Recollections of some AHS animal admissions.

Ba'elzebub [Domestic Short Hair Cat Black Tom / Green Eyes]

Ba'elzebub

Janet Ives 7/8/2011

The request to re-home a two-year old black cat, had come through normal channels. We didn't need any more cats on the re-homing register; there were hundreds listed of every colour, shape and size. All looking for a permanent new home in the midst of one of the deepest economic recessions seen in the UK . A glance down the list of temporary foster homes - all full to bursting point ... but the caller was being very persuasive, stressing her needs were mounting. Surely, just one more could be fit in, somehow? the voice pleaded ..but where to house yet another cat was the immediate issue. I mentally ran down the list of regular helpers Beryl had 19 long-haired, no spaces. Rosina took care of about 50, full to the brim, no spaces, no spaces, no spaces,so the list went on. Myself, I had 38 cats on foster and no spaces but . I knew that was where he was going to end up. I just hoped that he didn't have some inherent fear of dogs. Difficult to hide a St Bernard: discretion not being their strongest factor. The Date of Admission arrived but not so the cat. Eventually, by mid-afternoon we had a phoned plea for assistance, as the owner could not crate the animal by herself. To her good fortune, she lived nearby so our help was close at hand. Off we dashed. Now, I have never personally boasted much of a talent for domestic duties and hardly regard myself qualified to judge the way in which others choose to live. But the carnage that greeted us, on arrival at the owner's house, was best described as . a battleground. Everywhere there were broken things lying around and the owner, looking very frazzled, sported a number of injuries to her arms. One could only imagine what had been going on. She had the poor creature secured in the lounge but cautioned me about going into that room because the cat might pounce. Well, most unlikely behaviour for a cat if it did!. My first task was calming down the stressed-out owner ,convincing her to let me do the job alone. I keep lots of cats and have a bit of a way with them I gently persauded. I entered that room wondering how I was going to pull this one off. The cat will be in an agitated state, not open to any suggestion from me that he might like to climb into a cat basket. The welts down the owner's forearms served as testimony to his viewpoint on that score and that was all the convincing I needed. Surprisingly, the room was virtually empty. Just a lounge suite minus all the soft cushions behind which the terrified animal was hiding. I took up a position on what remained of the couch and immediately found a wet patch, obviously the remnant of the earlier activity. I sat quietly in meditative silence for some time.... I knew I was under close observation. Dealing with stressful animals was part of the daily grind in rescue work. There were arms-length methods in common use for capturing aggressive, wild or terrified creatures but I tended to favour more gentle approaches and I had come prepared. My bag of tricks that day contained a selection of tasty cat treats along with a variety of herbal oils, those to which cats are known to be sensitive and especially those for which cats often display a preference. Oh, and most importantly, lashings and lashings, and lashings of patience. Quite how I managed it, I am still to this day a little unsure but within an hour or so, I had that cat sitting on my lap. The owner could hardly believe her eyes. Driven by her own insecurity, she then revealed that he had in fact, started out life as a feral kitten and had always been very reserved with strangers. That sudden burst of honesty confirmed what I had concluded from my observations that afternoon and was just the sort of information the charity required if a re-homing was to be successful. On the physical front he had no problems. He was stunning! Sleek black coat bejewelled with eyes that glowed like polished emeralds. He was a handsome character who radiated majestic confidence but we were all soon to realise, looks are not everything! They can deceive.... as his temperament revealed. He had been most aptly named Ba'elzebub.