Cattus Dommus Catticide

I'm not sure how long Jersey has been living on this block. I have a photo (which I can't find) that I took that first winter I met him, which was, I believe, during my Christmas visit the year Girl-Child was born -- hence, he's been around since at least 2000. He was eating just outside the front door, with snow behind him and a full, thick winter coat that plumped him up to twice the size he appeared in the summer.

Since then, the years have shown. Fighting and possibly ear mites lost him his left ear about 4 years ago. The last couple of years, his winter coat has been full, but less groomed, deeply matted. And he has shed all that winter coat in one go -- looking literally like someone has shaved him down to the skin, but then left just enough attached to his back legs. You'd see him racing down the driveway in late March, a pink and white chihuahua of cat, dragging a pair of felted of black and white sweaters behind him like oversized fur accessories.

Over the years, we've tried to catch him a few times, but he's been too wary to even approach a trap, and too strong to be caught by it. It is estimated that there are over 20,000 feral cats in this city -- the weather is temperate enough that they easily survive the winters. Around 2005, Al, who lived next door, took some care to make friends with Jersey, taming him more successfully than any of us, so that for the first time ever, the cat would let you within 10 feet rather than running away on sight. Al's goal was to tame him completely and have him move inside, but then Al died.

(Jersey outside and Tasha inside)

We took over. I have mentioned building a little blanket-lined shelter for Jersey just outside my window, next to the cat door. In the last two winters, Jersey could often be seen curled up outside, enjoying the heat leaking through the window. When I didn't put food out for him, he would wait until the room was dark and I was asleep in bed (or at least, not moving), and creep in to eat the food I keep just inside the window. He often spent additional time in the warmth of the room, drowsing there next to the escape hatch of the cat door.

Just this winter, Jersey has been feeling safe enough to creep into the room when I was here working on my computer, 10 feet away. He would eat his fill -- as long as I didn't get up or move towards him -- and creep out again. I am been able, a couple of times, to sort of pet him through the cat door flap. He didn't seem to mind, but he didn't seem to know it was supposed to be comforting. Usually after a moment, he'd jab an experimental claw at my hand -- not in defense, but more in curiosity.

When I awoke yesterday morning, he was sleeping on the blanket outside the window, as is not uncommon. But this time I noticed that his collapsed ear was bloated and oozing with an abscess, and he was looking a little rougher for wear. We discussed it, made plans, and then the four adults in the house carried out an Ocean's Eleven style distract-and-catch, resulting in Jersey wrapped, hissing and clawing, in a wool blanket at the bottom of a wicker basket.

It didn't occur to me until we were on the way to the vets that Jersey could have anything more serious than an infected ear. And probably mites and fleas. Maybe a tape worm or two.

He was carrying Feline Leukemia, the AIDS of cats, as the veterinarians refer to it, since it mirrors AIDS in so many ways -- it's an autoimmune deficiency, spread through saliva and other bodily fluids. I had a cat, Jammer, years ago, with FeLV, who lived a fairly long and healthy life -- but indoors, without other cats around. There was no way Jersey was ever going to be an indoor cat, and no way we could allow him to live free to continue fighting with other cats in the neighborhood, potentially spreading the disease to pets. (He was also "unaltered" such a nice euphemism, but we could have had him neutered.) So, less than two hours after triumphantly capturing the poor sick cat to have him healed by human kindness, he was dead. Ah, hubris.

I know it was the right thing to do, according to my philosophies. Other philosophies -- No-Kill, for instance -- would have kept him in a cage for the remainder of his life, but I think that would have been more cruel than this end. I suppose still others would have healed and released him, but I don't think that is kind or responsible to all the other cats in the neighborhood, or to their owners, either.

Jersey was a sweet cat, so wary, but so dependent. And he has been a part of our lives for many years. He lived a pretty good life (at least 8 years), and probably a much longer one than if we hadn't been providing for him. Yet I feel like the worst kind of betrayer, even if ideologically pure.