'My senior cat Sibble is a Dunkeld legend after 23 years in village'

Our cat Sibble is quite the tourist attraction.

You can find her on Google under ‘Dunkeld Cathedral Cat’.

For most of her life, she’s pretty much lived outside, down at the cathedral.

She was always happy catching wild rabbits and burying them for later, and sleeping in the sun.

She did always come home eventually, but she’s been mistaken for a stray a few times.

One person even took her in and posted her on a Missing Pets Facebook group – we had to go and get her.

So she’s become well known because of her wild habits.

Sibble the cat and owner Millie have grown up together. Image: Supplied.

There are people who visit the village every year, and they always expect and hope to see Sibble.

She’s super friendly, and if there’s a tourist she’ll just roll over for them to pet her belly.

But there was a time she was the fiercest cat in the village.

She’s got a little notch in her ear, and we used to wake up to her defending the house – loudly- during the night, chasing off other cats.

Sibble the dog-walking cat

Sibble’s not scared of anything, not even dogs.

She is quite well known among the local dog walkers, or she used to be anyway, because she’d hide beside the path and jump out at the dogs.

In fact, she used to walk the whole way with us when we walked our dog Maisie.

Sibble the cat walking with dog Maisie, as she would often do at home in Dunkeld. Image: Supplied.

I got Sibble when I was 6. I remember writing her name down before we went to pick her up – I didn’t know how to spell ‘Sybil’ so she became ‘S-I-B-B-L-E’.

On the day we went to collect her, I was told we’d also be bringing home her brother Bob. He was supposed to go to another family, but they couldn’t take him in the end.

Sibble and Bob’s mother was a Bengal, and we got both of them free from friends of friends, as they were an unplanned litter.

I used to draw pictures of Sibble a lot when I was a child, and now I do design for animation, so she must have inspired me.

Sibble (front, left) and her brother Bob as kittens. Image: Supplied.

I also have a tattoo of her. She’s a really special cat.

Now she’s going on 23, Sibble mostly stays inside. I’m 28, and I don’t live at home anymore, but I spend a lot of time with her when I visit.

Is Sibble the oldest cat in Perthshire at 22?

There’s a good chance she’s Perthshire’s oldest cat, and I think the reason she’s kept going so well is partly because she’s always been so independent.

Millie and cat Sibble back in the day in Dunkeld. Image: Supplied.

She always been happy to go about by herself, which I think had kept her mind sharp. She was never lazy.

The vet is constantly amazed at how young she looks and how well she is. She’s got a bit of arthritis in her back legs, which she takes painkillers for. And she has hyperthyroidism, and very early stage kidney disease.