Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Speedy is a beautiful chocolate point Siamese cat who was abruptly abandoned in our apartment complex back in May. One day her owner was there, and the next he was not. One day her collar no longer sported a name tag and bell, and that’s how life is sometimes.

Since May, the four families who were ultimately the last to stay at our park took on the task of feeding her. The ferals moved in, too, so for a while we were caring for the entire colony. Speedy lost weight and when we first approached her she would growl and hiss. Traumatized by the loss of her human, this middle-aged feline was not having anything to do with people.

Slowly, though, she came to trust us, to allow a scritchie here and there. It got that when I would rise in the morning she’d come running over for her food. One day I picked her up to see what would happen. Instead of clawing me to death, she lay there and emitted purrs. We were friends after that and I promised that we would find her a home.

I tried hard to keep that promise. I didn’t want to take her to the Humane Society: being at least ten years old, the chances of her being adopted in a county where there are 125,000 homeless cats were very slim. A few offers turned out to be unsuitable; one firm offer from a friend in New York became our last-ditch fallback plan.

Moving day came around and we brought her in for those last nights. I had already dosed her with flea treatment and sent several messages onto our local Freecycle group. Unfortunately, because AT&T cut us off early, I didn’t get the responses until nearly two weeks later.

So we brought her in, grabbing her just as the mobile home park gates closed for the last time. The first few days were great, as she traveled spectacularly well and was not intimidated by her daily change of accommodations. She curled up with us, purred, made amusing noises, arrived like a lightning flash when a can of food was opened, and generally wormed her way into our hearts.

Because we had to pick our own cats up on Saturday, we thought we would put Speedy into a cattery for the duration. At the cattery, though, we were told we couldn’t do that unless she had her shots, and were referred to the Humane Society. The trouble was that being older, the HS said that it was a bad idea to give both of the major shots at a time. So we had her tested for leukemia etc. and she came back negative, giving us the option of safely bringing her in with our cats. She got the rabies shot, which made her feel unwell. Then we went to fetch our three from their hiding place underneath Barb’s bed.

That’s when things became a little…challenging. Speedy, used to being an only cat and a highly-strung Siamese to boot, wanted nothing to do with ours, even though ours were more than ready to meet her and accept her by the end of the week we did the four-cat shuffle. We needed to keep them separated in the bathroom: our cats objected to their turn in the smaller room, as well they might, but the one time when Speedy got too close to ours she emitted such a deadly yowling that I thought we’d immediately be thrown out of the motel, and then sulked for two days straight.

When I finally got access to my email, to my delight I found messages from two Freecyclers willing to help. I contacted the one who was offering a full time home, and she came round to visit. I liked her at once and she spoke so gently to the cat, who allowed her to hold her on her lap even though she was growling and upset, that I knew she was going to a good place.

Speedy went to her new home on Sunday and is doing well as the center of attention. We felt honored to be her guardians for the duration, and are delighted that she landed where she will be adored and loved and understood. I cried a little when she went, but I was happy too. She is an exceptional critter and deserves the good things in life.

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