There was more to the kittens’ wild genetic heritage than exceptional hunting skills. Merlin and Misty loved trees. Wild leopards are tree dwellers as well as ground hunters. They typically sleep in trees. No need to call the fire department for rescue if our cats were up in a tree. They were at home there.  Chasing the squirrels around from branch to branch became one of their favorite sports.
 
The cats inherited more than just trees and hunting. Our house had a swimming pool. I used to keep it covered to reduce evaporation until I realized this did little good and served mostly to impede its easy use. One day I was rolling up the pool cover when Merlin jumped onto the unspooled portion. I yelled at him to get off of there but it was too late. He lost his purchase on the plastic and slid down the incline straight into the water.
 
Even though I was still dressed I was about to jump in and rescue my dear friend. But then I realized Merlin was perfectly happy. He started paddling around the pool without the slightest sign of distress. After a bit he swam back over to the pool cover, clawed a grip, pulled himself out of the water then shook himself dry. After that Merlin showed no sign of fear of the pool, often walking right on the edge. I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, Merlin and Misty had webbed feet, and I learned they were very close cousins of the web-toed Leopard Cat, the Asian Fishing Cat that makes its living diving for fish.
 
For a few weeks in the middle of the night we would hear Merlin, at the far end of the house, singing away. What was he doing? On inspection we discovered that Merlin had a friend. A bobcat was coming to visit. The two of them, sitting on either side of the dining room slider would paw the glass and talk to each other. The bobcat was skittish though so we kept our distance. Then, one day I looked out the slider and there was Merlin. How had he gotten out of house? I knew no doors had been opened. Suddenly I realized it wasn’t Merlin. The bobcat had come to visit during the day. What fooled me was his coloration and markings were almost identical to Merlin’s. Merlin dashed up, they greeted each other, and the two of them walked side by side down the length of the glass wall. The bobcat was almost exactly twice as long as Merlin and Merlin was a big cat! That was the last we saw of the bobcat. Apparently having seen me, he came thereafter only at night.
 
I mentioned that Merlin had an exceptional talent for spatial analysis. One evening Sarah and I were watching a wildlife documentary. Merlin was sitting next to my chair. On the screen a bear was walking across an empty grassy landscape. Merlin was fascinated. He had not seen a bear before and he was very curious. He moved up closer to the television screen to get a better view. The bear ambled by a lone tree. Merlin, suddenly realizing the great size of the animal, dashed behind my chair and hid there for the rest of the show.
 
As the cats matured Merlin became increasingly independent. When he was about two years old we began to be concerned that Merlin might turn feral. His behavior was increasingly odd. Then, one evening he didn’t show up at the usual dinner call. Since he usually prowled around down the hill I got in the car and drove down to see if I could find him. Sure enough, there he was. I opened the car door and he dashed up and jumped in, happy to see me. After that both cats were grounded. We would only allow them outside in the backyard and then only if we were present. What we didn’t realize is that Merlin had a serious problem. He hadn’t deliberately rejected the call. That evening when he didn’t come for dinner the climb back up the hill must have been too much for him.
 
Playing in the back yard the cats found plenty of places to climb and amble about. One of Merlin’s favorite gambols was to jump from the fence to the roof of the house, to better survey the neighborhood. A few days after the grounding, he made the leap – usually easy for him. But this time he didn’t make it. For an instant he grabbed hold of the gutter but lost his grip and fell hard on the pavement below.
 
We scooped him up and took him right to the vet. After a long examination the news wasn’t good. Merlin was suffering from spindle cell cancer. He had weeks, or maybe months to live, no longer. There was a small ray of hope, though. There was one case in the literature where a cat with spindle cell had lived to the age of five. That was small comfort.
 
We were given some tranquilizers for Merlin, but he wouldn’t take them. Even if they were forced down his throat he would regurgitate the pills, stash or hide them in the pouch of his cheek and spit them out later. We found them scattered around the floor. Merlin very much did not like what those pills did to him. We stopped trying. Let Merlin be Merlin.
 
Oddly, while he no longer had the physical agility he once had, nothing else seemed to change. He was still an active, happy, affectionate cat. He still, every morning, engaged in Misty’s rough and tumble teasing. Without being tranquilized he was as curious and bold as ever. He showed no signs of the predicted sudden decline.
 
Every six months we would take him to the vet’s for an examination. Every time the report came back the same: no further deterioration. A year passed, then two. The people at the veterinary hospital all knew Merlin by then. They were now rooting for him. They began calling him their “miracle kitty” because of his exceptional longevity with this deadly cancer.
 
Five years passed and Merlin was now famous within the veterinary community. The word had spread widely for this was no ordinary hospital. It was located in Thousand Oaks, California. Back in the old days Thousand Oaks was home to Jungleland. This was the place where the Ringling Brothers Circus trained its big animals: lions, tigers, and elephants. The great Clyde Beatty, demonstrating his big cat training, was a featured attraction.
 
The veterinary hospital was established to care for those magnificent creatures. It was staffed by the nation’s top professionals. Jungleland was gone by the time we had arrived, but the hospital was still there and it was still the preferred clinic for exotic animals. Merlin had the very best care.
 
Every six months we would take Merlin in for an exam. Every time the staff would cluster around to greet Merlin. Nothing changed and the years of this now famous Miracle Kitty rolled on.
 
Ten years had passed since we brought the kittens home. I was in great pain from a very difficult surgery — the inside of my skull had been reconstructed – when the Reaper came visiting. It wasn’t sudden. We had days of warning. One morning Misty began her usual tease. But this time Merlin backed away. He wouldn’t let her touch him. Sarah and I bundled him down to the vet’s. The news was bad. Merlin had a large tumor bulging from his side. It had grown so quickly – mostly since the previous day ­— that we hadn’t noticed. Merlin had days to live. A narcotic was prescribed but, as usual, Merlin spit the pills out. He preferred a clear head.
 
For a few days Merlin rallied. He ate well and seemed his old self. Misty kept him constant company. She knew this was bad. Then, one evening I found Merlin lying half paralyzed. He had no control over his hind quarters. I took Merlin into a place of comfort and sat close to him. Far into the night we consoled each other, me singing softly to Merlin and Merlin’s musical voice returning the affection. Eventually Merlin slept and I was able to get a few hours, myself, before the inevitable events in the morning.
 
At the vet’s some of the old timers came in to say goodbye to their friend, the Miracle Kitty. Then the tranquilizer took effect. I cradled Merlin’s head in my hand as he gazed at me, love in his eyes. His heart stopped and so did the sparkle.
 
Each year, on the anniversary of Merlin’s passing, paperwhite lilies bloom for a few days where Merlin’s ashes were scattered.

© 2023 Chester L. Richards. All rights reserved.
#cats #Merlin #hunting #stories #catstories #ChesterLRichardsBlog #memoirs #kittens

Miracle Kitty Part 1  │   Miracle Kitty Part 2  │  Miracle Kitty Part 3

If Merlin had the brains, Misty had the brawn. Fully grown, but still young, Misty was sitting on the floor of the dining room. Eight feet above a fly bounced against the ceiling. Misty’s head swiveled back and forth as she tracked this annoying intruder through its random flight. Suddenly, from her seated position, Misty leaped up and grabbed the fly as it bounced along the ceiling. Back on the floor, and with a very satisfied expression on her face, Misty tongued the fly to her teeth. Crunch! The fly met its swift demise.
 
As I said, Misty was a great athlete. If there had been a Kitty Olympics Misty would easily have taken the Gold.
 
Kittens grow quickly. Soon it was time for them to be introduced to the great outdoors, under supervision, of course. Near the house Sarah and I supervised. Later, as the cats became accustomed to the outside world, Sunny took over their training, leading them into the wilderness, teaching them how to survive the predatory hazards that abound there.
 
As expected, the kittens made mistakes. One day I was uncovering the swimming pool when Merlin hopped onto the free remnant of the cover and started strutting around, amused by its oscillations beneath his feet. I tried to warn him off that dangerous place, but Merlin ignored me and walked ever closer to the cover’s drooping edge. Suddenly, he started sliding. Frantic, he tried clawing into the material, but the fabric resisted and he slid, backwards, right into the deep water.
 
I was ready to jump in, clothes and all, to rescue the drowning cat. Except, this cat was not drowning. Not a bit! Merlin looked at me with an expression of pure joy, and started paddling around the pool as if he had been born to it. Now, I had long been aware of a Bengal’s affinity for water. This breed loves to play in the tub with a couple of inches of water to splash around in. But swimming in a pool was not even rumored. Yet, there Merlin was, happily swimming around without the slightest sign of distress. After a while he found the steps, climbed out of the pool, shook off sprays of water and came trotting up to soak me, as well.
 
Though Merlin never showed fear of the water, Misty, by way of contrast, kept her distance from the pool. Merlin often quite casually walked along the very edge of the pool, never concerned about falling in. Once in a while, when he was thirsty, he would lean far down and take a drink, much as do the larger wild animals around here. Of course, as I had discovered during a close examination of his paws, Merlin had webbed feet. Maybe an ancestor of Merlin and Misty had acquired genes from an Asian Fishing Cat — a wild cat that dives deep in lakes and rivers to catch the fish that it feeds upon. Such cross breeding would explain the very large size of our kittens’ dad, as well as Merlin’s webbed feet.
 
Merlin was remarkable in another way. He did not meow, like most cats. His voice was a wonderful musical instrument. It had the resonances of a bassoon’s upper register. His greeting was a fragment of a symphony. Charming! To this day I still hear Merlin’s voice when a symphony orchestra is playing.
 
For the fast-growing kittens the wilderness proved to be fun. The wilderness was also a happy hunting ground, part of the fun, no doubt.
 
Their greatest delight was chasing squirrels. Now, squirrels love trees. They feel nice and safe high up within the protective arboreal thicket. Oddly enough, so, too, do Bengals. Perhaps this is the legacy of another of their wild ancestors, the Leopard cats who hunt in the trees of Asia. In any case, Merlin and Misty had good sport merrily chasing the squirrels right into their lairs deep among the branches. “Okay,” a squirrel would respond, “see how you like this move.” Whereupon the squirrel would dash right out to the bendy, whippy end of the limb and leap to another, many feet away. Misty, in the lead with Merlin close behind, would chase after the squirrel, but not quite so far out on the branch since Misty was heavier than the squirrel. Much to the squirrel’s astonishment, and evident dismay, Misty, too, would make the long leap to the other branch, Merlin leaping after her. Don’t get me wrong, this was pure play for the fast-growing kittens — nothing malicious intended. It took some time for the squirrels to recognize this and relax — somewhat. Still, the squirrels never let Misty and Merlin get too close.
 
The serious hunting was done on the ground. At the time the neighborhood was suffering from major infestations of gophers and their predators, rattlesnakes. Misty and Merlin took care of the problem. First they went after the gophers. With their primary food supply gone most of the rattlers subsequently went missing. The few, hunger weakened, vipers that were left were easily dispatched by these lightening quick cats.
 
Hunting gophers required precise coordination. First, the kittens used their keen hearing to locate the two openings to each gopher den. While Merlin attacked the entrance with furious digging Misty waited patiently at the exit to catch and dispatch the panicked gophers as they fled from the security of their nests. The lawns in the neighborhood were soon blessedly free from their myriad gopher holes.
 
There was something uncanny about the way these two worked together. On occasion I would see them walking side by side, in perfect step, their ears swiveling in unison, their heads swinging back and forth as one, their tails switching side to side, together. The two looked for all the world like a single organism with eight legs. Sarah maintained that, in that state, they really were one for they were communicating telepathically.
 
Sarah’s theory was that these higher level animals communicate by exchanging pictures rather than words. Sarah apparently could do some of this herself for I often watched her easily taming wild animals. She said she simply told them that she was one of them. They evidently believed her. There were incidents from her past which made her theory at least somewhat plausible: One summer she worked as a Forest Ranger watching for fires from the top of a mountain. Living near the lookout tower was a bear. This momma bear, together with her cub, would, every week, walk close by Sarah’s side as she made the long trek down to the base camp to pick up supplies. Sarah’s affinity for wild animals attracted the attention of Ella, the Shaman of the Nez Perce Indian tribe. Ella trained Sarah to be a tribal shaman and then adopted her. That was how Sarah became a member of the tribe. Having learned her lessons well, Sarah said that Ella knew far more about wild animals and how they communicate than any academic biologist.
 
Whether Merlin and Misty’s communication was telepathic or by some other means, it was fascinating to watch them at work, or at play, always strangely synchronized.

Please do visit again to see what happened next with Old Merlin (our First Merlin Cat).

© 2023 Chester L. Richards. All rights reserved.
#cats #Merlin #hunting #stories #catstories #ChesterLRichardsBlog #memoirs #kittens

Miracle Kitty Part 1  │   Miracle Kitty Part 2

Periodically Dad Cat would be allowed to roam the neighborhood. Most of the people there were fine with this. But there are always the complainers and they kept pestering the city about Dad Cat. The city fathers put pressure on the breeder to close down his operation. As I say, his difficulty was our opportunity.
 
We reentered the house to see the kittens. There were only two six week old kittens left from this last litter. The breeder brought out one, a reddish-brown striped male. His littermate, a female, was sleeping in the safe room. The breeder told us she hadn’t been weaned yet. Sarah fell instantly in love with this little boy; he was instantly in love with Sarah. While the two of them were communing I had a surprise. Up onto the dining table jumped a little gray ball of fur, who turned out to be the boy’s sister. She immediately pranced up to me and began a romance. I was hooked.
 
We had intended to bring home one kitten. We brought home two. The breeder was concerned about the female, since she was still nursing. He gave me instructions about how to wean her, using a special milk substitute that I could get from the pet store. I wrote down the particulars and we prepared to leave.
 
Consider what that good man must have been feeling. These were the last of his kittens. He clearly was in love with them and this showed in their sweet spirits. It must have broken his heart to let them go. He had done this before, it is true, but these were the last, the end. There could be no more. I hope he saw in us the kind of happy future that was in store for these precious little beings. That would have helped.
 
We installed the kittens in the TV room. This was a small room adjacent to the kitchen which could be closed off to keep the kittens safely confined when we were not present. This was to be their nursery room for a few months. We had no trouble weaning the little female. Really, she weaned herself.
 
“What shall we name them?” I asked Sarah. “Don’t worry,” she replied. “They will soon tell you their names.” And so it was. Misty told us first. Her silver gray coat, and lively disposition, made this name inevitable. Merlin was the only possibility for the little boy, given his incessant curiosity, boldness, and obvious high intelligence. Was there an element of magician in him as well, which is what I associate with the name?
 
How intelligent was he? He was a kitty genius. I am not exaggerating. His creative understanding of spatial relationships is typically seen in a human child only around the age of ten. Let me give one example.
 
It is necessary to know the physical layout confronting Merlin to understand just how incredibly bright he really was. Between the nursery room and the kitchen was a long sight line that gave a view down the hallway to the bedrooms. The kittens in their early exploration could look down this corridor, but they never ventured in that direction. On the other side of the kitchen was the dining room facing the back of the house. The dining room had a sliding glass door that led out onto the patio. Extending to the left from the dining room was the living room, with a fireplace at the far end. The chimney for the fireplace projected out onto the patio and blocked the view down towards the bedroom section of the house.
 
After a few days the kittens began their exploration of the house – very cautiously at first. They poked their noses out of the nursery and advanced a short distance into the kitchen, each day exploring further. Then, one day, at the far end of the dining room, a racoon passed by right on the other side of the glass sliding door. Misty hid from this monster. Bold Merlin galloped through the kitchen and dining room to see what this curiosity was. But by the time he reached the slider the racoon had disappeared around the side of the house. Merlin swiveled around and, for his first time, looked into the living room. Without hesitation he jumped up on the windowsill and continued to track the waddling raccoon. It was his first time up on a windowsill, too. Amazing for him to figure everything out in an instant.
 
But Merlin wasn’t finished. The racoon disappeared around the chimney. Merlin tried leaning up against the glass to see, but it was no go. The raccoon was gone. For a moment Merlin sat thinking about the marvelous apparition he had just seen. He turned to me with a quizzical look on his face. “What was thing, Daddy? Where did it go?” Then the light bulb flashed on! He dashed down the hallway, into the bedroom and up onto the windowsill there. Merlin watched as the raccoon ambled the rest of the way across the yard, climbed the fence and disappeared.
 
I said Merlin was a kitty genius. Consider his astonishing intellectual accomplishment. In a glance he had figured out the layout of the front part of the house and instantly exploited that information to track the passing animal. But more than that, after a moment’s reflection he intuited that there had to be a room down the mysterious hallway, on the other side of the chimney, which would have a window where he could continue to follow the raccoon. Having suddenly realized this he immediately acted. This complex sequence of thought is a classic illustration of a flash of creative insight. And, he was less than two  months old! Merlin truly was intellectually gifted.

Please do visit again to see what happened next with Old Merlin (our First Merlin Cat). Miracle Kitty Part 3 │ Miracle Kitty Part 1

© 2023 Chester L. Richards. All rights reserved.
#cats #Merlin #hunting #stories #catstories #ChesterLRichardsBlog #memoirs #kittens