JACKAL

Jackal was truly feral. Here is how I got him. Happy Endings had given me a feral cat to work with. At a steel plant in Chicago he got out. The doors on Freightliners aren't the best. I don't know if my seat belt may have been caught in it or loading the coil of steel just jarred it open. All I do know is the door was open and the cat was gone. I looked for him but did not see him. I went back with live traps and had the people that worked there keep an eye out for him. For over 5 months I went back trying to trap him. People said they saw a black cat roaming around. One night I got lucky and caught him? He was tearing up the trap so I got him into a carrier.
     The next day I took him to Crawford Animal Hospital. As soon as I opened the carrier I realized that I had made a mistakes. There was no way to touch him. He had to be sedated to be examined. Now I had to get him back in the carrier. He is a very powerful bundle of hatred. They use welding gloves when dealing with fractious cats. Armed with those and a towel I went in. Turns out we were both on the offensive. It quickly turned into a game of cat and mouse. Any time I tried to grab him he would bite right through the gloves. He was able to jump from the floor to the ceiling (10ft). He tore pictures off the walls and put holes in their bench seat. Basically destroyed the room. With blood, sweat and tears I got lucky and was able to eventually get him in the carrier. I did not wear him out or even down. He was totally up and ready to kill me.
     The next day he was sedated, examined and treated. That is also when it was discovered that I did not have the right cat. He was named Bob and put into quarantine. After his quarantine was up he was fixed and given his rabies vaccine. They gave him to me with liquid pain meds that are to be placed under the tongue and along the jaw line. The 1st wasn't bad but he was still half knocked out. I have really thick fleece lined winter leather gloves that I was using. He bit right through them. I then bought oven mites and put them over the gloves. He stopped drawing blood but have you ever gotten your fingers caught in a door? That's what it felt like. Then I tried backing my fingers out of the glove and while he thought he was tearing me up I got some medicine in his mouth, kind of where it was supposed to go.
     I used the same glove trick while trying to pet him. He is the reason I now have a plastic mattress cover over my mattress. He peed and crapped on my bed and not from being scared. I watched him looking at me while he unloaded on my bed. It took a while but he did come around. It got to the point my fingers actually healed. He loves being pet and played with. You still have to watch it because he can get a little rough.
     Now that he was able to be touched without sedation it was time to look farther into his sneezing. It was thought he had upper repertory. An antibiotic shot would clear him right up. But the doctors didn't feel it should be constantly coming back. It was discovered he has part of his upper nasal passage missing. There are several causes but it doesn't matter, what matters is that someone needs to keep a close eye on him and if it gets out of hand he needs treated. Happy Endings shelter guards all their cats very closely and will not adopt out a cat that needs constant supervision. They are placed in permanent foster care and the shelter monitors them. So now we have Jackal.
     At times Jackal will blow out a wad of snot. This would be a problem but since it happens when he's been sleeping it's contained to that area. It does tend to piss me off however because he tends to sleep on my pillow. I'm only home a couple nights a week so it's all his the rest of the time. I can easily change a pillow case but it's when I'm sleeping on it and he sneezes that gets me.