Sugar
Submitted by K.’tank’ Conner
In the winter of 2005 an announcement came over the Fix Our Ferals email list from Linda McCormick that two ferals had been unceremoniously dumped into the overnight drop at the Berkeley shelter and that backyard adopters were needed. I don’t know what compelled me to take it on, but I went for it and offered to take one.
He arrived on a cold, rainy day in the back of Linda’s car — hissing and spitting and charging the sides of his cage at any sight or sound of a human. He was a gorgeous, and markedly robust looking, black and white feral cat sporting a recent ear notch. As we set up the relocation cage and all of the tarps to keep the wind and wet off of him, Linda explained to me that he was one of the most aggressive caged cats she had run into and that we would be lucky if he hung around once let out; we would probably only catch glimpses of him at night if he did, she said.
He remained very aggressive while in the cage. Changing his litter and feeding and watering were all very challenging, made no less so by the constant wind and rain that winter. But we managed. One day, while he was ’singing’ to me via a chorus of hissing and spitting as I talked to him, I named him: Sugar. I don’t know how it fit, but it did. He’ll grow into it perhaps, I thought.
Many weeks later, we let him go. We were so scared we would lose him, but we had to do it. Much to our joy, he was back within two days and in broad daylight.
Over a few months, we cultivated a relationship with him over food and lots of chatter. He had long stopped hissing and was letting me get closer and closer to him while he ate. One day I reached out and patted his rump while he ate, fully expecting to be shredded for such a daring maneuver. Instead, he raised his rump for more pets. From then on, he was happy to be patted from behind, although still very wary about being approached face-on. He was, however, extraordinarily aggressive with other cats in the neighborhood and managed to bully away my other two ferals.
Then one day the following summer he didn’t come home for food. I knew something was wrong; this cat never missed a meal. He was like clockwork. Days passed. Then, one evening at dusk, I spotted him in the neighbor’s backyard which adjoined ours. Something looked off about him, even from a distance. I very slowly approached him and, much to my horror, found that his face was very swollen and his left eye was evulsed. I tried to reach out to him, but he walked away. I can’t begin to explain how helpless and desperate I felt. He was likely on borrowed time.
I got some traps and tried for days to catch him. Walking the street behind our house, I could see him down in the neighbors’ yards. I put notices in the mailboxes of several of these neighbors, many of whom already did not like cats, to let them know that he was injured and in need of help, and not to call animal control but to call us if they spotted him. A few of them gave me permission to setup traps and feeding stations in their yards. Linda gave me antibiotics to dose the countless cans of wet food. It was no time at all before our otherwise vegetarian kitchen reeked of canned tuna and sardines and wet food, as did our hands much of the time. Still, we couldn’t catch him and rarely saw him eat.
This went on for nearly a week. Then, on a Saturday morning as I put out stinky sardines next to the trap, he approached me quietly from behind and then meowed. His eye was clouded over with dust and bits of leaves and dry grass, and he seemed less confused and tired; perhaps his vision was finally making sense to him now that input from the other eye was now blocked, and perhaps he had finally been able to sleep. I slowly started making a trail of juice and bits of sardine from him into the trap. He was very hesitant. I went inside with my husband and watched, and after several minutes of indescribable anticipation, the trap was sprung. We had him. We called the Abbey to notify them that we were coming, and off we went.
It didn’t take long to remove the eye and wire his jaw back together. He had been hit by a car, the vet said. We called around a scraped together another relocation cage setup, and back into the cage he went. He was miserable, even beyond having all of his painful injuries, being back in that cage. He hissed and spit and charged throughout the entire recovery process. And, all along, my husband and I debated what to do with him once he was recovered: having been hit by a car once on our street while very healthy and spry, could we now turn him out again without much depth perception?
We eventually accepted that he was going to come inside with us and our indoor, domestic cats. We had no idea how this would go over with any of them. When the time came, we opted to bring the entire covered cage into a room that adjoined our bedroom and shut the door, making it very quiet, and then opening his cage. Gradually he came out and hid, but was pleasant and sociable during feedings. Eventually he started interacting with our cats under the door, and then hiding less and less. He then became downright friendly with us, even asking for pats.
We spent a lot of time with him in that room, talking to him and just being there. At some point we removed the cage and started bringing in used items of clothing that smelled like us and our cats, and he chose to cuddle up and sleep on them. And then we let him out.
The transition was nothing short of miraculous. He seemed to enjoy the company of the other cats, and it wasn’t long before he started sleeping with all of us on the bed. Then he started playing with one of our other cats on a regular basis (usually around three in the morning). Then he let me pick him up. … Then he became an insatiable attention-whore. It wasn’t long before even requests for belly rubs were on his menu. He has since become one of our loviest, most affectionate cats.
There are still occasional hiccups with Sugar. He is occasionally aggressive with the other cats (usually during play), and he can be territorial. He has moments of freaking out with sudden movement and objects coming toward him quickly, largely because of the lack of depth perception he has with only one eye. By and large, though, he has adjusted beautifully and continues to steadily improve. We must truly have the blessing of Bast herself to have adopted and then been adopted by this no longer feral cat.
Thanks to all with FoF who gave us advice, encouragement, and support in catching Sugar!
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