1406 Dear Diary - Weekend in NJ, Part 2

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

I haven't updated in DAYS! Busy. The previous post left off Saturday afternoon. After writing that post, I went for a walk on the roads around the hotel. I returned across a lawn behind the hotel, and met Jasper. Jasper changed all my plans for the next few days.

Jasper is an American shorthair gray tabby, white trim, round face with huge eyes and enormous curved and tufted lynx ears, spots on his back and stripes on his legs, probably about five months old. The housekeepers and reception desk women say he turned up at the hotel as a kitten just before the flooding (was that last April?), and they were amazed he made it through. He's a very small cat with tiny feet, but he's solid muscle. He begs food from the hotel guests and staff by being cute.

I sat on a bench to watch him. Any time anyone walked out the door or through the parking lot, especially men, Jasper'd run over with a tiny high-pitched "Meee, meeee", and walk next to them calling, roll on the ground in front of them, waving his paws in the air, duck down behind the curb with only his ears showing and one paw up patting the sidewalk, and so on. I noticed that about one in six men (but, oddly, not the women) would return in a few minutes with a piece of meat or cheese.

He skittered away from hands, allowed no one to touch him.

This doorway seemed to be the "break" gathering place, and as staff came out to sit for a while, they all expressed a wish that someone would adopt him, but no one had been able to catch him. A shelter wouldn't take him unless someone could catch him. Traps had been tried, but he was too suspicious.

I decided to catch him.

I went to a Target and bought a litter pan and some litter, some food in foil packets, a food dish and a water dispenser, and a carrier (animals were allowed in the hotel, so this was in case I caught him and would have him overnight. The receptionist on duty said she wouldn't charge me the surcharge if I could do it). By 8 pm he was eating next to my leg. By 9 pm I was petting him while he ate. By 10 pm I was able to run both hands all over his body, even without the food there. Around 11 pm I tried to pick him up and he freaked. At midnight one of the receptionists came out, and he walked over to her and allowed her to pet him. She was amazed. He'd never gotten that close before.

Then I picked him up and tried to put him into the carrier. I had the carrier standing up on end, and was going to lower him in tail first, but he seemed to know what the carrier was, and all four legs shot out to the sides, and I couldn't fit him in. It took another hour to regain his trust.

A little after 2 am he suddenly took off. I was checking out the next morning, so I figured I'd try again then.

The next morning, Sunday, I sat out there for a few hours, but he never showed. The staff women said he was rarely around in the morning. So I checked out and left with an empty carrier, and went to Daughter's.

She and Hercules have a little experience capturing feral cats, and Hercules said that we should get a dark laundry bag. The opening is larger than the carrier, and when the cat is in the bottom of the bag, being in a dark enclosed space seems to calm them. Then you can stuff the bag into the carrier, and the cat will get out of the bag on his own.

Sounded good to me.

So that evening, the three of us went back to the hotel, with leather gloves, a towel, and a black nylon laundry bag. We waited a very long time, and the kitty didn't show up. Daughter and Hercules gave up and decided to go home, and as I was hugging them goodbye, one of the housekeepers drove up, asked if I was looking for the cat, and said he was around the corner on the other side of the building. Sure enough, he was flirting with some guy sitting on the curb talking on a cell phone. I called, and he came. I gave him some food, and while he was eating, I got a good grip on his scruff.

That's an odd thing about cats. Even one who will not allow you to get a confining grip on his body, WILL allow you to get a good handful of scruff. Once past kittenhood, you should never actually pick a cat up by the scruff - it's very painful once their skin hardens and they put on weight - but grasping the scruff seems to actually be calming and comforting.

Once I could hold him in place by the scruff, Hercules picked him up with the gloves, and popped him into the bag held open by Daughter.

It was NOT calming!

Hercules went into mild shock. He was standing there holding a bag full of hurricane-whirled knives! It was pretty unbelievable. Within seconds, there were already rents appearing in the bag, in like twenty different spots. Daughter yelled "Put him on the grass! Put him on the grass1'. We laid the bag down, and I threw the towel over the bag, and crouched over it, holding Jasper still. We slid cat, bag, and towel into the carrier, pulled the towel out, and within seconds the cat was out of the bag. He attacked the door and tried to bite his way out, but then calmed down very quickly.

The housekeeper lady had gotten on the phone and spread the word, so by the time I left, half a dozen of the staff had come down to thank me and wish us luck.

He was very quiet in the car for the 2.5 hour drive home, even slept some.

My laundry room has a washer, dryer, and utility sink along one wall, next to the door to the garage, a half bath on the opposite wall, and shelves on the end wall. I decided that would be the best place to confine him.

When I let him out of the carrier, he wandered around a bit, spotted the shelves, and climbed straight up them as if they were stairs. He spent the night behind some boxes on the top shelf. By Monday morning he had moved to behind the washing machine, and except to eat some food and drink some water, and piddle in the middle of the floor (ignoring the litter box), most likely during the quiet of the night, he hasn't come out of there. I can see him if I lean between the sink and the washer, and he looks up at me with those big eyes, but there's no reaction to all my soft words. It's now Wednesday evening. I'm wondering if he will ever trust me enough to come out. I don't know where he's pooping, or even if he is. There's no odor.

Sigh.

The name "Jasper", by the way, I swear came from him. Naturally, when I was thinking I'd adopt him, I was thinking of names, even though I am a firm believer that a cat names him- or herself, if you wait a bit. But not usually in this fashion or this insistently. Several names ran through my mind. "Jasper" was NOT one of my ideas. "Jasper" jumped loudly into my mind from outside and wouldn't leave. Every time I considered another name, "Jasper" shouted it down. I don't even LIKE the name Jasper. If kitty insists that it's Jasper, that will go on his vet records, but I'll call him "Jazz".

And that was my weekend in NJ.
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