The Potential Reward Of Heartbreak: Project Cats.

*watercolour by Endre Penovac ~ http://penovacendre.com/​

So a cute little kitten, or perhaps a full grown cat has wandered into your yard. You try and approach this newcomer with a friendly hand, perhaps even a small bowl of treats, only to be rebuffed with a hiss and a scowl as your would be furry visitor takes off running. You realise then that you most likely have a feral cat on your hands. But what to do about it?

Before you attempt to resocialise or tame a feral cat - and there are different levels of 'feralness', which I will explain in another post - you should know what you're in for. Because for every story with a happy ending, there is another that I call "the potential reward of heartbreak".

I've grown up with and also worked to resocialise several feral cats, some with more success than others. I know those feel good 'feral becomes a loving house cat' stories are what we all hope will happen, but these are the stories of the cats I've loved and worked with over the years.

This is the reality of taking on a 'Project Cat'.

Suki (Old Sook)

Dear old Sook, she had been found down the beach by my Auntie as a little kitten. Later she came to live with my Mum and Dad, and then me when I came along. Suki was well into her senior years when I was growing up with her, you might say she was an affectionate old curmudgeon. Old sook would only let a small handful of people near her, but those she did allow to approach her could be rewarded with pats, and purrs galore (that is when she was in the mood, she was just as likely to swat you after two quick strokes). She slept out in the tool shed, not by our choice, but by her own design. When the weather got too cold, or too stormy she would deign to sleep inside, but no further than the laundry. That was as far as it went with Sook, she had been tamed to a degree, but she still retained that streak of wild cat whose sense of trust only went as far as the laundry door.

At the age of 18 Sook collapsed, and a frantic phone call was made to my Auntie, who remained the only person who could actually pick Suki up when it was time for her vet visits (no matter how long she had lived with us, that was the one thing we could never do with Old Sook, handle her in that manner - not without being torn to shreds at least). It turned out she had suffered a heart attack after going into kidney failure, and the family made the difficult decision to have her put to sleep.

Dear old Sook, the first of the ferals I'd come to know over the years, and he first of the ferals who taught me to know the limits of what was possible (and how sometimes, just sometimes, those limits could be broken).

Bandit

Ever wanted to see what it's like to stick your arm in a shredding machine? Just try and pick up a feral kitten, and see how fast it can rip your arms to shreds. That's how my Mum first met the cat we'd come to call 'Bandit' (named for the way he'd sneak a quick meal from us, and then disappear).

Bandit first arrived on our back lawn as this adorable ball of fluff, no more than 12-15 weeks old. To this day I don't know how my Mum managed it, or perhaps Bandit was so starved at the time he was simply too engrossed in the food he'd found on our back lawn, but somehow my Mum managed to sneak up and grab what we thought was going to be a relatively tame kitten, intending on bringing it inside. Fast as lightening, Bandit reared around and sunk all four paws, and claws into my Mum's arms and proceeded to leave her bloodied and scratched to pieces. Round 1 to Bandit.

It took just over 12 months of patient waiting, moving the food bowl ever closer to the house, sitting a few metres away from the food bowl, not making eye contact, and then gradually, ever so gradually letting Bandit come to us. And then came the day when we'd finally gained his trust. Now he was hanging out in the yard for his meals on a daily basis, now he'd sit with us, or even curl up in our laps as we petted and brushed him. His favourite game was to sit on one of Mum's old dressing gowns and be taken for rides around the back yard; hanging out the laundry became an exercise in 'Me and my Sidekick', as he furred around our legs, and demanded more attention.

We were just starting to work on socialising him to come inside, when he up and disappeared. For 18 months we saw not hide nor hair of him, and then one day he simply sauntered back down the drive away and meowed for food like he'd never been away. That's the thing with feral cats, they can come into your life, and then leave just as quickly.

We had Bandit for another 6 or so months, before we lost him for good, no thanks to a spiteful neighbour who was leaving poison bait out for cats.

12 months of work, followed by 12 months of petting, purrs, and playtime, followed by 18 months of nothing, and then an all too short reunion before we lost Bandit completely.

This is the potential reward of heartbreak right here.

Willow (the Whisp)

Willow (the Whisp), named for her colour, size, and ability to disappear at a moment's notice, was a tiny feral cat that had been looked after by an elderly neighbour when I was living with my now ex partner. When the neighbour was finally placed in permanent aged care, Willow began to look around our backyard for food. I began placing an extra bowl out for her, but living up to her name it was almost impossible to catch even a glimpse of her at first, as she dashed in, gobbled up what was there, and disappeared back over the fence just as fast.

It took 5 months of patience, and careful waiting, just as I'd learnt previously with Bandit, to gain Willlow's trust. From then on she got to know her name, and would come pelting over the fence, chirruping happily, and looking for her meal and pat time. She got to know the joy of laps, and being brushed, and generally made a fuss over. Unfortunately she also got to know the inside of a Vet's office as well.

6 months after I had resocialised her as a yard cat at least, I was just starting to work on resocialising her to be an indoor cat when she began to get sick. I took her to the vet, and the verdict then was that she had a touch of cat flu, and a bit of an eye infection (I also found out she was 2-4 years old, which belied her small stature, which was more that of a 6 month old kitten). Antibiotics were prescribed, along with a change in diet to boost her nutrition, and all was well - for a month or so at least. It went on this way for several monts: vet visit, antibiotics, cream for her pus filled eyes, cream for the sores on her skin, another vet visit, more antibiotics - and she wasn't getting any better. Finally the Vet tested her for Feline Immunodeficiency Virus. The test returned a strong positive - and considering the state she was in (covered in sores, furr falling out, weak and haunched over in her little outside house box, eyes near blind and crusted with gunk) it probably shouldn't have come as that great a surprise that she wasn't just FIV positive, she was in the terminal stage of full blown Feline Aids. The Vet called my partner on his mobile to give us the news, he asked me what I wanted to do, they could euthanise Willow right then and there, or I could bring her home with me. Bring her home to do what, exactly? Suffer more than she already was? I nodded tearfully and said "Just do what you have to do".

Another potential reward of heartbreak. Willow came into life like a whisp, and it seemed she left as one also.

Osiris

Osiris was a beautiful grey and white tabby that appeared one night in our front yard. Me, being, well, me couldn't help but leave a small plate of biscuits out for this wanderer. I didn't get more than 10 metres away from him when he took off like a shot across the road. I left the food at the end of the drive way and withdrew back inside to watch him warily approaching the bowl, before practically inhaling the food and taking off again. Much as with the other ferals I had previously worked with, it became a nightly routine of moving the food bowl closer to the house, waiting patiently for first contact, and so on. With Osiris it took less time than it had with the others, he was practically camped on our doorstep and looking to come inside after only 3 months.

We began to jokingly refer to him as "Not my cat" - "Whose this grey cat in our yard? It's not my cat", we'd say as we left another bowl of food out for him, or saw him peering in our Kitchen window to say hello. And then one day he turned up with a collar on. Assuming he had owners who had found him again after he'd perhaps gone missing, we immediately stopped feeding him and discouraged him for coming into our yard. And then finally he disappeared for just over 2 weeks, only for us to find him on our back doorstep again, this time so starved and dehydrated he could barely stand up.

It was around then we made the decision to adopt him ourselves, if he did have owners they weren't exactly looking after him.

We were lucky with Osiris in that he adapted to life inside quite quickly (although for the first 2 years it was like he slept with one eye open, and one ear pricked to the sounds of any approaching danger) and that we also managed to get him desexed just as he was coming into his first season. He went from a timid feral, to a big, oh man did he turn out to be a big cat, overgrown sooky kitten.

We had 6 happy years with him, and he formed an especially close bond with my husband (it was clear he thought the world of his human Dad, and hardly let Kevin out of his sight). Unfortunately he came to us as a semi-feral cat, and some of that semi-feral cat always remained in him. We couldn't keep him as an indoor cat, not without it doing him more harm than good in the end: all the toys and playtime in the world couldn't stop him from going stir crazy when that wild streak awoke and he needed to get outside. It was on one of these nights when he was struck by a car and killed.

He was our beautiful, big, baby boy and we loved him dearly, but we couldn't protect him from the outside world by simply forcing him inside, with his history that was just not possible - and because of that we ultimately lost him.

Marcel

Marcel's story is not quite finished, so I think I'll leave it for another time.

All of the stories above represent the realities of choosing to take on a feral cat. Sometimes no matter how hard you try you can only get so far with them; other times they develop such a close bond that it feels like your heart has literally broken when they don't come home one night; or you can spend all the time and effort in the world on resocialising only to be side swiped by terminal illness. Taking on a feral cat is a commitment not to be taken lightly.

#cats #feralcats #ta #resocialisingferalcats #projectcats #catrescue