More than just two cats in the yard May 9, 2024
The cat situation has not improved since we chose to let
Tuck back outside.
While we already took in as a house cat one of his former adversaries,
there are always new males to replace old in this wild kingdom.
When we moved into the former police chief’s house, we only
had three outside cats, all left over from some litter we inherited but never
met the parents: two black cats and one tiger cat. One of our neighbors adopted
one of the black cats (which was pregnant when they adopted her and has since
produced a litter of her own they kept as well).
We do not know what happened to the second black cat. But
the tiger cat remained a resident in our yard for a long time, even as other
more furious males such as Tuck began to appear.
Although we called the cat “tiger kiddy brother,” we
eventually gave him another name, “Garfield” because of his tendency to jump
onto our window screens and cling there, causing one screen to tear so
completely that two of our inside cats made their escape. I got Ginger back
easily enough, but Nod hide in the high grass, and remained outside for the
whole of winter, until I lured him back inside (this was his fourth excursion,
three of which took place at the old house, once when he was still a kitten and
his mother tore a hole in the screen to recapture the three kittens we had
brought inside and had intended to find families for. He also escaped twice due
to a tear in the screen door, recaptured both times via animal trap, much more
wary this time.)
Tuck, who was the neighborhood bully, seemed unconcerned
with Kitty Brother or Nod, but focused his wrath on a black and white cat we
named Ralph (whose female and fixed companion we named Alice – yes from The
Honeymooners). Ralph was terrified of Tuck and with good reason, both often
bloodied by their interaction.
Kiddy brother vanished at some point. As did Ralph.
During this period, another female cat (also fixed) appeared
and she was so similar in markings to Nod, we kept mistaking her for him, and
eventually named her “Snotty” for “It’s not Noddy,” and for a long time, she
lived in the heated house we have near our back door, a house Alice later took
over, even before we lured Snotty into the house so we had both Noddy and Snoddy
as house cats.
Ralph vanished soon after only to be replaced as Tuck’s arch
enemy by an exotic long haired cat we called “Sweeney,” and who became so
wounded in his conflict with Tuck, we took him in, got him to the vet and fixed.
A tough alpha male we called Tom appeared on the scene, and
the battles between him and Tuck became the stuff of legend, and resulted in
Tuck being so badly wounded, we took him in, got him to the vet, which did not
want to deal with him because he was unmanageable. We got him shots, but his
paw remains damaged to this day. He remained in our house separated from our
other cats for the whole of the winter, until he began to get so restless we
had to let him out.
But a new Alpha male stalks him and I’ve already broken up
two potentially violent fights between them, as they both lay claim to our yard
as their turf.
Tuck is too old to be fighting young turks, and yet, still
wants to.
Scars decorate his gray body like war medals. We let him in
and out because it is too risky to keep him in. But I keep expecting him not to
return some day, something extremely sad because Tuck is one of my favorite
cats of all time.
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