Cygan, The Gypsy

Cygan means "Gypsy" in Polish. When he found us, it was apparent he was not a feral cat, and something out of our realm. We try not to get involved with domesticated cats, and for good reasons. First and foremost, inevitably we will get calls from people who want to unload their mistakes and problems on us. "My cat had kittens - what are YOU going to do about it?" My response is to advise them to get their cat spayed, and then keep her indoors. It is a hard thing to do. Everyone needs to be a responsible caretaker of their pets. Whenever possible, yes, I will make a few inquiries of other groups that have shelters if they have room for a few more. I don't like to do it often, because I'm afraid of burning too many bridges, going to the well once too often. We've found a lot of homes for "dumps" - domestic cats someone has "dumped" in an area they seem to know other cats are being cared for. That is one reason the locations of the colonies we tend to is often a closely guarded secret. Which brings me back to Cygan (Pronounced "See-gon"). Beautiful young lad, under a year old. Heart of gold with a beautiful loving nature. We got several calls about him, and decided to check on him and see if he was just lost. Often with cats and apartment complexes, an indoor cat will escape accidentally and not be able to find his way home. All the entrances look the same to them. They will often be off by one or two buildings, waiting for their owners to find them. That seemed to be the case. He thought he belonged on the third floor of this one building, but the tenants swore he wasn't theirs. His long, black and grey body and huge white paws told us he was going to be a big cat when he grew up. His well-groomed coat and his desire to be stroked more than fed told us he has known human love. Is he lost? Is someone looking for him? Was he just left behind when his one-time caretaker moved? Or kicked out because...of what? Since he wasn't feral, we couldn't just relocate him to the near-by feral colony and hope he'd be accepted in. But we could try to locate his owner, if they were looking for him. We took his photo - which wasn't easy, as he kept scampering about looking for someone to stroke him or even pick him up. Flyers were made, hung up and passed around. Would anyone recognize him and claim him? One, then two weeks passed. No takers. One of the feral females reluctantly befriended him, but feline companionship was not what Cygan wanted. He longed for human contact - people, not cats. We made sure he got food, but worried about him at night. When two young ladies - teenagers - knocked on our door and asked if I was the "Cat person" and had Cygan in their arms - now what do I do? Reach down into the Well one more time. With my wife and two members of our Board sitting at the table discussing our little friend, I reached back for my "Emergency Phone List" - a very short list at that. I hadn't pulled it out in about a year, after losing Molly to the cold winter weather.