It’s been a while since I’ve written an article about Kitzania, not out of laziness but that of mundanity. As winter crept in, I was facing the usual dilemma of catching the cats for their yearly vaccine or treating them for flu.
Sometimes it was the double whammy of having to treat them first of the flus before vaccinating them. But then an interesting phenomenon started occurring by the start of this year where unneutered male cats were dumped in Kitzania.
It started with a black cat I called Ghanouz (big cheeks) who like all unneutered tomcats followed Julius Caesar’s tactic of ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’. But the issue of conquering is a tricky one as it meant endless fights and injured defending Kitzanians with abscesses that needed veterinary attention and treatment. Thus, I decided to apply the same trick that I’ve been following for the past twenty years of running this place: gain the cat’s trust before trapping him a few weeks later for neutering.
Ghanouz wasn’t hard to convince as he was obviously a cat that’s been around humans. He enjoyed being stroked and didn’t mind being handled occasionally, as I was trying to figure out the best way to shove him inside the carrier before taking him to the vet (applying Caesar’s tactic for barehanded cat trapping).
Fortunately, Ghanouz’s aggression decreased after neutering and after endless fights with Kitzania’s alpha male Jassas, he managed to kick him out of the house and take over the role. Now Jassas only comes to eat and runs out of the house the minute he glimpses Ghanouz, which is ironic given the fact that Jassas was the first unneutered male cat to be dumped at Kitzania almost two years back.
He overthrew Kitzania’s own alpha male Ayash who is still around but too old to fight for his title. The second unneutered male to arrive was Saloom. He was a white and tabby, human-friendly cat but weak in character that he got bitten by Ghanouz a week after arriving! I had to isolate Saloom and treat him before neutering him and keeping him outside. That was when he suddenly disappeared and I was definite that he was killed by the stray dogs.
However, I was proven wrong and Saloom appeared again three weeks later and stayed for a few weeks, before disappearing again for another three weeks and reappearing during the rainstorm. I concluded that he must be either plain stupid that he keeps losing his way home or that he’s staying somewhere else (he’s missing again as of this writing!).
The challenge came later in the form of a black and white tom that I called Bazooka with a huge head that seems to be fused to his body without any neck in sight. At feeding time, Bazooka always announced his arrival fashionably by standing at the gate, turning his head dramatically and howling so loudly that all Kitzanians would leave their food and run for their lives. It took some time to tame the untrusting Bazooka and after two weeks I was able to neuter him.
The latest to arrive was a white and ginger cat I called Nino. Nino was as stupid as Saloom and after neutering, he decided that Kitzania was overcrowded for him and chose to stay at the garbage nearby. Nevertheless, he comes for food looking so filthy but rather content. As for Bazooka, his head had decreased in size and the neck is visible. Currently, he’s fighting Ghanouz for the alpha male position while the Kitzanians and I are wondering when the next tomcat arrives!
Rasha al Raisi
The writer is the author of The World According to Bahjar
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