Nicky, the Cat

One night when we were still living in the construction trailer, my son mentioned that he heard a kitty under the trailer. Sure enough, a very hungry and small kitten had appeared. It was a little gray ball of fluff, and it didn’t have a tail! It was completely ferial, and wouldn’t come anywhere close to us. But it was hungry and we had food.

The next night I decided to go Cat Fishing. I had found a cage, and attached the lid to a stick and the stick to a string—the typical kind of trap. Inside was some sardines. After a while of sitting by the fire with the string in my hand, the kitten eventually went into the cage and I captured it. Boy was it wild! For such a little thing, it made both me and my husband jump from it! I wanted to capture it so that I could get a good look. It’s definitely a Manx (tailless or nearly-tailless) and seemed to be in good health.

The cat loved to get close to the fire to stay warm. Several mornings I had come out to see the little gray kitten sitting on a rock practically inside the fire ring, trying to stay warm. Eventually, when the cat got hungry and cold enough, we were able to get it into the trailer at night. Inside, it was a very loving and adorable kitten. It always wanted to be petted and loved to sleep on top of me. But once it got outside, it was a completely wild cat again.

After a lot of debate, we had decided it was probably a girl. Because the cat was so wild, with it’s howling and hissing, we named it Maddie.

I wanted to get it to the vet, but it took a couple of different attempts to get it into the cage. Once at the vet, we discovered that she was really a he. We re-named Maddie a more appropriate boy name: Nearly-Tailless Nick. His namesake is the Griffendor house ghost, Nearly-Headless Nick. We call him Nicky.

When he is in the house, he is the best cat. He always uses the litter box. He is a great companion. He would even wake me up when my alarm has gone off and I’ve hit the snooze button. He’ll follow me around in the morning and keep me company. He’s even caught a couple of mice. But if he escapes to the outside, he’s back to being a fertile cat again. It takes days before we can coax him back into the house.

Now that the dog has arrived, I don’t know if he’ll ever come back into the house. He’s been out for about a week now. I hope he’ll be okay. But we know he doesn’t like the puppy.