because at the beginning of July, I also adopted a young, feral short-haired black boy kitty, though mine is a young adult. (By the way, solid black short-hairs are usually at least part Siamese--perhaps even always, though no one is quite sure about that.)
Here is my new kitty's story:
Over the past several months I have noticed a handsome black short-haired cat in the neighborhood. He was shy, but seemed to want to be friendly. He always meowed at me as I passed by, and sometimes as I walked around the neighborhood, I got the feeling that he was following me at a distance but afraid to get too close. Sometimes I would see him lying in the sun across the street on a neighbor's porch, but that neighbor is elderly and doesn't come out much, so I now believe the cat probably hung out there because it was a nice place in the sun where no one would disturb him.
Well, at 8:00 p.m. on July 2, he was standing by my porch when I returned from my evening walk. As I approached the porch, he dodged around the corner of the building, but then peeked back around to meow at me. I sat down on the porch steps and sweet-talked him into letting me pet him. Once I got that close to him, I could tell he was a neutered male. He had a small bald spot below his jaw on one side that was bare of fur, from a healed battle wound that had not yet gotten to the point to where fur would grow back. He also had a notch in his right ear--also from a fight, I assumed at the time.
When I opened the door to go into the apartment, he stood there on my porch and talked rather vociferously at me. He clearly did not want me to leave him alone out there, so I offered to let him in, an offer he eagerly accepted, much to the chagrin of my 3 indoor kitty girls.
Since he was neutered, healthy, and obviously not starving, I assumed he had an owner, so I was going to check around to see if I could find his people. Meanwhile, though, I decided he could stay inside for the night, since in the evenings before the 4th of July some people were shooting off the occasional firecracker, and I have known of too many pets that get lost because the noise scares them into running away.
Despite several days of searching, I was unable to find an owner, even though everyone in the neighborhood had seen him around--on both sides of the street, and for a block or more in either direction.
I checked with the local Humane Society, too. The woman I spoke with there told me that the notch in his right ear was actually sign that he was probably feral. Many groups that try to control the feral cat population by catching, neutering, and then releasing feral cats will put that notch into the right ear to show that the cat has already been neutered.
In other words, the handsome young fellow didn't have a home or a person to call his own.
So, since he was a sweetie and had no home, I adopted him. He is an adult but young; I guessed he was about 1½ to 2 years old. When I took him to the vet for an exam, tests, and shots, the vet confirmed my age guess, so I gave him my birthday (Aug. 18) and am calling him 2 years old as of that date. I named him Tico (a shortened form of gatico, which is Spanish for "kitten"
. i didn't even have to pay to have him neutered, since that had already been taken care of despite his feral status.
Tico is a large kitty--tall and long. And although he is a solid black cat, with a head shape that marks him as obviously part Siamese, he does have a small white patch, about the size of a quarter, on his tummy right in front of his genitals.
At first he seemed not to know how to play, but I assume now that was because he was nervous in a new home with someone he didn't know well and with 3 annoyed girl cats who were always glaring at him. Now he plays like a champ.
He also eats like a hog-piggie. I have always left bowls of several different flavors of dry cat food out for my cats, because I hate that their indoor lives limit them, so I try to do various things to counter boredom. But Tico, who was already a healthy weight to begin with, gained a whole pound, going from 11.4 to 12.4 pounds in just the three weeks between the vet visit for his first shots and the visit for his booster shots!
I am trying to figure out a way to allow my girl cats (ages 4, 9, and 9½ ) to have the always open dry food buffet they are accustomed to without allowing Tico to turn into a fat cat.
Since he was an adult feral cat, I couldn't immediately turn him into a full-time indoor cat. I have had him microchipped, and I do let him out each day, but only if he actually goes to the door and asks to go out. I keep a bowl of fresh water on the porch for him, and he stays close to home most of the time. I check on him regularly, and if I don't see him around for more than an hour, I call for him. Since the whole neighborhood has been his territory his whole life, I know he is going to patrol his space, but I want to train him to stay close to home and not to go very far from my apartment or for very long.
About 2 weeks after I adopted him, he came in with a small wound on the side opposite the wound he had when I first found him. This wound was still damp, so I assume he had been in a fight just a short time before coming home to be let back into the apartment. He probably got into a fight with another cat. (In fact, about 2 weeks ago I broke up a fight between him and another neighborhood cat who had come into our yard.)
After showing up with that wound, he hardly even wanted to go out for almost a week. Some days he wouldn't go out at all. A few days he went out for a short time, stayed close to the porch or right on it, and then came back in within the hour. I think he was a bit shaken by that fight.
Over the past few days our temperature has soared. After surprisingly moderate June and July temperatures, our August temps have been in the high 90s, with heat indexes from 102° to 111°. Tico will go to the door, but when I open it he usually sticks his nose out and then says, "I don't think so," and stays inside. When he does go out, he doesn't stay out long. (I check on him outside even more frequently when it is this hot, because animals can suffer from heat exhaustion and heat stroke, too.)
Lucy, my 4-year-old Siamese kitty, is very playful and kittenish. She and Tico are not yet playmates, but they are obviously working on it. From time to time, one will stalk the other, clearly looking for an opening to play, but neither fully trusts the other enough to allow a real game to develop yet. When Lucy is the one doing the stalking, she will actually playfully slap at his haunches as she follows him around.
A couple of times they have actually chased each other playfully through the apartment for a couple of minutes, though it hasn't lasted long enough to be a true game yet. I am hoping that as he spends more time inside, they will get to know and trust each other better, and his lack of outdoor stimulation will prompt him to look to Lucy for playtime.
So that is the story of my formerly feral short-haired black boy kitty. You and I are lucky. Those little boys will bring us years of joy and companionship.
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