Tim Dowling: I’m on my hands and knees, teaching our new cat old tricks

Instructing our kitten to use the cat flap was hard enough ... even before it was terrified by two foxes having very loud sex

It is a frosty morning and I am standing in the kitchen in bare feet, holding the door open for the cat. The cat dips its head low, studying the world across the threshold.

Faster, pussycat," I say. The cat sniffs at the cold air swirling in from the garden, but does not move. I begin to close the door very slowly, in a bid to create a shrinking decision window. In the space of two months the kitten has grown into a tall-eared, spooky-looking thing that I sometimes find standing on my chest staring down at me in the dead of night, its nose a millimetre from mine. It doesn't fear the dog or the tortoise, but it's still pretty wary of outside.