Sophie's Choice (Although It Turned Out Not What You'd Expect)

As long as we had seven cats, and one of them very elderly, I was able to control my need to take in the feral cats who came around for food. I didn't want the most senior cat to be bothered by the squabbling of a newcomer when she was in her declining years, which seemed to last for two years, from the time she was 15 to when she finally died at 17.

I had made that mistake once before, although I couldn't help it. I had a unaffectionate 16 year old cat when my boyfriend moved in with his two year-old cats, and she didn't like it one bit. Her last year was spent just avoiding them in our tiny apartment. I am sorry for that, Yoda.

I am not above temptation, though. I tried to bring in Blackie once last year and put him in a big cage, thinking once all the other cats got to smell him, all would be well, but he was so horribly terrified, I felt bad for him and let him out. After that, he never let me touch him again until he got sick a year later. Then it was too late. He was on our front porch faithfully in the early morning when we left for work and when we came home from work, waiting for food. Then he would leave. He tried moving into our backyard at night and sitting on the upper deck, but Kira, one of my semi-house cats, went out on the deck in the middle of the night often, and I guess it became territorial, not that she would have minded the company. He did mind. And sometimes there was even a possum up there, so there was that.

Blackie was a tuxedo cat, mostly black with a white chest and white feet, his back legs white like knee socks, his front legs just a little like ankle socks. He was small, but muscularly built like most unfixed male cats. He was friendly, but not if you tried to touch him. Then he cringed and backed off.

It was hard keeping track of the tuxedo cats who came around. For a couple of years, there was the first one, Sylvester, who was always very vocal and never hung around for food or tried to get too close. Kira liked him and would go out on dates with him, following him wherever he went when he came around in the early evening. He would bring her back by bedtime and go on his way. Then we stopped seeing him. 

When Blackie starting appearing, more willing than Sylvester to take a hand-out, we thought maybe it was Sylvester's son. There was another one, too, also an unfixed male with similar black and white coloring, and a much larger head (aka, Whiteface, he still passes through as of 2014). Blackie didn't like him, and he only came through one winter season with Hitler, a gray and white unfixed male with the mustache inspiring his name. I once saw Hitler and the big headed tuxedo across the main road in a yard that was often frequented with a variety of cats, so I assumed after Blackie made the winning bid to eat at our house, they moved on.

Over the past year, we've seen two dead black and white cats on the main road that goes past our neighborhood, so there might have been others in this tuxedo tribe that tried living several blocks down and didn't have much luck. For weeks after each sighting, I'd have to find another way home so I didn't drive by the spot.

Then came the little solid black female we called Black Girl, and later BeeGee because Black Girl is so inappropriate. She came by every few days, always so hungry, she was willing to hang in when Blackie tried to shoo her away, so we would put her bowl on one side of the driveway and his on the porch. We thought surely she belonged to someone. After she had been coming around periodically throughout a winter and spring season, and never seemed to be pregnant, we figured she was fixed. 

The neighbors claimed she belonged to a house halfway down the block, and that house had been abandoned for just about the same amount of time BeeGee was running around the block looking for hand-outs. Did the owners move out and leave their cat behind? That sad possibility made my husband feel more affection for BeeGee than trying to rescue any of the males, so he became my partner in crime again as we tried bringing her in. Every time we gave in to her cries to go out, she disappeared for days, but then would come back. Did she live with other people somewhere else?

At the end of this summer, Blackie rejected all the food we offered. He didn't want the leftovers from the house cat's bowls. He didn't want dry food. He didn't want fresh out of the can food. We tried everything, and he didn't eat. He showed up out of habit, but didn't eat. He didn't roll over with happiness when he saw us. He just walked dejectedly up to the porch, stared at the food and left. I felt he was sick. Two or three years outside usually is all a feral or abandoned cat can do.

I tried bringing him in again, but with BeeGee closed up in my spare bedroom -- she and the resident cats had not made peace yet -- I was running out of room. I put Blackie in the laundry room, but he was clearly miserable and still didn't eat. When my husband came home, he was not happy that I had yet another feral in the house, and then we found he had befouled the laundry room with some pungent diarrhea and was in hiding. When I opened the laundry room side door to the outside, he came out and took off. 

I feel like he's dying. Our 17-year-old cat, Red, stopped eating on a Tuesday and was dead by Friday, so I figured this was Blackie's end, too, and I wanted to offer him the laundry room as a hospice, but I guess that was too terrifying for him. I feel so sad that he is meeting his end under someone's porch or in the woods, but there's nothing I can do. I can't spend hours searching for him throughout this whole neighborhood. And even if I found him, he doesn't want me picking him up, and he is afraid of the house, not comforted by it. So what can I do? Nothing.

With Red gone, we had room for one and we made the Sophie's Choice to pick BeeGee, who is not terrified of the indoors, just annoyed that there's other cats here. If she can adjust to that situation, she might have a home.

Update: Blackie recovered from whatever it was that made him tired and as of November 2013, still shows up morning and evening for meals. BeeGee, meanwhile, still has not adjusted to the other cats and lives alone in my office/bedroom, closed up all day. In the spring, I will have to let her back out to live the life she wants.

Second Update: It may not be Sophie's choice after all. In the winter of 2014, I was able to actually catch Blackie one day and get him in a cage. It was surprisingly easy. I forgot all about being home sick and went into action, calling every vet and rescue group in the area looking for someone who could neuter him and get him some shots that day. The only one who came through was Locke Taylor DVM, a group that's becoming my go-to vet. They got him in and out that same day. He hid under a sofa when he got back home to recover and we let him out the next morning. He was back for dinner that evening, apparently fine without his testicles.

As the months progressed, he became more and more friendly and we've been bringing him in at night. Sometimes there's some hissing, but mostly the other cats are adjusting. He's adjusting better than BeeGee, actually, who still won't walk on the floor or get near the other cats. She's moved her bed from my office to our walk-in closet where she sullenly sleeps when not making attempts to get near the back door and make her escape. She goes back to her original house now that the weather is warm and stays under the porch or in the backyard until my husband goes to get her.

In honor of being absorbed into the collective, we have changed Blackie's name to the more politically correct Mackie.

Blackie now Mackie and without his testicles

BeeGee