddler. His most spectacular fail was launching himself off our terrace, twenty feet down to the road below, breaking a leg and making us €800 poorer in the process. Read more about Tippy's aerial adventures here.
Then there's Larry, the self-styled "Divo." He struts about like he's on a Milan catwalk, pretending to be far too sophisticated to engage in the nonsense of lesser beings. Larry will sell his soul for what we call "smooths," but Tippy is standoffish with everyone except Jane, my partner. To Tippy, I'm the spare human: useful for filling bowls and opening doors, but otherwise irrelevant.
Jasper is different. He's a cat's cat. Over the years he's discovered that head rubs are actually quite nice, and has even learnt how to purr (something he clearly sees as a major concession to our species).
The Early Days
When he first arrived as a kitten, Jasper vanished behind a storage box in my messy "studio" and stayed there for three days. He'd creep out when no one was around to eat and use the litter tray, then bolt back into hiding the moment a human appeared.
Enter Tippy, the unlikely cat-whisperer.
We were nervous about introducing them. Tippy was still semi-feral and had a reputation for being a bit of a thug, but the moment Jasper saw him, he emerged. Tippy casually walked over and started playing with him. Meanwhile, Larry was outside scratching at the door like a posh dinner guest who'd been locked out. When he finally got in, Jasper looked like all his Christmases had come at once.
From then on, the three were inseparable. Jasper followed one or the other of his new "daddies" everywhere. If he got too excitable, Larry would give him a disciplinary slap, but mostly they ate, slept, and played together.
And Jasper just... kept... growing.
The Gentle Giant
Thankfully, he's a gentle giant. In all these years, I've never heard him even hiss. His tail is always held bolt upright (a cat flag of happiness). His signature move? If another cat is in a spot he wants, he simply reverses and sits on them. We're pretty sure he doesn't realise he's doing it; he just wants to be close. Jane swears he still thinks he's a kitten and has no idea that he's now roughly the size of a small tractor.
His name comes from his kitten colouring: a pale, wispy beige, almost ghostlike. Jane suggested "Casper." I said no, so we compromised on "Jasper." These days he's "Jasperino," our not-so-little little Jasper.
Every morning, he appears at the foot of our bed like a furry alarm clock, tail up, ready to supervise the day's activities and remind us it's breakfast time. The Seek app might think he's a dog, but we know better. He's pure cat, just supersized, with a heart to match.