Romeo's Story

Romeo, Where For Art Thou

An Interrupted Beginning

About the time my daughter and I moved into this house she was in high school and wanted a cat to call her own. I had two adult cats at the time, a mother and her daughter. They were about 3 years old and one was a tortie. They are very territorial and they certainly rule the house and any other pets that can live with them.

So my daughter goes around the block and finds someone who has free kittens to give away and she brings a yellow one home. She names him Romeo. He is so cuddly and precious and about 4 months old. He was to be an outdoor cat with the option to live in the house if he chooses to do so.

Well he stayed around for about three months and then my cats, which were indoor outdoor cats, chased him away. They were just not happy to have a boy cat around and literally chased him out of the yard. We couldn’t find him after that.

My daughter graduated and I got remarried a couple of years after that and so we left the house never seeing Romeo again.

Taking Up Residence Again

It just so happened that we moved back into this house after a five year hiatus. Everyone was happy and we acquired a dog that came to live with us too. That is about the same time that the cats started appearing out of nowhere. They would hide behind tress and poke around them to see what I was doing. I eventually started to feed them. They didn't mind the dog. We monitored his level of tolerance for cats and he eventually learned which cats he could chase and which cats he wasn't allowed to. The first cat that poked around was Buddy, a brown stripped stray cat. He came around for about a year and then he just vanished. Then there was Buster.

He Makes an Appearance

For days I had seen this yellow cat come around the yard. He was very skittish of people and would not come to me at all. I fed him but he wouldn't come out of hiding until I was fully inside the house and if he saw me peeking out the window he would run off.

I did notice he was not using one of his paws and I so badly wanted to help him out with that. It took about a year and a bit just to get him to come to me while I was sitting near the food dish. I mean sitting approximately 5 feet from the food dish as an observer only!

Finally I was able to pick him up---but that lasted about 10 seconds and he disappeared again. Some weeks later he came back around and I had to tell him that I would not be picking him up again. He would rub against me and I would try to massage between the shoulder blades to see if I could help him stand on his leg. At the time I thought that it was only his leg and that he had gotten into some fight with the many other stray and feral cats in our area that roam freely. Something happened or spooked him and he just didn't trust me again and I had not attempted to hold him. So it was back to square one.

Finally Some Progress

I called him Yellow Kitty at first until I got to really know who he used to be.  Finally I got to really pet him and brush him and that is a very good sign when they allow you to groom them. For some reason they just open up to you when you do that, at least for the cats around here.

It wasn't easy at first. I put him in a medium dog crate and he went crazy! I put a blanket over it so that he would calm down, but he tore that thing up into the small slats in the crate. He hung upside down and screamed like I was killing him. It is said that they will calm down in about 15 minutes so I tried to ignore him thinking that he would calm down. He didn't calm down and got worse so I let him out. As soon as I opened the door he tore out of there like he was running from a dog who was going to tree him. I thought that I would never see him again.

It wasn't as long of a time between the first time he ran from me after picking him up and this time. He eventually got used to me petting him, but never to pick him up--at least not for a while. He would soon come up to the porch and he would allow me to pet him, but that was all. I was kind of happy with that but really needed to get that leg seen by a vet and Romeo neutered. I have spayed and neutered just about all the cats who have found their way to my home.

The Trip to the Vets

Finally I was able to get him into a carrier and off to the vets we go. He didn't make a fuss about it either. Finally he trusted me. It had been one and a half years since I first saw him come around the perimeter of our yard.

He was to be neutered, his rabies shots and his leg or paw fixed.

They just fell in love with him and the vet loved his jowls (big fat cheeks). They said that he was a keeper and a very nice cat.

We got his approximate age by the lack of teeth he had left in his mouth. They said he was about 15 years old and a candidate for canned food or raw.

They took a look at the paw and found something that they have never seen in a cat. It was common in dogs though, but not in a cat.

When they cleaned the area up from the crusted blood and all that, they found an extra toe. The odd thing about this toe was that the claw had grown so long that it wrapped around the toe and into the paw. This sounded really painful and made sense as to why he couldn't walk on it. So they did the surgery and took the toe completely off. They also neutered him and all the other good stuff. They said to bring him back for the remainder of the booster shot, but I told them I would not be getting him again and he wouldn't be back. That is true to a point.

Back Home Where He Belongs

After doing the math and seeing no other yellow kitties out there in the woods, we have surmised that he is Romeo who has come back. We also did some research and the person my daughter got him from as a kitten had moved. The next family that moved in there was feeding the cats that were left there. Well it so happened that they couldn't feed those cats for a while and he wandered back---HOME.

...........Here I Am

A Sad Ending.

Three months after Romeo was back home and sage and sound he vanished never to be seen again.  I am thinking that his age, and the fact that there are Coyotes in the area, it was just his time to go.  He will always be remembered.