About Murdoch

Murdoch, our shop cat, is nearly six years old now. He is a big ginger cat, but very friendly. We recruited him from the RSPCA centre. He wasn't afraid of us at all, showing his belly to let us stroke it. So we decided that would be the cat we want.

The first year Murdoch stayed here, he was very cautious - never went into the shop during opening hours. He just ate, slept and played a bit (what a life!) upstairs in his 'safe environment'. It's a big shop through, too difficult for a cat to resist the idea of exploring. Murdoch started to greet the shop staff in the morning, sit on (and scratch) the chairs (yes, not chair, CHAIRS). Now he is a full member of staff (or boss).

He is quite lazy and loves short-cuts. He knows every corner of the building, but still meows for the door to be opened. He can be a bit of nuisance: he can jump onto the records while people are looking through them, and can give customers quite a shock; or suddenly appear from nowhere right in front of someone who is about to pay at the desk. One day, a customer was trying on a necklace in front of our jewellery cabinet where a mirror was, Murdoch suddenly jumped onto the cabinet and stood between the girl and the mirror, blocking her view, and then started to sniff the necklace on her neck!

Murdoch thinks he is human being. When he knows he has done something wrong, he'll hide, er...but with his tail sticking out - he always forgets he's got a tail! He loves cameras. He'll pose to be photographed looking directly at the camera. All our photos of Murdoch have been taken incidentally - we never force him to pose. 

He is an attention seeker. If you are doing something other than stroking him while he's on your lap, he'll meow for attention. When we have a meeting or all the staff chat in the shop, he'll leave his throne - the chair in the middle of the shop and join our conversation (yes, literally, he'll be meowing when we talk).

Finally, we think we should tell you that he loves food. He'll eat anything, cat biscuits, treats, fish, mushrooms (he likes mushrooms), tomatoes, cucumber and vegetable soup (pretty healthy diet...). Nearly every member of the shop staff feeds him. So please do not feed him any more, otherwise he'll change from big to enormous.

We love our Murdoch and hope you like him too!