Tarquin's nephew

Since Mimsy got a featured role in the Tarquin blog, I think it's only fair to give his nephew (Rory) his time in the spotlight. Rory always referred to Tarquin as Unc. He loved his Unc and loved to hang out with him. He seemed to always get along better with Tarquin than he did with his mother, Mimsy.

I guess that's always the way. It's better to hang out with the fun uncle than with the mom who's always bossing you around. One thing that Tarquin would do--and I'm pretty sure this was a dominance thing and not a kinky sex thing (he was neutered, after all)--was attempt to mount Rory. All of a sudden we'd hear this piteous meeeeee-oww, and upon investigation, find Tarquin grabbing Rory by the neck and on top of him. The look on Rory's face was clear: This is so wrong on so many fronts! Help!!!! Tarquin tried the same tactic on Mimsy a couple times; I'm still pretty confident this was his way of keeping his minions in line and, well, as minions.

Rory was from a second litter of Mimsy's. As far as I know, her first litter didn't make it. She had been parading around the yard with a very pregnant belly--so big, in fact, that as she tried to slip between the slats of our gate, the gate went with her. How embarrassing is that for a girl? She slimmed down, but no sign of kittens. Then pretty soon, she was all preggers again. This time she showed up on our deck with a little gray tabby.

Tarquin and Rory, hanging out

As he got a little bigger, the then-nameless kitten would show up and jump on the screen door, hang there, and let out this long, drawn-out meow. Meeeeeeeeeee-owwwww. He had an interesting swirly coat pattern--sort of like a Rorschach inkblot test. So his name became Rorschach, Rory for short. And since his meow sounded like a kitten roar, we started referring to him as Rory Roar Cat.


It was getting on toward Halloween when our landlord announced he was going to tear down and redevelop the house we were renting. So I decided that since Mimsy was as attached to me as a feral cat could be, I would take her and Rory in. 

I guess there was a little bit of hubris going on. Heck, I'd done so well with socializing Tarquin, how hard could it be? The answer, it turned out, was very. I always thought that all the times they saw me petting and holding Tarquin, they'd soon figure out I meant no harm. I guess they just figured Tarquin was brave (or maybe foolhardy) about letting these two-leggers touch him. 

Wants my tuna treats

We're going on 11 years together now--Rory and Mimsy and their two-legged friends--and, especially Rory still acts like he might burst into flames when one of the humans attempts to touch him. But we're making some progress. He has decided chin chucks (also known as chin scritchies) are pretty nice. And since I dole out freeze-dried tuna treats on a regular basis, I seem to be moving up in Rory's esteem. 

Patience is the watch word for sure.

Tarquin's sister

I hope Tarquin doesn't mind me taking a little break about writing about him to briefly talk about his sister, Mimsy. There will still be a Tarquin presence in this story. I used to tell Tarquin his family history: "You were a Greta kitty. Mimsy's your sister from a different litter of Greta's, and Rory's her son and your nephew." His eyes usually glazed over by the last part.

Cool toes

But last night I told Mimsy that I realized that she just might be the last surviving Greta kitty. I'm not 100% sure of that, since Greta was one prolific cat. And it's possible some of the neighbors near Wright Street  might have taken in some of her progeny. But at least in our little cat pod, Mimsy is the last surviving Greta kitty. (As a side bar: Mimsy has some cool toes--one is all orange and others are black and orange polka dot. I played cat paparaza and took pictures of her toes.)





Since Tarquin died, Mimsy's coming out of her shell a little more. She was always ok with me petting her and even picking her up, but on her terms and conditions. Even when she was still living the feral life outside, she'd come up to me (see photo, left, of her sniffing my hand). But she seems to seek out the attention more. I'm sure part of it is because she's missing Tarquin. They always spent the day, cuddled together and sleeping at the foot of the bed.

Mimsy outside at Wright St, top and bottom

Tarquin would always walk up to the head of the bed and stare at me in the morning. He'd usually offer up a little nose sniff, too. And if he was especially hungry, he'd tap my face. Jabbing was more like it. "Time to wake up, hoomin."

Now Mimsy is doing the same thing--luckily no jabbing though. I noticed she was rubbing her head against the bed post, so she's obviously marking it as her territory now.

For two nights after Tarquin died, she hopped up in the recliner with me at night. She didn't do any real lap sitting, but she did a lot of kneading and purring. We used to call the happy paws/kneading routine "starfish paws." She was certainly doing the starfish thing.

Mimsy misses her buddy, Tarquin

Then last night, after at least a month of showing no interest in sitting with me, she jumped up again. This time she actually settled down on my legs and sat there for quite a long time.

Maybe Tarquin had informed her that I was his and to stay away. Or maybe now she's just assuming the dominant cat position. She is definitely telling Rory who's boss! He licks her head all nice-like and his reward? She slaps him across the face.

Patience pays off. It's only been 10 years she's had to evaluate me and decide that I'm not going to hurt her. 

The great escape

One day, while we still were living on Wright Street, Tarquin saw Greta while Lloyd was outside putting out some dry cat food. He darted outside. Greta looked at him briefly but then ran to the neighbor’s yard. Evidently Tarquin had too much of the human about him now. Suddenly realizing he was outside and overwhelmed by the wide openness of it all, Tarquin darted under the deck. I ran outside and lay on the ground, trying to entice him out with a variety of cat treats. One time he was about to head toward me, but a train went by and scared him (we lived on the corner of 4^th and Wright Streets and the train tracks paralleled 4^th). He bolted back further under the deck and stared out at me. 

Finally, I hooked up the can opener near the back door and started running it. Finally, Tarquin summoned up his courage, emerged from under the deck, and darted back into the house. I was crying tears of joy when he decided to return to the house. I looked over at Lloyd and said “Thank God for the electric cat caller. He knows when he hears that sound he’s going to get a can of tuna.”

Maybe it was the electric cat caller, but maybe it was because it was getting quite chilly outside. So chilly, in fact, that it had started to snow, light fluffy stuff dancing and swirling around the deck. “Boy am I glad we got him in when we did,” I laughingly said to Lloyd. “Otherwise I’d be lying on my belly, getting coated with snow.”

More comfy that living under a deck!

Lloyd nodded his head and looked over at the little black cat hungrily wolfing down the tuna that I had spooned into his bowl as a reward. “You know, Tarquin had a choice just then,” Lloyd said. “He could have chosen to go back to his feral ways. But he chose to come back to you. So he’s not a feral cat anymore. He’s seen and lived in both worlds and realizes that what he needs is here with us inside.”

He had us for 14 years. Tarquin never seemed particularly interested in going outside—especially after we moved from the Wright Street house and his relatives. Only a few weeks before he died, though, something possessed him to go out onto the front porch. He must have snuck out as I went out to get something from the car. Walking up the steps I noticed a black cat. Hey wait, that’s not just any black cat, that’s Tarquin. He was sniffing at a flower pot. I didn’t want to startle him, so I slowly opened the door and said: “Tarquin. Go inside.” He did. No questions asked. Maybe it all came back to him—“Oh, yeah, the big outdoors. I think I like it better in the house.”

Birding

Not a feather from any bird Tarquin caught. Still fun, though.

The old house on Wright Street was a magical place for Tarquin. Birds would miraculously appear in the wood-burning stove, whereupon Tarquin could practice his hunting skills. The first time we realized we had a bird ingress problem was when Lloyd spied Tarquin with a feather sticking out of his mouth. His little cat eyes were dancing—later we realized it was because the bird was in his mouth and probably tickling him. Amazingly enough, when Lloyd pried Tarquin’s mouth open, the bird was alive and intact and it took off. Some days one of the human inhabitants of the house would be home and hear the familiar metallic clinking in the stove and get the door shut fast. But the cat knew what was in there, and he’d sit there, worshipping the stove and channeling energy to open the door.

Tarquin was a mighty patient cat. He’d be in his reverential position by the stove when I left for work and he’d still be there when I got home. Catching birds turned out to be a much more difficult task for humans, whereas the cat showed how simple it could be. The humans would haul out the fishing dipnet, but the birds were generally too little and they’d fly through the holes in the net. Then Tarquin would take over and capture the bird.  He never killed them: just leaped up, grabbed them in midair, and carried them upstairs and put them under the bed. Sometimes they’d be a little damp with cat spit, but no worse for wear.  The clumsy humans later tried another tactic: Hold a big piece of clear plastic in front of the stove door, reach in the top of the stove with a bird poker (aka ruler, back scratcher, paint stirrer, whatever), flail around, wait for the bird to fly forward, and hope you could grab it with the plastic. Once in a while this approach would work. But usually it would be up to Tarquin to corral the wayward bird.

Bastet

It got so we referred to the stove as the Iron Cathedral, a high holy spot for Tarquin. And the cat had proof that his religion was for real: If he worshipped hard enough, a bird would fly out. That’s more than a lot of religions have to base their faith on! We always figured he channeled Bastet, the Egyptian goddess of fire, cats, the home, and pregnant women, and who was represented as a woman with the head of a domesticated cat.  It makes sense: just think of all the times a cat stops what they’re doing and stares into space at nothing or listens hard to nothing. They’re receiving instructions from Bastet. I figure Tarquin would beseech Bastet by wishing: “Oh Bastet, please send me a juicy bird,”

One night when I got home, Lloyd said "We have a situation here. Tarquin's committed murder, I think." It certainly looked like the scene of a crime. There were ashes all over in front of the wood-burning stove and there were lots of feathers at the top of the stairs. Lloyd, who fancies himself a cat whisperer, said he demanded that Tarquin tell him where he hid the body but that the cat wasn't talking. Evidently Lloyd was just having trouble with the cat accent, because the cat was really talking up a storm. As soon as he saw me, Tarquin came running down the stairs chattering his head off and ran back upstairs and stood by a low bookcase at the top of the stairs. Couldn’t be much clearer. Sure enough, I got a flashlight and flashed it behind the books and there was the bird, sitting behind the books on the bookcase--very much alive, yet seemingly a bit confused as it cocked its head and chirped its unhappiness with its current situation. This time Lloyd managed to snag the bird in midair with a dry cleaning bag.

Later that night, 2 more birds show up in the loft room upstairs. The humans, armed with a mop and a broom, race around, trying to get the birds to go toward the doors we've propped open. They’d go in the closet, on the stove, on the ledge in the kitchen, and then sit by and chirp. Finally Tarquin and the elderly lady cats were asked to have a go at bird catching. Tarquin quickly managed to find and catch one on the window over my computer, but in spite of Lucy and Brilly acting like there might be something behind the desk, there was no luck. In the morning as Lloyd was making coffee and he let out a whoop when he spied the bird. Tarquin arrived on the scene and caught the bird and brought it upstairs to me. Then he carried it into the spare bedroom and put it under the bed. Lots of flapping ensued, but Lloyd finally wrestled the bird away from Tarquin and set it free.

We asked the landlord to put a cap over the stovepipe—a request he of course ignored as his mantra was always: Don’t spend any money on the house…the value is in the land, not the house. We asked the cat to cut back on his stove worshipping a bit, as he was getting quite proficient at conjuring up birds. Lloyd always said with our luck we’d come home and there’d be turkeys roaming the house. I’m not sure whatever happened to that woodstove. The old house got torn down—being in the way of progress and an obstacle to yet another starter mansion to uglify our surroundings—and the stove and other salable items were hauled away. Where ever it ends up, I hope another follower of Bastet has as many religious experiences as Tarquin did when the old stove sat in the livingroom on Wright Street.

Feral Cat PSA

Time for a little public service announcement about feral cats. Yes, Tarquin was a Mensa kitty and quickly learned to adapt to living with humans. But it's not always that easy. His sister Mimsy (not a littermate) and her son, Rory, were also cats from our feral colony on Wright Street. In their own ways, they are friendly and have come to accept humans. But they’ve never gained the confidence of Tarquin. It took me 10 years for Rory to let me pet him; I think I’ve maybe picked him up twice. Mimsy is much friendlier and lets me pet her and pick her up. But it’s on her terms. Sometimes she’s just not in the mood. And if I reach my hand out a little too fast toward her head, she cringes. 

My TNR magnet

That’s why socializing kittens at a very early age is important. Technically, Tarquin and his bunch were too old for effective socialization (getting them used to be around and handled by humans)—they were at least four months old when we trapped them. According to Alley Cat Allies, a feral cat advocacy group, kittens eight weeks of age or younger tend to be easy to socialize. Kittens between two and four months of age often take more time and skill to socialize. Basically, no Humane Society or animal adoption group will take feral cats. They just aren’t “adoptable”—people want friendly and cuddly, not surly, aloof, and antisocial. 

I googled how many litters of kittens can a cat have in one year, and I found this fun fact from the Fayette (Georgia) Humane Society:

An average cat has 1-8 kittens per litter and 2-3 litters per year. During her productive life, one female cat could have more than 100 kittens. A single pair of cats and their kittens can produce as many as 420,000 kittens in just 7 years.

That explains the large numbers of kittens we saw running about our neighborhood. After Paws Chicago neutered the five we took in, I tried to talk up at Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) scheme with the other neighbor who fed the cats. In TNR, feral cats are trapped, neutered (they will be healthier and live longer if they are neutered), vaccinated, and eartipped before being released back into their stomping ground. Eartipping involves removing a small portion of the tip of a tip of a feral cat’s left ear. This signifies that the cat has been neutered and vaccinated; this ensures that a cat who has already been neutered won’t get trapped or have to undergo another surgery. It also says: I’m a feral cat. 

Unfortunately, our neighbor wasn’t onboard with the TNR idea. She explained that she felt they were God’s creatures and that we shouldn’t interfere. Frankly, I didn’t agree, but couldn’t do much. So many cats in such close quarters meant there was a greater risk of illnesses spreading and injuries happening. And unneutered cats fight more, resulting in more injuries. Case in point: Tarquin’s mama, Greta, showed up one day missing a couple of toes and part of her tail. We figure she had crawled up into a car engine to keep warm and someone started the car, which injured her. Another good thing to keep in mind—and we did this all the time on Wright Street—is to pound on the car hood before starting it up. It’s easy and prevents mishaps. 

Finally, Alley Cat Allies and other feral cat organizations recommend that people build shelters for the feral cats. We never got that far, since we had to move when our landlord announced his plans to demolish our rental house. Shelters protect cats from the elements, helps you control their location, and possibly prevents them from hanging out on neighbors’ properties (not everyone on the block was all that fond of the incessant cat parades going through their yards). Shelters should be about 2 foot by 3 foot and at least 18 inches high. Basically you’re looking for a shelter that will allow three to five cats to huddle together. 

I must be psychic, writing about feral cats. While checking out some of the articles on Alley Cat Allies' web site, I discovered that October 16 will be National Feral Cat Day. I think I need to make a donation in Tarquin's honor.