Quote:
Originally posted by Leo Volont
This is my 'Bloggie the Cat' Story. as an intro, Bloggie is a feral cat from one of my outdoor feral feeding stations. Bloggie and her daughter Kitcat are the first ferals that I have been able to socialize to the point where I can pick them up and kiss them without worrying of getting my lips ripped off. But that was well after the events of this following story:
Bloggie’s Story: Her Near Death Experience
I don’t know where they came from. Or maybe I do. Several years back there had been a small kink-tailed cross-eyed Siamese female, a real nervous thing, whom I called Tailtail. The last I saw of her was when she was pregnant. I had always assumed that she must have died while giving birth and that her litter died with her. But perhaps she just moved further down the road, and when things became crowded down there, some of her kittens wondered back in my direction.
They were mixed Siamese. One was almost white and so I called her Whitey, which after a few weeks came to be more like Whoggie, and the other was more blotchy and so I called her Blotchy but after a few weeks it was more like Bloggie.
Oh, they were mean kitties, very disruptive at the feeding stations. Charging in hissing and spitting and driving the other cats away… yes, a lot the same way as Tailtail had behaved. Anyway, I adjusted the feeding stations somewhat… moving around the piles of food and was able to soon accommodate everybody, including Whoggie and Bloggie.
They soon knew how important I was to the operation and they tracked me down to my apartment. Oh, this allows me to make this one observation. When one first makes the acquaintance of a Feral Cat they require a great deal of distance in order to feel safe. About a stone’s throw when one first meets a cat. But as the relationship continues and they are not harmed in any way, then they are comfortable in allowing you to get closer. One can use this phenomena in order to regulate the Feeding Stations, as one can block out the more recent arrivals by simply standing there, while the more established kitties can walk past to go to the feeding stations. But up on the Apartment Balconies the comfort distance can be problematic. Although the walkway is 4 feet wide, if the cats comfort distance is seven feet, then it can’t go around and needs to find another stairway at the other end of the building. So, here I often use communication and compromise. I tell them ‘okay, okay’ and then I face the wall and close my eyes, blocking them with my hands. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn’t. But both Bloggie and Whoggie were as smart as they were mean, and when I opened my eyes, I found they had darted past. You know, keeping such a great distance is as inconvenient for them as it is for me, and so as they find that I am no immediate threat to their life and limb, then they soon settle to the point where they only wish to keep out of my direct reach. Well, except for a few of the kitties that have know me all their lives and or a few Tomcats who are exceptionally brave who allow me to give them a welcoming thump or two.
Whoggie was actually meaner than Bloggie. There last days as mean little kittens went by quickly and they became mean little sexually active young female adults and became pregnant. Bloggie got a little bit bigger, but Whoggie became huge. Then one day Whoggie stopped coming around. They do go into hiding for awhile when they finally have their litters, but after a few days they come around for a much needed bite to eat. But Whoggie never re-appeared, like Tailtail before. But Bloggie continued to report to both Feeding Station One and Feeding Station Two, to eat a little something, but more it seemed to disrupt things. I actually started bringing a squirt bottle to control her, which worked for about a week before she realized that the water was not exactly killing her.
Then one day I noticed that although she was following me from one Station to the other, she was eating at neither. I at first thought that she was taking a nibble but eating the bulk of the food throughout the day – not very likely for a girl that usually would eat like a little pig, but it was possible, as a few of the cats eat only a little at a time, being confident that the food won’t immediately disappear. But then, after a few days of this odd behavior I noticed that Bloggie, coming when she heard my Wild Animal Call, inadvertently fell over into a ditch. And I laughed. I didn’t like her and was happy to see her trip and fall. But then my brow creased and it occurred to me that she could not possibly be okay. A cat of her athleticism and intelligence – the same cat that would dash in front of me on a narrow balcony because I turned my back and closed my eyes, this same cat would never trip into a ditch. So I approached her and saw that her mouth was partially open and that her chin dripped with saliva. Oh my God, it was a haunting reminder of when the first family cat of my youth had come home with her jaw broken. I would have taken her to the Animal Hospital, but you need to remember, that these cats are Ferals. One cannot just reach down and pick them up. They are wild animals and they make it one of their most important priorities to stay out of human reach. So I didn’t even consider trying to catch Bloggie. Heck! Just the last week I was squirting her with a water bottle… she was not going to let me get close enough to grab her. And then, that mean little thing, well, she frightens me. She’d tear me apart!
Anyway, that particular predisposition probably blinded me somewhat to the actual details of the situation. First, she was beginning to follow me everywhere, even as she weakened from her inability to eat. And she was following closely. I simply didn’t notice that she had drastically closed in her comfort distance.
But though I was being particularly blunt in my capacity to observe, her proximity was doing a great deal to erode my dislike for her. It is hard to hate a cat that walks at your side.
Anyway, it had been a week since I noticed the problem, and it could have been longer, and she was getting emaciated and weak. I honestly thought she had only a day or two left to live. So it was late afternoon and I thought of her and decided to clear my schedule and go outside… she would be just outside the door and so she would not be hard to find… and I would sit with her and try to make her last hours a bit more pleasant. So I went out and she followed me to this nice secluded log in a peaceful little jungle arbor and I began to sing her a simple kitty song – the “I Love You, You’re So Good” song (you can guess the words). Then it occurred to me. I saw the light of the situation. There she was sitting at my feet. Close enough to touch. And she was so weak, it was a real possibility that she could die in the next five minutes. Of course, I could catch her. I looked at my watch and saw I could get her to the Animal Hospital before closing if I didn’t waste a moment. “Wait her”, I told her. And went back to my apartment and grabbed a Snake Stick I had fashioned out of a broom handle and a kitty leash, and the cage. I clumsily missed the first several passes but it seemed like Bloggie was as determined to be caught as I was to catch her and she almost forced her own little head into the noose so that we would not be late for Hospital Check In.
I had to leave her overnight, but I was there bright and early the next morning, and the Doctor saw me and called me over. She had already looked Bloggie over, and before I could begin conjecturing about broken jaws or poisonings, she reached into her lab-coat pocket and pulled out this little package and shock out this small object and said, “Maybe this bone caught in her teeth may have had something to do with her not being able to eat.” I was so happy! But the Doctor was puzzled that Bloggie hadn’t begun to eat yet. But Bloggie was being given intravenous fluids and she supposed Bloggie’s appetite would soon return. Well, I left to go shopping and told the Doctor I would be back later, when a thought occurred to me and I did a U-turn in traffic and was back in the Hospital Offices within a few minutes. I told the Doctor to “Watch this”. I let out my less loud version of my Wild Animal Call, and threw a handful of kibble on the floor of Bloggie’s cage and she jumped up and began wolfing it down. I told the Doctor that feral cats don’t know what food dishes are and so Bloggie didn’t even know food was in her cage, not with all of the hospital smells masking the odor of food she had never eaten before. I had volunteered with this Doctor before with socialization cases and quarantines which lends some context to what she said. She said, “Now I know why those cats like you so much.” I had been stupid throughout this entire situation, so I was glad that my brain had finally kicked in.
But Bloggie would stay in the Hospital for a few more days. While we had her, we would let her get some of her strength back, and then spay her. As I told about earlier, with Bloggie in the Hospital, her kittens that I had not even known about came out of the Jungle to find her, but that would be their story. Bloggie would recover, first into a healthy and svelte Siamese with a body quality almost worthy of a show cat (while nothing could ever be done for her ‘blotchy’ coat). But now, she is maturing to the point where she is actually a little on the side of being radiantly plump.
You know, looking back over the entire story of her Near Death Experience, it occurs to me to wonder how she seemed to know that I was in a position of being able to help her. I had been hostile to her, and she had been feeding at my stations not so much as a welcome guest but more with the consciousness of being a raider and a thief. But when she needed help, she camped out at my door and became my shadow. Have the Domestic Felines been symbiotically related to the Human Species for so long now, that it has become part of their instincts to go to People when they need help? It would seem so.
I loved reading your feral cat story. It was really good, and really well written. Anyway, there used to be a few feral cats that came around our place when my Grandmother lived here. There was a big lady cat that my Grandma named Baby. Eventually, she became pregnant and her kittens would come up with her to eat the food my grandmother sat out for them. She always sat food out for a number of creatures, including a skunk family, a momma and baby raccoon amoung other things. Eventually, these cats became acclimated to my Grandmother through a tedious coaxing process much like the one you described. One day, Baby dissapeared, along with her kittens, except one. The kitten, who was used to my grandmother, continued to come up without her mother and siblings, and eventually it occured to my Grandma that perhaps the cat would do better with a home. Though the kitten was used to being around my Grandmother, it was apparently not used to being caught and kept. Eventually, though it turned out to be a good housecat for my Uncle, who named her Buzz. She has beautiful long multi-colored fur, is one of the smartest cats that I have ever seen and is actually a good housecat. 
