Told by co-founder Laurie

In one of our founding members’ best rescues (and, for our co-founder, birthdays) ever, we trapped a six-week-old Russian Blue kitten a member had spotted in the Carl's Jr. parking lot in heavy traffic. 

Because this kitten was so young and in such a dangerous area, we hurried onsite in the late afternoon near the hedge where she was seen and set up a trap. As we must do for kittens who don’t weigh enough to set off the touch plate, we bypassed the iffy touch-plate mechanism by attaching a long pull-cord to a flashlight to prop the trap door open near the hedge and chummed around it with tuna. Finally, we spotted her — a beautiful and scrawny Russian Blue baby. But she avoided the trap, and at midnight, after a few chilly hours of watching and waiting (TNR's main activity), we agreed to return the next day (our founding member’s 67th birthday). Rescues like this often take multiple days.

Regrouping the next morning, she was still lurking in her hedge-quarters. We set up the trap again, and she wasn’t as nervous this time, but over the next few hours, she performed tantalizing do-si-do dances at the door. Lurking behind a pillar, we watched and waited — encouraged by one of the locals (who'd followed our lack of progress) cheerfully calling out "Patience!" as he rode by on his bike — a useful reminder of TNR's most essential mindset.

After yet more W&W, that patience finally paid off. Peeking out of the hedge, the baby cautiously advanced toward the trap, and this time, she tasted the chum at the trap door. Then she took several tentative steps inside… we waited… she took another step, close to the end of the trap for the paper plate full of tuna… and with perfect timing, we yanked the cord, and Voila! — we had her! 

Immediately draping the trap to reduce her stress, we named the kitten Carla, packed her and our supplies up and parted ways, both of us still glowing with the thrill of a successful rescue. 

Carla settled down in a large cage in my bathroom, still very nervous. Caging is a useful short-term tool to expedite taming: If a cat or kitten can run away from a human, it cements that aversive behavior, endangering the taming process. Gradual forced proximity and physical affection is an essential taming tool, and it worked wonders with ultra-spicy Carla, who responded to our first attempts at contact with growls, hisses and bites.

But with time, tuna and butt-scratches won the day as she learned at first to endure and then seek out petting. We went on to the next step — picking her up — and then the final frontier: holding her. Soon, she was exploring the bathroom, setting up camp in a cat tree with a soft bed. Finally, she graduated to a bedroom, which she shared with me. Though taming gets exponentially more challenging with each week past 8 or 9, it goes well at earlier ages. But Carla was a bit spicy, and our-cofounder did some extensive taming techniques — wearing gloves. 

Unfortunately, because of Covid concerns, her high-risk human (yours truly) didn’t have many visitors in the home during the taming period, so Carla never became acclimated to other humans. And because she continued to exhibit feral behavior with anyone else, she became one of my few foster fails… and bonded even more tightly to me, as one of the most loving — and vocal — cats I’ve had in more than half a century of rescue. As she warmed up, she found her voice — and what a voice it is! We have long conversations every day, which earned her a new name: She is now my beloved Crybaby, the mouthpiece of my home clowder — and the best birthday present I’ve ever had.

Thank you for making these success stories a possibility for our community’s most vulnerable cats. To make more happy endings please donate here.