The Saga of Cricket the Cat

 So I think I forgot to tell you guys, what with Christmas and the ongoing catastrophe that is government, but we have a new cat (!). This makes a total of three. Her name is Cricket and she is, we think, about ten years old. Here she is.  That's the photographer in the background there, too.  

Cricket is, or was, my neighbor's cat. I have actually known her since she was a kitten. I was feeding several ferals, and she would come over to get snacks. Gradually, I began to notice that she was coming over all the time. At some point, I had become her sole source of food, apart from things she might catch (I saw her running like hell after a rat once, and that was one lucky rat because he was able to dodge into a hole at the last second. Unfortunately, the hole was in the side of my house. So had to get that fixed and rat removed.  So maybe unlucky rat).

Anyway, I kept feeding her. For years. She was always outside. A couple of times she came up to me during driving rainstorms and yowled. I would grab her and put her in the laundry room overnight, then let her out in the morning when the rain stopped. When the nights got very cold, I did the same thing. I could not figure out what was going on next door, but I can speculate.

A. They have young kids. I think their youngest at the time was about three. Young kids and cats rarely get along unless they are properly supervised. Young kids tend to want to grab cats, especially their tails, and cats are less than happy about being grabbed most of the time. Especially their tails. B. They got a dog. So what I'm speculating here is that the cat probably got grabbed once too often and swiped at one of the kids, or didn't get along with the dog, or both. So from then on she had to live outside, and at some point they even quit feeding her.

(I don't, by the way, want you to think that my neighbors are horrible people. They're not. They manage four kids in a house the same size as ours and their kids are not only clean and well-cared for but, that rare thing, happy. I always hear them laughing and playing. They are from a different culture and they have different views of pets. Which is unfortunate for Cricket, but her story ends happily. Read on.)

About six months or so ago, Cricket disappeared (!). She was like clockwork every morning at seven, but I didn't see her for three days. I went out looking for her, calling and checking under bushes and around the house. (Cats usually don't go far.) I also went over to the neighbors' and asked them if they'd seen their cat. (The kid who answered the door said, "What cat?")

I did not find her, but the next morning she finally turned up, so she must have heard me calling. She was obviously sick. I packed her up and took her to the vet. She had an infection, which they treated with antibiotics, and a fever. In doing the blood work, though, the vet discovered that she had feline leukemia.

Feline leukemia, in case you did not know this, is a disease that can kill you but usually doesn't. It makes you more prone to infections and other problems, can cause kidney failure, and you really don't want it, but once you have it, you can pretty much live a slightly shorter span of years than a regular cat, as long as you have good nutrition and good veterinary care. It is also, annoyingly, a totally preventable condition that a simple vaccine would have fixed. Now, I know Cricket is spayed. If she weren't I'd have Kitten City every summer and I don't. So she's clearly been to a vet at least once before me. Why she wasn't vaccinated at the time, I have no idea.

The vet said that, categorically, she should no longer be outside. Any other cats that encountered her, and more importantly got bitten by her in a fight, were in danger of also getting feline leukemia if they were not vaccinated. Here I had a problem, because my big male, Grayson, has an Issue with Cricket. It started some years ago when he saw her and managed to get out of the house. He chased her, they fought and she handed his ass to him. He ended up at the vet getting some stitches. So obviously he did not want her in the house with him. (Though, ironically, her feline leukemia was really not a problem because both my guys are vaccinated. This reduces the risk of transmission down to almost nothing, though Grayson and Artemis would need to get regular boosters forever.)

So I began putting her in the laundry room every night and started a campaign to get her into a shelter or a foster home. This was not easy because A. she is not young and B. she has feline leukemia. I wrote to shelters and cat rescues all over the state. I quickly narrowed down the number of rescue outfits to about seven, all outside of Dallas, because they were the only ones that took feline leukemia positive cats. All of them were full. I wrote to them again a few months later. All of them were full. I guess I could have kept doing this until the end of recorded time, but two things happened while that was going on.

The first thing was that, despite logic to the contrary and several Big Discussions with Joan, I got emotionally involved with Cricket. She is a sweet cat. She likes people, likes to be petted and held, and as long as you treat her gently and don't mess with her tail, she loves you. She was also, you gotta admit, in a very bad situation through really no fault of her own. And also potentially sick. I have a long and sordid track record of standing up for people and other beings that are being treated unfairly.

The second thing was that Cricket disappeared again. She didn't show up for her evening feed and to be put in the laundry room one night, and it happened to be the night we had a big storm.

I barely slept. If she disappeared again and never came back, I didn't know what I would do. I was frantic the first time. I could NOT handle it happening a second time. Fortunately, she was there in the morning. She was also soaking wet. And that was it. I grabbed her, put her back in the laundry room, and just didn't let her out again.

After which Joan and I had a big fight. Because, you know, Joan woke up in the morning and we had a third cat, after I'd specifically been trying to find another solution all this time. (I said "I'm sorry" a lot.) Joan was most concerned about maintaining harmony in the household, especially considering our big male. (Like a Muslim husband, it is my job to maintain harmony in the household. Says so in the Koran.) So it was up to me to find some way to integrate the cats.

Right around this time, I finally got an intake application from one of the cat rescues.

I deleted it.

And I took Cricket back to the vet, got her other shots, got her microchipped, and she's our cat now. In essence, I stole my neighbors' cat. Though, if they were looking for her, they could have come over here and asked, since they know I was looking for her before. Or put up posters or something.

Integration has been challenging. At first we kept Cricket in the laundry room with the door closed and the cat door (conveniently located in the door between the laundry room and the kitchen) also closed. Then I began opening the door halfway, so that the cats could see each other but not touch. As of now I've pretty much removed the locking panel. Cricket can come and go as she pleases, but she still spends most of her time down there. She comes up into the kitchen when Grayson is not around, because he tends to growl and hiss at her, though he does it from ten feet away. Grayson is all hat and no cattle.

(Artemis, my diva kitty, oddly does not care. She's not getting all buddy-buddy with Cricket or anything, but for the most part she's like, "Eh. Another cat. Whatevs.")

One time, Grayson attacked the cat door after Cricket went back through it. After he'd swatted it with his paw a half-dozen times, he turned around to leave the kitchen. Cricket popped back through the cat door, SWATTED HIM ON THE BACKSIDE, and disappeared through the cat door again. Grayson spun around, didn't see her, and looked wildly around for several seconds, his fur puffed up like a punk rock Mohawk. I laughed for about ten minutes. Cricket is not putting up with his shit.

Another time, quite recently, I picked Cricket up to give her a little skritch to the head and she FELL ASLEEP on me. She was purring, and the purr got softer and softer, and then she went all boneless. She probably slept that way, with her head on my shoulder, for half an hour. I had no idea she trusted me that much. I mean, we barely know each other.

So, anyway, we have a third cat. It was not planned, it just happened. This has to be the max, though. We're outnumbered now. And if we have to evacuate in a hurry, one of us is gonna have to carry two cats.

Guess that'd be me. Says so in the Koran.