“Quack.”

My animal friend was in trouble. The sound was right, but the species was wrong. The pleading eyes looking up at me belonged not to a duck, but to a cat who, from all indications, was lucky to have survived.

Her coat was calico and dirt, with dried out, tangled fur. She favored one hip. And about two inches above her rump, a broken tail crooked sharply and fell limp.

Shifting her weight from side to side, she did that little feline dance, contracting her front claws one at a time like an arthritic on a cold morning. Then she quacked again through an injured throat.

For over a month, the cat had been living under my mother’s deck in Virginia and on an earlier visit had run from me. But recently Mom had begun setting out food -- mostly to prevent claw marks on the chipmunk family living under the tool shed -- and the kitty had become calm, even affectionate.

Still, there was a mystery: Despite consuming large amounts of dry food, she remained skinny, almost emaciated.

So I watched her eat and for the first time noticed the jaw. It opened crooked, preventing her from picking up nuggets with her teeth and tongue. She compensated with a steam shovel movement to scoop a few kibbles into her mouth, but in the process pushed most of the food out of her bowl, where it disappeared through the deck slats. Nutritionally, she’d have been as well off with a tapeworm the size of a floor lamp.

The cat needed help. And this would be my second feline rescue operation from that same deck.
Ten years earlier, a half-grown gray tabby had shown up missing a front paw, the apparent victim of a farm mowing machine. My elderly father tried to shoot her, but thanks to failing eyesight, had only put a .22 caliber nick in her scalp.

I took her home with me to Nashville, had the leg amputated, and placed her with a woman who already had a cat without a tail. A neighbor who saw the two cats together accused her of trying to build one from parts.

The first rescue had been easy, but this one would prove more challenging.

I cut some air holes in a cat-sized box and put her in it, duct-taping down the lid. Then I strapped her into the front seat of my little pickup, hugged Mom goodbye, and started the three-hour trip back to Maggie.

With soft music drifting from the radio, my passenger relaxed somewhat, allowing me to finger-scratch her head through one of the holes. But 15 miles down the interstate, I heard a low moan, followed instantly by a horrid diarrhea stench.

Rolling down the window so we both could breathe, I backtracked to my friend Susan’s house, where she and her husband Bo helped me clean up the cat (and my truck seat) and fit her into a fresh box.

I pressed on hopefully. And the kitty seemed no worse for wear, napping quietly or peering out at me through one of the holes cut with Bo’s pocket knife.

But trying not to ignore an apparent omen, I stopped in Bristol to buy a litter box. The store offered a box, litter, and food bowl in what they called a “cat starter kit.” I asked the clerk why the package didn’t include jumper cables, but my rather obtuse humor bought only a puzzled look.

The rest of the way to Maggie, my co-pilot remained calm and docile, so I unboxed her on the front porch to let her explore the yard. And she did fine until reaching the privacy fence in the back, where -- in cat-curious fashion -- she stuck her head through a hole.

That’s when she met the neighbor’s dog.

Amid a torrent of barks and a long “Quaaaack!” she bolted down the bank, across the road and into a well-foliaged gully, where she and I spent the remaining daylight hours in a futile game of spot, coax and maneuver.

The next day I borrowed a trap from county animal control and baited it with canned fish. But the officer had told me most trapped cats scrape fur off their faces trying to escape, and I figured living wild a while would be less traumatic for her than getting caught. So I returned the trap after only one day, then kept an eye pealed and called “kitty” a lot.

But a couple days later, my friend Renee came by and quickly put my cat catching skills to shame. She simply went out with a can of sardines and came back with the kitty.

While glad to have my animal friend safely indoors, within hours I was again questioning the entire operation. Unlike any cat I’ve known, this one refused to use the litter box, regardless of what I put in it. She preferred the carpet beneath my desk.

Yeah, wonderful.

I’d planned to let her settle in a week or so before subjecting her to a vet trip, but given this new revelation, I jumped at the first available appointment. The vet said she needed surgery to remove the tail and three abscessed teeth, which were complicating the jaw problem. Every-thing else would be better left alone. So I dropped her off the next day, then went back to retrieve her.

With no tail and a post-surgical funnel on her head (so she couldn’t chew the stitches), she resembled a bear cub who’d gotten stuck in a stereo speaker. But she recovered quickly and within days was her docile self again, curling beside me on the sofa and sleeping between my feet.

So on a bright afternoon, I let her out for some air on my railed-in porch, the exit blocked with sofa pillows. She took one look, and as if being re-dogged, leaped over the cushions and beat a path for the gully.

It was several days before I saw her again. She’d somehow managed to lose the funnel and was hiding under the furniture on my neighbor Sandy’s front porch. Sandy’s elderly cat Donovan had died recently and was buried in a flower barrel in the front yard. But Sandy still set out food for Donovan’s feline visitors, who came by daily for a memorial snack.

In more ways than one, the bobtailed kitty had found a bird nest on the ground. Ever the soft touch, Sandy’s heart and front door fell open, and “Miss Kitty Garnett,” as she became known, was soon lounging on the sofa and snuggling through chilly nights on a bed pillow. Then to my surprise and Sandy’s delight, she even began using the litter box I’d passed along.

At my house I’ve done what I can for the carpet, though I’m sure warm weather will bring fragrant reminders of Miss Kitty’s short, eventful stay with me. And I really don’t mind, because now whenever I see her, she does the cat dance and flops close to be petted.

Nothing soothes the spirit like the soft, contented quack of a happy cat.
(Garnett lives in Maggie Valley. He can be contacted at lgar@brinet.com)

 

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