Confessions of a Novice Cat Herder

Cat Herding can begin innocently enough it seems.

All I blithely said at the time was, “I’ll deal with the cats.”

On the face of it, that’s a benign enough statement, wouldn’t you say? Of course, it was, or so I thought at the time. However,  a little of the backstory may be needed here to bring you to the facts of the matter.

My brother had to move unexpectedly from his home for medical reasons and we needed to close up his house and sell it. He was to go stay with our sister 600 miles away where he would receive the care he needed. I live almost the exact distance away in the other direction myself. Our brother seemed to be dealing OK with the trauma of the move except for his two beloved cats.

“But, what about the cats?” my brother had asked.

Our sister could not take them, so that made it a dilemma. My wife is allergic to cats, so not a possibility there either. Our brother could not bear the idea of them going to the Humane Society or animal shelter.

“I’ll deal with the cats,” I said. This was late in the traumatic process of moving my brother and I made that rash statement more to expedite the moving issue than anything else. I innocently believed there would be little problem finding new homes for two beautiful sweet and well-behaved cats. 

But maybe it was the way I had quickly said, “I’ll deal with the cats,” which made my brother instantly suspicious.

“What the hell do you mean you’ll ‘deal with my cats’”? He asked me rather sharply, staring at me hard.

Maybe he thought I would drown them, or shoot them or otherwise violently dispose of them.

“I’ll deal with them just fine,” I told him soothingly. “I’m certainly not going to hurt them or kill them. I’ll find new homes for them, I promise. I know you love them, brother.”

Still, he eyed me suspiciously. “Well, OK then,” he said grudgingly, still staring at me hard.

Did I actually look like a cat murderer to him? For real? Why I love cats and always have!

Maybe a little explanation about my naiveté is needed here too. Cats have not been a part of my life for at least forty years now, so I know little about them, their care, or the process of ‘re-homing’ them they call it now.  No problem, right? Just find a neighbor or other person who had long yearned for nice cats like these. Maybe even someone nearby had pined for these very same particular cats,  right?

No. Not right.

I could find not one single person who wanted my brother’s cats. I checked with one neighbor I actually knew. No luck there. I asked that neighbor about other neighbors, but still no potential takers. I asked the realtor with no luck there. I even asked the staff at my hotel and my brother’s local banker, and still no takers. The banker lady explained that she was allergic. Maybe she was allergic, maybe she wasn’t, I don’t want to judge, but she didn’t look me in the eye when she said it. All I know is that I could find no one who would take those two damned cats! 

It was like EVERYONE was allergic and I was getting a little desperate. I texted the last hope I had in this my hour of need; My daughter who sometimes calls herself a “Cat Whisperer”.  Cheating a little, I included pictures with the text.

“I’m trying to re-home these two cats.” I texted. “they’re young healthy, fixed, and well-trained. Any ideas?”

The return text was simply just lovely. Lord, love my daughter!

“Bring them here.” She texted. “I can always find room for more four-legged critters in need.”

Whoo Hoo!  Problem solved, right?

Nope. Not so fast. Now the cats had to get from North Carolina to Florida, around a 500-mile trip and only 200 miles out of my way.

I asked my Cat Whisperer for advice about cat carriers and such things. There was a dim memory in the back of my mind about transporting a loose cat in a car many years ago, and how that cat had gotten between my foot and the brake and the consequences when the brake was needed. There was no real disaster, but I do vividly recall the resulting noise and that cat rocketing around the inside of the car several times at head level.  There’s nothing that moves quite like a sorely perturbed cat.

“You won’t really need an actual cat carrier.” My daughter said. “All you’ll need are a couple of cardboard boxes with air holes. You just put an old towel in the bottom of the box, make sure the cat is well hydrated when you put it in the box and tape it shut. No problem.”

Easy-peasy! Wonderful. Now there would be very little expense for carriers. 

In retrospect, I now believe my lovely daughter must have been thinking about her own docile, well-behaved, and most importantly, cats which actually KNEW and trusted her. Not cats which were being handled by strangers.

Departure time was set for 8:30 AM the next morning. My brother and sister had departed for my sister's home the previous day and I arranged for my eighteen-year-old nephew to come help corral the cats. The boxes were carefully prepared the night before in my motel room, holes cut, bottoms taped, and so on.

My handsome nephew showed up right on time and the two cats were waiting at the door to be fed. Beautiful. This meant no problem with rounding up the cats. We only had to get them into the boxes. My Nephew stroked the unsuspecting male cat, picked him up and we placed him in the box and closed the lid. Within a millisecond, that cat shot out of the box by tearing a hole in the corner of the lid. The cat’s claws had scythed through the edge of that box like knives.

Now a little wiser, we reinforced all the box edges with package tape and recaptured the cat who had come back out of hiding to finish eating the food in his dish. Again we somehow got him into the box while he struggled with all his appendages spread out like a Ninja throwing star. Using a towel we folded his legs under him and shoved him in the box, slamming the lids down quickly and taping everything down. We had him by God!

Now to capture the female, who was still quietly feeding at her dish, but keeping a wary eye on us just the same. But we had no more than turned away from the male when he burst out of the box again after shredding the cardboard with his claws, right through the side like a rocket, and headed for parts unknown, yet still inside the house. We managed to get the female in a box too, but she tore out even sooner and more fiercely than the male

Making an executive decision on the spot, I said to my nephew, 

“I’m going to Walmart for official cat-carriers.”

“Good move.” Says he.

He would wait until I returned with the carriers. I bought the only two carriers Walmart had in the store and returned a half hour later $50 poorer, but not caring by then. Somehow we recaptured the male cat and got him in the carrier. Now for the female.

She was nowhere to be found. We looked high and low, in the cupboards and all the cubby holes she might hide. We looked under the beds and behind the toilets. Luna the female, was nowhere to be found, period. We could not decide if she was still hiding in the house or had somehow gotten outside. Either way, unless she could be found and placed in a cat-carrier, there was no way I was leaving that day. After another fruitless half hour looking, I made another executive decision.

“I’m going to have to stay another day,” I told my nephew. “I’ll rebook at my motel and call you in the morning.”

Realizing I could not keep the male cat in the carrier overnight, and then subject him to an eight-hour car ride I again phoned my Cat Whisperer daughter for advice. My lovely daughter told me to let the male out of the carrier inside a bathroom with food, water, and a littler box so he could be easily recaptured the next morning.  This we did. She also said the best way to calm a cat down was to give it a few drops of children’s Benadryl.

“How the hell do I do that?” I asked her. “Put it in a syringe and shove it up his ass?”

My daughter laughed. “No, silly. You put a few drops on some tuna or a sardine, and when they eat it they will ingest the Benadryl.”

By then I would far rather shove the Benadryl up that cat’s ass, but no matter.  It was likely a lot easier my daughter’s way anyway. Now I had to go buy some Benadryl, tuna, and sardines. I Asked my nephew to stand by the next morning and said I would text him if I needed help.

Things were not going so well by now, were they? You think so?  Well, here’s the really galling part:

I called my sister to tell her I was staying over another day because of the cats. 

“Defeated by cats, eh?” she maliciously chortled.

Really? REALLY?

SHEESH! The things a guy sometimes has to endure! But that’s the way it is sometimes for guys who have snarky younger sisters, and I found out long ago that can’t actually be helped.

The next morning at 7 AM I arrived back at my brother’s house to find Luna the female waiting at the door to be fed. She had somehow managed to slip out the door in all the confusion of the previous day. I looked on this new day as the beginning of my luck changing as I opened the door to allow her inside. Opening the sardines, I placed one on a dish and sprinkled a few drops of the Benadryl on it. Luna was interested and came over to lick the sardine. Oddly, she seemed to prefer the Benadryl to the actual fish which she did not eat. Go figure.

I headed for the bathroom to cage the beast temporarily dwelling therein. 

The male cat was still traumatized from the day before of course, but I managed to get inside the bathroom with him before he could escape. Standing the cat-carrier on its end, and using a towel to grab the cat, I was able to quickly shove him headfirst into the carrier and close the door behind him. A feeling of luck and triumph swept over me as I realized I had that one in the bag at least! The male cat began to yowl, something which sounded a lot like a long, loud and drawn out 

“AWWWWWWWWW”.  Over and over. Over and over and impossibly loud.

But now for the other cat.

Luna was wary and kept her eyes peeled for an open door. I knew she would break for the outside if given even the ghost of a chance.  Shooing her from room to room,  I closed all the doors behind us. Finally, we were in one big room together. She would not let me get close until I sat down in a chair. I patted my leg and wiggled my fingers until she began to rub against my leg. Apparently, she perceived me as no threat when I was sitting. I grabbed her when I had the chance, and into the cat carrier she went headfirst, just as I had done with the male cat.

Wham bam, thank you ‘mam! Done!  I texted my nephew and told him I had the cats in the bag and didn’t need him.

His one-word response:  “Good”

Damned right, good!  The cats were in the car and we were underway by 8 AM. Ain’t no damned cats gonna defeat this bad boy!  Nunh unh, no way!

I had placed a sardine coated with Benadryl in the carrier with the male hoping he would eat it and settle down. 

“AWWWWWWWWW” he yowled.  

He yowled that a lot. In fact, he said it for the entire eight-hour trip, even as the sound did get a little weaker as we drove, and his voice a little raspier. He must have had a really sore throat by the end of that drive. He said, “AWWWWWWWWW” at least a million times during that trip by my conservative estimate. I smelled sardine very strongly for the first hour or two, but then the smell went away. He must have eaten the fish, but I never could perceive any change in his behavior from the Benadryl.

I tried to call my sister from the car using the voice commands with the car/phone interface, but the yowling was so loud and constant it confused the audio/digital servant. I had to physically input the numbers into the handset to make the calls. But in the final analysis, I really didn’t care. I was so happy to be moving at last with those cats. During the drive, I called my sister and wife several times each and each would laugh at the symphony of cat yowls they could hear in the background which accompanied me the entire trip. Strangely, Luna was meek, only putting out a few perfunctory and plaintive ‘mewls’ now and again.

The yowling bothered me badly at first, but pretty soon I got used to it as a kind of background noise. I tried playing the radio and talking to the cats about how they were headed for a cat paradise and all manner of such things. I tried classical music on the radio. The best result came from no noise at all except the noise of the car tires on the pavement. That seemed to diminish the yowling, and at times stopping it for several minutes at a time. But as soon as the noise changed when going over a bump or something, off the yowling went again. Finally, I just said to hell with it and endured it.

It was a long, long trip for eight hours I am standing witness here to tell you.

There is a payoff to this story, and a good one. When we finally arrived at my daughter’s house, my fourteen-year-old granddaughter took those cat carriers into her bedroom and released the cats. She fed them, watered them, and put a kitty litter box in the room with them. In ten minutes both cats were purring and rubbing against her. She slept with them in her bed that night. Within a few hours, she was playing bird videos on her computer for the cats’ entertainment. Luna and her male companion have truly entered a cat’s paradise.

I’m pretty sure my granddaughter is an up and coming Cat Whisperer herself now. 

Me? I’m just a lowly Cat Herder, and I have the freshly healing wounds to prove it!

And, my obliging nephew has too!

(Every word in this story is sadly, all too true!)