Hey friends! A here!
For those who don’t know James, used to be a feral cat. In 2015 when I started a PhD program, I moved into a new apartment. E had been living in that same complex for about a year and we were excited to live so close together.
Shortly after E moved in, we noticed several feral cats lived outside the apartment. Most were black but there was one in particular that caught my eye. It was a skinny orange tabby, and E and I both thought it was a cute little cat.
Moreover, we decided the cat was a boy. Typically, orange cats are male so we thought there was a good chance this one was too. So after some brainstorming, we named her James. The perfect name for an Irish ginger cat (the story my head made up).
Turns out, we were wrong. A month or so after I moved in, I met a downstairs neighbor who informed me they had occasionally cared for James and her kittens.
Oh.
By that point, I had been feeding her for a while and James already responded to her name so I knew it was too late to change her name. She also was coming around whenever I was outside with the dogs and I felt like she was a part of my family. I decided then that I had to trap that cat and hopefully adopt her, or at the very least TNR her so she could live a safe life.
As we have mentioned before, TNR stands for Trap-Neuter-Return and is a great way to reduce the feral cat population while reaping the benefits of community cats. So E and I got together and conspired several ways to trap James. We tried humane traps, drop traps, luring her into E’s first story apartment, and even just trying to grab her. No matter what we did, we could not catch her; she outsmarted us at every turn.
Instead, James got pregnant 4 times over 2 years, each litter basically given to me by James, stories that I will tell later on. I will say, though, that each litter was younger than the last when I would first encounter them. After her 4th litter, something seemed different about her. She had birthed the two kittens right out front of the building and immediately left them. I bottlefed both but unfortunately neither made it. And worse, James seemed more lethargic and much skinnier than she had before.
E and I talked and decided to try the humane trap again. We made signs about James and told people not to feed her so that we could force her to seek food in the trap. After three days, we finally had her.
When we got her inside, she was terrified and unhappy. She bashed her face against the trap trying to escape and then curled in the corner of my spare bathroom when we let her out. I was really worried for her, but I hoped that all the time I had spent outside working to gain her trust would pay off.
See, over the last two years, I had worked really hard to create a bond with this cat. I fed her, talked to her, sat outside and shared food (she loves Taco Bell taco meat) with her. I called for her when I took the dogs out in the morning and said goodnight when we did our final walk each night.
And that work paid off. By her next day inside, James was purring and making biscuits on her new bed. A day or so after that, I got my very first head butt from her. My heart exploded with love and as I planned for James’ vaccines and spaying, I also made arrangements to keep her.
While at the vet, she freaked out though and I decided that I would tip her ear like they do for TNR. She had to recover from being fixed inside and I figured if she was unhappy inside during that time, I would be able to freely release her to her colony without worrying about her health anymore.
Lucky for me, James decided she wanted to stay and the rest is history. She’s still not 100% sure about everything but she’s extremely curious and has taken up some fun habits like watching my toilet flush.
Ok, I’m tearing up now so that’s where I’ll end this. I love James so much and I’m so thankful that E kept helping and advising me on how to bond with James. She’s such a sweet and affectionate cat and I’m glad to give her a happy home.
Have you ever rescued a cat? I wanna know all about it! Let me know in the comments down below!
