Jack the Cat

 

Fluffy Jack the Cat

 

Jack is the latest of stray cats I have taken into my home over the years. I first saw Jack from my 5th floor apartment balcony running through the field behind my apartment complex. He looked thoroughly content chasing after field mice and from afar he looked to be a large cat.

 

But that wasn't the case. After watching him for a couple of weeks I was out one night when he was wandering though the parking lot meowing like crazy. Since I'm a bit crazy myself I meowed back. Low and behold I made a friend. Seeing Jack closely I could see how scrawny he was and I then began to suspect that he was a stray. I went upstairs and found a can of tuna and brought it down for him to eat. And boy did he eat!

 

I asked around about Jack and found out that someone else had been feeding him for about a month but was unable to take him in because she already had two cats. I was out feeding him a couple of days later when I met Tammy. Tammy needed to make sure that I was a suitable candidate to take Jack in and when I passed inspection she was happy as a clam (at high tide of course, because that would be the only time a clam would be happy).

 

Thus the adventure began of trying to catch Jack. At that time Jack was not Jack because we weren't sure what to call him. Jack had a mind of his own. I would go out looking for him and I would walk along the edge of the field where there was a wall of high brush and I would meow away. Eventually I would hear the meowing coming from the brush and after a short time Jack would appear. Then he ate and ate and ate. Three cans of cat food a day! And when he was done he would come up to be patted but dare I tried to catch him. He would rush away only to come back a short time later to be patted again and of course fed once more.

 

It took over a month to try and catch Jack. He didn't want to come in. Even after a long night of rain he would come out of the brush, soaking wet but still not in a hurry to live in a warm and loving home. He took up residence for a bit under a tree and a bush where we could not reach him unless we crawled in on hands and knees. Tammy and I made sure that he had a towel to sleep on and plently of food. Tammy and I tried to catch him many times, once where Tammy got scratched pretty badly on the face. Not the Jack was the kind of cat to show his claws, he just didn't want to give up chasing the field mice.

 

What Jack didn't know was that eating the field mice would eventually kill him unless he got proper care. Neither he nor I knew that the field mice carried tape worm and that is why he ate and ate and ate but never gained any weight. And, Jack was not the fluffy cat as he is in the above photo but he was a short-haired cat as shown. Poor baby.

 

Now Jack is a happy, well adjusted cat living in a single cat household, the way he likes it. He doesn't like the siamese cats across the hall though I think he has a female feline next store that he flirts with through the walls.

I'll add more to Jack's story as time goes on and I learn how to work with pages. Read more at Jack's Blog page