A CAT TALE

A CAT TALE


Today the neighbors 3 Jack Russel Terriers ganged up on a big stray wild yellow tabby tomcat that has been eating at our barn this summer. It was brutal as he tried to escape up a tree and the dogs repeatedly pulled him down. At first I thought he would get away, no problem. He was a real fighter! But as I watched I began to realize he was out-numbered and out-maneuvered. We had to do something.

This was a harder decision than it first appears to be because he wasn’t a tame cat and he probably was contributing to some ill health in my feline population. I didn’t really want the cat and selfishly I thought they were taking care of the problem by running him off so I wouldn’t have to. At first I tried to ignore the fuss. Most of these squabbles end quickly with the cat 25 ft up a tree. That wasn’t happening. I began to feel concerned and decided, enough already, get out of here, and tried to scare them away. They were hyped-up, full of the adrenaline of the chase and ensuing capture, so they hardly noticed me. By now a friend had joined me in chasing off the dogs. A moment of freedom allowed the cat to run to a nearby brush pile where he hunkered down. At first this seemed like a good idea but the dogs persistence continued and they pressed into the brush and attacked again. I thought it was hopeless and couldn’t stand to watch what I thought was sure to happen. But then my friend pick up a big stick and started thrashing the dogs away, which sent them running into the nearby corn field.

We checked to see if the cat was mortally wounded. He was lying motionless on his side, stuck between some branches, growling with his distressed cat voice. We thought it best to leave him alone to recover from his attack and went back into the barn. Just a few minutes later we heard him fighting off the dogs once again. This time we ran to his aid with forks in hand and again drove off the vicious dogs. My friend started to dig the cat out of the brush. The cat wasn’t moving but he was breathing and still growling a little. We had to try to move him or the dogs would be back to finish the job. But this is a WILD cat? How could we do that without us getting hurt?

I ran to the house to find something and grabbed a big blanket and some leather gloves. When I got to the brush pile I nobly handed them to my friend who placed the blanket over the cat and picked him up. He was limp. There was no fight left in him. He was quiet too for the first time. There were pieces of his fur lying in the brush pile but we couldn’t see any bleeding or lacerations. Even if we could have seen something I doubt that we could have done anything with him without further trauma. She took him into the warm haymow where he could hide and recover. We didn’t know if he could even move after his big ordeal. She set him down on the hay and took the blanket off. Instantly he realized his freedom and ran for cover.

As we reflected on this event later this morning we thought about the difficulty we had deciding what to do. The cat was unwanted and was making life more difficult for us. We didn’t want to help him at first and tried to look away. Life would be easier without him. Our hearts, however, could not turn away. In order to have the right emotion we needed to do the right thing, which meant getting involved, taking a risk, and standing up for the helpless, even though the problem wasn’t even ours. Hmmmm?