Karnak Street Kats

I had not planned to adopt another cat. I had noticed a black cat hanging around the swimming pool, but this one panicked at the sight of a person. One day as usual he skittered away as I came out to swim, but I noticed two bloody spots, one on each haunch. What could have happened? I suspected a cat fight. I think that was when I decided to get that cat.
I decided to call him Jor, the word for black in a science fiction novel I wrote. Jor was the first truly wild cat I had ever tried to catch. At the time, I did not know what a struggle it would be to catch him. I had one thing going for me. This cat loved being around our other cats, especially Tribble, and routinely slept on our back deck at night. I spent days mulling over how best to catch him.
He was limping badly by this time, and I grew more worried. My first plan was to entice him onto the deck and throw a large blanket over him. In retrospect, this seems like a pretty foolish idea, but at the time...
I waited and watched the deck. One night, Jor appeared on it. The deck was screened on all sides, but not roofed. There was no door either, just a four foot opening to the back steps. We had a second set of back steps because of the swimming pool. These led from the back bedroom down to the pool. After making sure Jor had settled, I went out the bedroom door, down the steps, then I tiptoed, blanket in hand up the other steps. There was Jor. He saw me and cowered.
This is going to be easy I thought. Jor had still not moved. I raised the blanket and threw it. It landed perfectly, covering him completely. But Jor was no longer immobile. He was heading for the steps, blanket and all, like a giant, cloth amoeba.
I tried to grab the blanket. I did, but I was pulling it off the cat. I stopped and tried to change my grip reaching for Jor and the blanket. I'm not really sure what happened. I had a hold of the blanket plus one cat leg, but it was slipping away rapidly. I leaned over groping for another leg. I got it, but despite my hold, Jor, the blanket and I were moving toward the steps. I needed to scoop him up in the blanket. I lunged forward to enclose the mound of cat in my arms and blanket. No cat. No blanket. The cloth amoeba had changed direction and headed under the portable barbecue grill. I dived under the grill after him.
I'm still not sure what happened. I grabbed for the center of the amoeba. Jor twisted away and shot down the steps while I clutched the leg of the grill instead of the leg of a cat. Score one for Jor.
The next night Jor appeared on the front porch. What followed was a repeat of the night before except there was not barbecue grill to get in the way, so all I wound up holding was the blanket.
New tactics were obviously in order. Jor liked food. I kept cat treats for my other cats. I began tossing a few to Jor whenever I saw him over the next week or so. He did like those treats and would not run off as long as I didn't get too close. The night finally came when I was ready to try to trap him.
As in most older houses in Austin, we had a front door that opened inward and a screen door that opened outward. My plan was simple. I'd prop open the screen door with a brick, and stand behind the other open door. I'd then entice Jor into the house with treats. Once he was in I'd close the door. After that, I wasn't sure, but at least he'd be in the house.
There was one problem, our front door was not solid wood but instead panels of glass with wood frames. I would be able to see Jor as he approached, but he could also see me. To try to improve my chances of not being seen, I turned on the porch light and turned off the living room lights. Now I stood in darkness.
Jor limped up as usual. I stepped out and tossed him a treat. He gobbled it up. I tossed another, a little closer to the door. He cautiously came forward, then quickly swallowed the treat. Now I was ready. I tossed a treat a couple of feet from me, then retreated. I dropped another in the doorway and tossed a third about a foot inside. I stepped behind the door and waited. Jor took one step toward the nearest treat. He stopped and looked around. He seemed satisfied with his inspection and advanced on the treat and ate it. He got the second in the doorway. I held my breath. He stuck out his head looking at the third treat inside the house. He turned and looked straight at me or at least at the door. He looked at the treat again. Cautiously, with the hand away from the door, I tossed another treat. This one landed a good five feet into the living room.
Jor turned his head and peered at the farther treat, then back at the closer one. He took a step forward, then stopped. I waited. He raised his head and sniffed. Would the smell of the house scare him? Would he smell the other cats and feel safe? My heart was starting to pound. This cat was slow.
Another cautious step, then two quick ones and he had the closest treat. I didn't have him though. If I tried to close the door now, I was sure he would retreat outside. More waiting. I was beginning to sweat. All this for a stray cat. Jor studied the last treat. He did like food. He moved toward it. Just as he reached it, I slammed the door. Jor was in the house.
I was not prepared for what happened next. Jor bolted for the closed door. When he realized it was closed, he did a pirouette and ran toward the rear of the house. I pursued him grabbing a cat carrier as I did. The door to the kitchen was closed, so Jor had to turn into the hall. With me behind him, his only chance of escape was the open door into the bathroom or so he thought. He ran in with me a few steps behind. I slammed the door behind me as Jor slithered under the bathtub, one of those old iron ones on feet.
I put the carrier down. It was wire with a wooden frame. I'd never get Jor to go in voluntarily. After thinking a moment, I opened the linen closet and took out one of our largest towels. I draped this over the carrier, so it was completely covered. Getting down on my hands and knees, I peered under the tub. There was Jor, huddled to one side. I placed the carrier directly in front of Jor, then climbed into the tub. I leaned over and tapped the side lightly. Jor did just what I wanted. He headed for the only dark place in the bathroom, the towel-covered carrier. I closed the door on him. I had captured my first feral feline.
Now, I learned what a truly wild cat I had captured. Overnight, I put him in a large cage we had purchased to house any cats that needed isolation. The next morning, I forced him into the carrier again and took him to the veterinary clinic. I had never seen a cat so panic stricken. He was in reasonably good health, but whatever injury he had sustained had left two bald spots on each hip. Will didn't know how much damage had been done underneath, but he thought there had been some damage to Jor's muscles. When Jor returned from the clinic, I decided not to release him. This cat I would try to tame.
Jor returned to his cage. He seemed so frightened of the world around him that I put a cardboard box in the bottom of the cage. I sealed its lid and cut a hole in the side. Now Jor had a retreat. Jor decided this was the only place of safety. He did not come out at all during the daytime, but at night he ate his food and used his litter box. This went on for several weeks. Mother and I assumed that eventually he get tired of his dark retreat, but that didn't happen. Jor remained a box cat.
Because we did not seem to be making progress and now a couple of months had passed, I decided to remove the box from Jor's cage. I did. Now, Jor had to face the world. He did not like to. The cage he occupied had two shelves. Jor retreated to the highest and tried to look invisible. Mother and I made a point of talking to him any time we walked by. Nothing seemed to work. Jor seemed frozen to his perch during the day.
I was beginning to believe that this was one cat we could not tame, but I hated to release him. I didn't know how badly damaged his hip muscles were. He still had bare spots where his fur didn't grow.
After some soul searching, I decided to keep trying to tame this cat. I'm not sure how it happened. I often tried to touch him when I was cleaning his cage, feeding him or giving him fresh water. He never hissed or showed any signs of aggression. Because of that behavior, I felt I could try to touch him. One day I managed to rub his head, just for a moment, but for that moment he relaxed, then he jumped away. Every day I repeated the rubbing and found that I could do it for longer and longer periods. Slowly, some of Jor's fear seemed to disappear.
Soon, Jor asked for attention when we came near the cage. As he grew more and more tame, I decided we could try him in the house. I opened the cage door. Jor did not come out. I left the door opened and went into another room. When I returned Jor was still in the cage. He stayed there another day with the door open. Some of the other cats joined him in his cage, but he did not leave it. Finally, on the second evening he came out. For a while, he retreated to the cage if anything scared him, but over time he found other places to hide and abandoned the cage. He still let me pet him, but only if I cornered him first. Some pet, I thought.
Jor did love to have his head rubbed. It was almost an obsession. If you could once touch him, he would stay as long as you rubbed. One evening while I was watching TV, Jor walked into the room. He stopped and stared at me. I reached out my hand, but said nothing. He never reacted well to speech. Jor blinked then walked over cautiously and bumped my hand. I did as requested and scratched his head. That one incident changed Jor completely. Soon, he was climbing in my lap and demanding attention.
He loves to be combed, and I have found a place he loves to be combed where no other cat in the house even wants to be touched, the back of his rear legs. He lays on his back in my lap and purrs while I comb them. If I stop, he cries. Jor has gone from box cat to lap cat.
Jor had become so tame, that I thought he could be trusted to go outside some. Several of our formally wild cats do this with no problem. The first time I let him out, I assumed that all I would have to do was sit down and he would come to be combed and petted. Wrong. Jor would not even approach me. To my shock, he would not let me near him, and he would not come in. He did not come in that night or the next. He got wilder by the day. I tried setting the trap. No luck. The days stretched into a week, then another. One evening, I was on the front porch when he appeared. I retreated to the front door and opened it. I called him. He looked at me and then the door. He pointedly kept his distance as he walked in. I closed the door. He ate first. I did not try to pick him up, instead I went to my chair in the den. Sure enough, Jor came in, climbed in my lap, and bumped my hand for attention.
I petted him, then reached for the comb. I started to comb his rear leg when he twisted away from me. Something was wrong. I hauled him back in my lap and looked. At the base of his tail was a huge sore. He had been in a fight, gotten bit and now had an abcess.
The next day I took Jor into Will. He cleaned the abcess, gave Jor a shot and sent him home with antibiotic pills and a tube of stuff to rub on the sore to keep it from closing, so it could heal from the inside out. I had to rub that stuff on for days, it must have hurt terribly, but Jor never tried to scratch or bite. Needless to say, I have not let Jor out again. Although he did get under the house once, but that is another story.
Besides his sweet disposition, we discovered that Jor had another talent. He makes a fine mother. We had finally trapped Scruffy and her last litter. The kittens were small, but Scruffy weaned them without any interference from us. Matter of fact, she didn't want much to do with them. The result was four kittens that harassed any adult cat in the house for attention, but not for long.
Once the kittens picked on Jor, they had a nanny. Jor would groom them endlessly, let them climb all over him and chew on his tail. I didn't realize how great his devotion was to the kittens until some days later. I walked into the den one evening and saw Jor lying in his favorite chair. With him were the four kittens, nursing. I looked again. There was no doubt, the four kittens were lined up each sucking on something. Jor seemed quite content. The kittens were purring. I thought this might be a one time event, but I was wrong. We decided to keep the kittens and until they were over six months old they went to Jor for comfort. They nursed until they were four months old. I have a picture to prove it.