Rescuing the Feral Family--April 2003

In late 2002 two kittens came a-knocking (meowing?) at the back door, one making some nice eyes at Tungston.  (Can you blame her?)  After a few visits, they vanished into the night and Mark and I assumed they were new neighborhood residents.  In the spring, they returned, only a little bigger and very hungry.  We started noticing they were also bringing two other cats with them to eat--one of which was noticeably pregnant..  After some discussion we contacted Cats in the Cradle cat rescue and our mission began.  (As this is "kitten season" we are currently fostering the cats until space opens up in the shelter for them.)  During the second week of April, our sunroom became a safe haven to a total of  8 cats.  Here are their stories:

Moses

This is Moses, so named because she was responsible for bringing her whole family to safety.  After two months of me feeding her on the deck, I was finally able to gain her trust.  Day after day I approached her slowly, and week after week gained slow victories: a touch to the head, a pet on the head, a pet to the head and neck and etc.  Eventually, I walked out, picked her up and brought her inside.  One of her first nights indoors it began to rain.  She purred and enjoyed plenty of petting and dry shelter.  Since then, she has even begun rubbing and walking over to be petted.  She has a grand repoire with Tungston and Ping through the glass, so we are hoping that she tests okay.  If so, we may just have a little girl to join our boys.

Atlas

One of the two kittens to first appear last winter, we think Atlas is Moses' sibling.  We speculate Atlas is a he, but have no idea.  He (default pronoun) is very shy and scared.  He was the second cat we trapped.  He spends most of his days hiding behind the bookshelf, as he is in this picture, and sneaking out when he thinks I am not around.  Moses protects him while he eats, and curls up with him during the day.   He has let me touch him just a bit and will hiss at me, though I do not think he would strike.  We gave him his name after the first night he was here.  After he was trapped he seemed to calm down (note seemed) so we let him out.  He immediately scaled our 8-foot wall (yes, straight to the top), climbed onto a shelf and settled in behind my books.  We decided such a shy cat needed a strong name, hence Atlas, from Greek mythology--the man strong enough to hold the world (and heaven at one point) on his shoulders.  Of course, it is nice that Atlas settled next to books, or atlases, isn't it?  We are hoping that with love and time he will come around and make a very sweet addition to someone's family.

(Tom)  Bombadil

Yes, Tolkien fans we are.  Bombadil was the first cat to be rescued.  He was very angry and terrified.  He went to the vet the day after his rescue and we learned just how hard his life had been.  They estimated he was 8 years old and had lived outside the entire time. (And, if you can imagine, he has long fur--think about that in the GA summers).  He had been in numerous fights and had torn ears and many battle scars.  He "not a tooth in his head,"  a severe case of intestinal worms and was diagnosed with feline AIDS.  Because he was so ill, and because it would be hard to find a home for an AIDS positive cat who needed so much work on socialization, we decided to put him down.  It was a hard decision, especially after I kept promising him his life would get better after this.  And, there is even more sad news to consider:  Bombadil was also fighting with all of the neighborhood cats because he was not neutered.  There is, of course, no vaccine for AIDS, so more than likely he ended up infecting other cats that belong to good homes.  We think, though we cannot know for sure, that he is the father of Moses and Atlas.  However, remember that one mother cat can carry kittens from different fathers, so there is no way to tell.  But Atlas and Moses sure do resemble him.  And now, for a moment, my strong soapbox statement after watching all of this:  I hope those of you that are reading this encourage people you know not to abandon your pets and to have them fixed.  It is heartbreaking to think what kind of life this guy must have lead.  And why?  Most likely because someone thought he would be fine on his own...