The Shepherd Cat: 'Bodacious is a real character.'

The Ray D’Arcy Show recently alerted viewers to a sheepdog alternative in the form of Tom the llama. And they may have found another, feline, candidate. Bodacious the cat lives on Suzanna Crampton’s farm in Kilkenny. Susanna has written a book, Bodacious: The Shepherd Cat, about life on a farm from the perspective of Bodacious. She joined Brenda Donohue in studio, along with a representative sent by Bodacious, Inca the dog.

Bodacious sent a delegate, Suzanna explained, because he is sort of a “recluse”. She first met him in a shop that sold themed toilet seats.  (It was “during the boom times”, she elaborated). Bodacious, then without a name, was “strutting his stuff around the shop like he owned the place”. And he needed a home. That’s where Suzanna came in. But how did he get his name?

“I was leading these two horses out and the cat would not leave me alone…I turned around as he followed me between these two horses, I had one horse on either hand. And the cat was right behind me, following like a dog, kind of meowing and chatting all the way and I said, ‘Oh my God, you are bodacious.'”

Bodacious lives with Suzanna on a farm that’s been in Suzanna’s family for eight generations. Suzanna would fly from America and spend her childhood summers there.

“My life, when I was young, was never-ending picking raspberries. To the point that I’m not that pushed about liking raspberries [now] because I had to pick too many as a child.”

Bodacious keeps Suzanna company during lambing season, soil testing and herding. But does he herd the sheep himself? Well, it all comes down to delegation, it seems, according to Suzanna.

“A good shepherd is one who observes and oversees.”

Listen back to the full interview on The Ray D’Arcy Show here.