Tales of the Feral Cats: Tiger's Story

Now that I’ve gotten myself to sit down and focus on our tales again, I was debating on who to start out with. I considered starting our adventures with the latest addition, Cookie, since he is the one we are fundraising for to be able to continue to keep up with is care. But I opted to start at the beginning, with the first feral who decided to join our ranks – Tiger. I thought it more apropos, plus I can keep mentioning Cookie in every episode anyway until we get to his part in the tale, so it all works out in the end!

As I mentioned in the introduction, it was right around the time the pandemic was taking hold of the world that Tiger and what we presume are his two siblings, Patch and Scruff, began to make themselves noticed on our little cul de sac. It started out with spotting one of the orange boys walking through the neighbor’s bushes across the street, or popping out from the grove next to our driveway. Of course, how could we resist leaving a plate of food out for the poor little guy (or gal, as we just didn’t know at the time)? It’s strange how things tend to work out. Had Marley not passed away a few months before hand, we probably never would have had the opportunity to see the ferals at this point, if at all, and have the extra bowls laying around to use to supply them with the food and water. One of our other neighbors had mentioned seeing kittens roaming around the back of her house when they had moved in a few years beforehand, and we all started to wonder if the orange one we were seeing could have been part of this litter. At this point, what we thought was the one we were seeing appeared to be a full sized cat, so that would have put their age at around two or three years old, so the timing could have fit.

Anyway, it was maybe a week or so after we started putting the food out and keeping a closer watch to see when he would come by to eat that we noticed the lone orange wanderer had a friend. I remember looking out of the kitchen window checking out the bowl were we normally left it – at the edge of the grove next to our driveway and seeing the orange cat eating. I don’t recall if we had named him at this point or if it wasn’t until after we confirmed the presence of all three. But Patch was the one eating at the time, so as I observed him chowing down, I noticed a face peeking out from the bushes a few feet away from Patch and the bowl, and this turned out to be Tiger sitting there, waiting his turn. I did a double take because I wasn’t sure if I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing. But sure enough, there were two orange cats. I called the family over and they confirmed I wasn’t imagining it. Then as we were staring, we spotted a third guy back in the shadows next to the fence for our back yard in the grove.  So it was that we had a trio of orange wanderers gracing us with their presence.

By this point, we ended up naming all three of them as over the course of the following days and weeks, with more careful observations, and the bravery from the trio as they learned they had a safe place to wander and keep the bellies full with easy pickins, we were able to distinguish the three of them apart. Abby decided on the name for Tiger because, well, he looked like a miniature tiger, so it seemed to fit him perfectly. I came up with Patch and Scruff as the former had a distinct patch of white on his chest, and the latter seemed like he had been roughed up a bit every time we saw him, so had a very scruffy look about his face and fur. But it ended up being Tiger that seemed to hang around the most, and seemed to have more than a passing interest in me other than knowing that the food bowl came from my hand. He would often be waiting in the grove for the time I would come out in the morning to fill the bowl up before work, and then be there when I would refill it after coming home. He was still cautious, not leaving the security of the prickly bushes until I had stepped back a safe distance before coming out to eat. But over time, that safe distance began to grow smaller and smaller. It got to the point to where I was almost close enough to touch him when he was in the bushes without him running off when I got too close. One time, while I was in the backyard, Tiger came around into the yard through a gap in the fence from where a panel had fallen during a storm and we just left it to lean against the rest of the fence. He started to approach me and see what I was doing. The family were out sitting on the patio furniture, watching as he was approaching me. I sat down on the grass and he just came over and plopped down about a foot away from where my feet were resting. And there we sat for while just hanging out together.

The turning point occurred a few months later, during the summer when I had brought the bowl out one morning on my day off. All three were out in the grove waiting for the food quite impatiently as they were used to the normal very early AM feedings five days a week, so a late morning feeding was very late indeed for them, but sometimes I do get to sleep in once in a while. So I come on out and head over to the grove. By this time Patch and Scruff had begun to trust me a little more as well, but still not quite as much as Tiger. But they must have been especially hungry that morning as all three of them came out of the bushes when I put the bowl down and only took a step or two back to let them have at it. Patch and Scruff immediately jumped in, leaving Tiger to try to force his way into the bowl, but he was the less aggressive of the three, so kept getting pushed out. So he stood there, with is back to me, just looking on as his two brothers chowed down, and probably wondering if there would be any food left for him by the time they were done.

I felt bad for Tiger of course, so while he was unaware, reached down and stroked him along the back, telling him it was going to be OK. He jumped a little bit when I touched him, then looked back up at me as if to ask what had just happened, unsure of what he just felt. I told him it was OK again, and gave him another gentle stroke. At that point, Patch and Scruff, after having filled their bellies a bit, realized that I was still right there and that something was going on, so backed off into the grove again, and Tiger eagerly jumped at his opportunity. But that was all that was needed. After that moment, Tiger realized that I was someone he could fully trust, and get some good feels from as well. He and his brothers seemed have made a home underneath the elevated deck the next door neighbor to the grove had in their back yard, and every day after I got home from work, as soon as my car beeped when I locked the door, Tiger would come running around the corner of the fence, from the neighbor’s yard, through the grove and rub up against my legs and plop down for his daily petting.

It was also at that point that I really noticed that he had a strange gait when walking, and running especially. And when he would plop to the ground, it wasn’t this gentle sit to laying down motion, but one where his hind quarters would literally just fall to the ground and the front quarters would follow. It almost seemed that he didn’t have complete control or coordination over his back legs and hind quarters. When he would run, his gait would look almost like the back of a car skidding out on a patch of ice. I had recalled that there was some condition or disease that cats could contract that would cause this kind of disability and had looked it up at one point, but can’t recall it now off of the top of my head. I still wonder if this is the cause of Tiger’s unusual movement, but over the years, it doesn’t seem to be much of an issue otherwise. He still has no problem chasing the other invaders off of the bed at night, nor being able to jump up on the table or counters in search of more exciting things to eat.

Anyway, the daily pettings carried on from the summer into the fall, as Tiger showed more of his gentle and playful personality. Throughout September, he would always follow me to the back door that led to our kitchen, so I would sit on the steps after work as he would climb up to the top stop and plop for pettings. After the September chills started coming around, he began to just plop in my lap and wouldn’t move until I absolutely had to get up and get in the house for dinner. One time, he got so cozy on my lap that he fell asleep. I sat there watching him breath, and noticing a paw twitch with a dream every now and again. It was at that point that I was so grateful that he was there, and was something that made me feel good deep down inside, especially after what we had gone through for the last six months. Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t because of Marley, looking out over the rainbow bridge guiding the ferals and us together, knowing that we would need each other to help us through this time in our lives.

Not long after that, I started introducing Tiger to the kitchen door and Hershey, as she would always be on the other side, meowing as if I betrayed her. After a few weeks, as Fall really started to take hold, Tiger would be brave enough to come inside and hang out around the door, and even let Abby come over and pet him. He also started to get fed while inside as well – and not just the dry kibble, but the good stuff out of a can. Tiger realized pretty soon that being indoors was a good place to be, especially when it was raining or cold outside. But he still had that outdoor cat itching, and would always be waiting to go out after dinner. One day, when Shannon was coming home from work, a flurry had started up and the ground had a slight dusting of white upon it. As she got to the back door, she noticed Tiger off in the corner of the yard, where it was sheltered by an overhanging tree. She called his name, and he came running as she opening the door to go in. In he came, and he hasn’t really left since. That was the first time he stayed in the house overnight, and went out as I went to work in the morning. That became the ritual through the winter, and after one occasion where there was a slight drizzle one morning, he opted to stay in during the bad weather as well.

There was, however, one incident in early November, before Tiger got really comfortable staying too long in the house where Hershey must have smelled something strange on him and turned into Crazy Cat. She would do that every once in a while with Marley, and with me on one occasion after I had come in from mowing the lawn. She would just turn insane and growl like she was ready to commit murder. She did tear up my leg pretty badly that one time. I don’t know what it was, but she gave that growl after sniffing Tiger, and you could see the fear in his body. Then she went after him. The only thing I could do was open the door and let him run for his life. That was a bit of a set back as it took two weeks before I could finally coax him back into the house, and that was only after I had locked Hershey up in a bed room. Fortunately, there were only one or two other times where she had gone Crazy Cat on one of the ferals. After we finally got her spayed (because of all the spraying she did in the house after more of the ferals started showing up) she calmed way down – but that perhaps will be for a story of her own in the future.

That’s the way it went through the Winter and Spring. Tiger would come running when I got home from work, would come inside for dinner, then settle down for a cozy overnight stay – even going as far as picking out his favorite chair or spot on the bed. Then Summer came along and our annual vacation, which included a week’s trip to Hershey Park. I was in a bit of a quandary because Tiger was used to the routine of coming in and heading out on a daily basis, and he was pretty insistent on going out unless there was a pretty significant downpour going on. I didn’t feel real good about leaving for a week and having him just stay outside for that whole week. Normally my parents would come over and take care of Marley and Hershey during our vacations, but the pandemic had changed those plans, and there was no vacation away from home the summer previous because of that. By that time, I had made Tiger’s first vet appointment for the week prior to our vacation. Despite him having become a cuddly lap cat, he was deathly afraid of being picked up. So this appointment was going to be a house call. So at that point, I determined that we were just going to keep him inside to see how things went. First of course, he needed to stay in so he would be around for that appointment, but us being home for a week would allow for more observation and control of being able to keep him inside.

So Tiger was kept in the day before his appointment. He didn’t seem too upset about it, though we had to be very careful going in and out of the house as he would bolt for the door when he saw an opportunity. The appointment went well, though he was none too pleased of course. He got his shots and the vet recommended he stay in for observation in case there were any reactions, which worked out with our plans anyway. After the first couple of days, it seemed like Tiger settled into the fact that being a completely indoor cat wasn’t so bad after all. He survived the week, and both he and Hershey got used to the fancy new automatic feeding bowls I bought them for our time away. Since then, he has been a loving, and often entertaining, member of the family. I am so glad for that, and for the effort I made to be a companion to him. I think Tiger saved my life as much as I may have saved his.