Brando

Born:  July 25, 1997
Gender:  Male
Type:  Domestic Shorthair
Coloring:  Grey, White & Black Tabby
Origin of Name:  Marlon Brando
Nicknames:  Brando-Burger; Armadillo Kitty; Sheepy-Boy; Shovel Mouth
Unique Habits/Characteristics:  Superglues himself to my lap; extremely verbal
Diseases/Illnesses:  Chipped fang, bit missing from ear tip, low-grade chronic URI; urinary blockage

Brando is a very special guy, and the newest member of our furry family.  In September of 1999, I started noticing a couple of cats crossing my porch late at night.  Worried that they were abandoned strays who weren't getting enough food, I started leaving out food for them.  One of them was a huge orange-and-white cat, and the other was Brando.

With fall coming on, and then the hard winter, I hated the thought of these cats being outside and trying to survive.  They came every night to eat and drink the food and water I left for them.  It was plain that they were not loved by anyone, and had nowhere to stay.  It broke my heart.

I have rescued friendly strays before.  Most of them ended up staying with me, of course, but at five cats, I had decided that I could not take in any more.  I had rescued two cats in 1999, who had been placed in a shelter and were subsequently adopted.  But these two guys weren't friendly strays.  I tried several times to get close to them, but they bolted each time I opened the door.

I have a neighbor as of this writing who works as a veterinary assistant, and has done work in rescuing animals before.  Lora has all the basic equipment needed to trap and hold a feral or stray cat:  two small cages, a large cage, a Hav-a-Heart trap, and very thick gloves.  I decided I would try to trap one of the cats, get him neutered and try to place him in a shelter or a home.  With Lora's help, I gave it a shot.

I set out the trap and tried a little tuna fish.  I watched out the window as the two cats each sniffed around for a couple of days, but neither would enter the trap.  Finally, I decided to try catnip.  I set the trap, and checked it about 15 minutes later.  There, trapped inside, was Brando.

I rushed outside and brought the trap in, with Brando hissing and growling like a wildcat.  I put him upstairs in what has, at various times, been our Guest Room, our Computer Room, our No Cats Allowed Room, and our Cat Isolation Room.  It was now the Cat Isolation Room.

Luckily, Lora arrived home very shortly thereafter and got my message on her machine.  She said she'd be glad to come down and help me get him into one of the small cages.

Brando was fit to be tied.  He had both of us nervously donning gloves and trying to figure out the best way to get him from trap to cage.  Each time we approached the trap, he struck out.  If I ever needed anything to remind me that even domestic cats have their roots in the wild, Brando was certainly reminding me now.  I could feel his stark terror and pure survival instinct expressing outwardly towards us.

Somehow, eventually, we got him from the trap to the cage.  Then came the more terrifying job of trying to slide a small cardboard box inside a plastic bag filled with litter, and a small mug of water and dish of food, into the cage without losing a hand.  He hissed, he spat, he growled, he struck out.  But he stayed in the back of the cage, and I was able to get the necessities in the cage with him.  Whew.

I don't really know that Brando was a feral.  From what I understand, the definition of a feral cat is a wild domestic cat who has never had contact with humans, and who lives in groups in large cities.  I immediately felt that Brando had, at one time, lived with a human.  But somehow, he had been lost or dumped, a long time ago, and now was wild.  I don't know if that makes him a feral, a semi-feral, or just a domesticated cat gone wild, but wild was certainly the word.

So, of course, his name came to me.  Brando.  "The Wild One".  He also reminded me of the end of "On the Waterfront", when Marlon Brando is all beaten up.  My Brando had a bit of ear missing at the tip, and a chipped fang.  He was filthy, covered in dirt, with some oil on his tail.

I had never dealt with a feral, semi-feral, or wild domestic cat before.  I had no idea what I was doing.  I just knew I didn't want him to freeze to death, or be run over, or die of disease on the street.

I had some vague idea that I needed him to connect me with mama cat, and with food.  I started out by giving him dry food in a small dish, but also by giving him a little tuna fish off a spoon.  When he ate that, I started giving him tuna fish directly from my fingers.  He'd eat it, while growling the entire time.  But he ate it.

The first time I tried to change the little makeshift litterbox, I was terrified.  I called Lora, and asked if she could help.  With that second cage, we could move him from one cage to the other and put the clean litter in; much easier than trying to take the old one out and put it back in again.  Unfortunately, Brando didn't think it was the best idea.  We put the two cages together, doors open, and tried to entice him with food.  He wouldn't budge.  We tried lifting one cage up and tilting it; he still wouldn't budge.  We tried using a stick to gently tap his rear-end and get him to move.  Nothing.  Finally, Lora decided he was uncomfortable with both of us there, and she moved out of his vision range.  Slowly, but finally, he took the food bait and was in the other cage.

After that, I decided it was less stressful to just swiftly pull the litterbox out and leave him in one cage.  I felt badly about him being in a small cage; he really didn't have much room in there, but he also seemed to feel safe in there.

Slowly, he started showing some interest in his environment and in me.  I started dangling a little handmade cloth toy on the end of a string through the cage bars, and he would take a swipe at it, grab it in his paws, and chew on it a bit.  I started putting my fingers slowly and gently in the cage when there was no food on them, and he began sniffing them without growling (at least part of the time).  And the sweetest thing he did that gave me hope that he would be socialized in time was this:  I would lay two fingers down towards the bottom of the cage, and he would reach out and gently put his paw on my fingers for a second.

He did scratch me five times before it was all said and done.  I learned quickly how to read his mood and posture, and quickly back off if he was ready to strike.  The last time he scratched me was actually my fault;  I was trying to put a bit of catnip in the cage through the side bars instead of the top.  Yep, he got so excited he got my hand.

After a few weeks, I felt very strongly that he was getting extremely unhappy being in the small cage, and was ready to move on.  I called Lora, and she was willing to loan me her big cage (it's actually a dog cage), which took up a good quarter of the Cat Isolation Room.  We got it set up, and got him into it without too much of a problem.

He seemed happy with his new surroundings.  He had plenty of room now, and could go to the back of the cage and feel safe whenever he wanted.  He got a bigger cardboard litter box, and even a cushion for him to lay on.

Thanksgiving Day, he let me pet him for the first time.  That we happened to also give him turkey later that day was just a coincidence.  He was hesitant, and I only did it for a couple of seconds, but he was fine.  And we continued to build up the petting, slowly, over the next few weeks.

Lora was kind enough to give me a tube of Advantage, and I managed to get it on him while petting him.  Once he realized he had something cold and wet on the back of his neck, he was pretty ticked off.  He was mad at me for four days after that.

But he recovered.  And the day after Christmas, he purred for the first time as I petted him.  He'd come a long way, but still had a ways to go.

In the meanwhile, I was trying to save up money to get him neutered, tested and vaccinated.  When I finally had it, I made an appointment, but they were booked for a solid month.  So we waited another month.

When the day came for Brando's Big Adventure, Lora came down and helped me get him to the vet.  I had gotten him into the small cage the day before with the help of a little food, so we didn't have to deal with traumatizing him further that morning.

When I called the vet, I was nervous, praying he'd tested negative for Feline Leukemia and FIV, and praying he had made it through the neutering okay.  I was so relieved when they told me he tested negative and was doing just fine.

Lora and I went to pick him up, and the lady at the front desk sent someone back to get him.  She came back out without him, and said "Ummm -- they want *you* to come back and get him."  Uh-oh.  He was not really socialized yet, nor had his hormones yet decreased to calm him further.  I assumed he was terrorizing the vet staff.

We went back, and he was in their cage, the same Brando I had trapped two months earlier:  hissing, growling, striking out.  He was holding five people at bay (and four of them were professionals!).  The staff wouldn't even open his cage; I had to do it.  I put the small cage up to the opening, but he hid in the back and wouldn't budge.  Finally, one of the staff dangled a rope toy in front of him while the other held Lora's cage, and as he darted towards the rope to lash out, he suddenly found himself in the cage ready to go home.

By the time we got out to the lobby, he was calmer.  By the time we got home and he was back in his big cage, he was perfectly content.

He recovered beautifully, and was just past the one-week confinement period when Lora called and said she needed the big cage, as she had just rescued a dog and her two puppies.  I was going to wait until the vaccinations had completely kicked in, but that wasn't to happen.  My husband and I tore down the big cage, and Brando suddenly found himself free to wander in an entire room.

We kept him in the room for another week or so.  He quickly turned into a normal cat, laying on the bed, coming for dinner, coming up to let me pet him.  He wasn't so sure about my husband, but was getting used to him, at least.

For the most part, they did.  There was a little hissing and spitting, but Brando turned out to be a pretty non-threatening cat in terms of the others.  It took very little time for them to accept him.

There was one problem.  We already had five cats.  I didn't trap Brando to keep him.  I needed to find him a home.

The shelters weren't an option.  They were either full, or they would have put him down.  One shelter (Cozy Cat Cottage) was kind enough to put me in touch with a man who was looking for a male barn cat.  I spoke with him very early on, and he didn't even seem to understand about testing for Feleuk and FIV.  He certainly didn't offer to help with the neutering/testing/vaccination costs.  I told him I'd let him know.  By the time Brando had gone through all that, I knew that he should not be a barn cat.  He was too social, too enamored of petting, too much like a happy house cat.  I couldn't send him to a barn.

I tried putting up flyers in veterinary offices, but got no response.  I tried posting on newsgroups, and got some great ideas.  Only one problem:  by then, it struck me that we were too deeply bonded with each other, and I wanted to keep him.  And so I informed my husband one night that we *were* keeping him.

So now we had six cats, and Brando is now a huge, meatloaf, lap cat.  He curls up with us in bed at night, jumps on my lap almost anytime I sit down on the couch, "meeps" at me, and is just generally a delight.  He also makes a weird sheep-like noise at feeding time which has earned him the nickname "Sheepy Boy".  He recently acquired the nickname "Shovel Mouth" at dinner, as I watched him shove his face into Internet's bowl, and move away before I yelled at him, with his open mouth full of food, which, of course, went flying everywhere.  He is one funny big guy.

He might be stubborn, but he's extremely intelligent and the most communicative cat I've known since Sonia.  I hope he'll be with us a very long time.
 

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