I first noticed his Royal Feralness when he slipped out from under the house early in the morning and did an impressive hose-down on some plastic garbage bags waiting for pick-up. As I quickly swiped the urine off the plastic bags, I vowed that this gold-and white tomcat?s days of mating would end soon. He made several trips to the outdoor feeders at night chasing the other cats away until he ate this fill. Then, in true tomcat style, he doused the surrounding bushes with this signature scent warning the other cats to stay away from his newly claimed turf. The next evening, I gave my kitty call and the barn cats came running. Quickly, I put them all inside the house. Time to trap this tom.

Within a matter of three days after withdrawing all food sources from the feeders, the orange tom was yowling inside the trap. Quickly, I dropped a dark towel over the trap noting that his substantial size prohibited much movement inside the trap. It was midnight Saturday and since the vet clinic wouldn?t open until Monday, I carried the trap upstairs into the Quarantine Room. After making sure I had all the supplies I would need; food, water, litter, scoop, plastic bags etc.. I opened the trap and stepped back. The tom bolted out of the trap and ran up our eight-foot walls, shredding wallpaper in his wake. He began to run laps around my head over and over- staying right at the base of the ceiling, ripping molding out of the wall! Amazed at this frantic activity and afraid he would stroke out, I left the room securing the door and praying he would calm down soon. The next morning, I returned to the room finding the plastic trellis we had screwed into the wall over the window, left askew. The screen ripped open and ?Cyclone? nowhere to be seen.

This was in 2003 and he returned a week later looking haggard and ill. I was able to scruff him quickly and whisk him off to the vet for an exam and clip job. Unable to merge with my regular cats, this three year old now neutered boy was adopted out a few months later to a farm eighteen miles away. A week later, he showed up, worn out and beat-up at our feral feeders. I made a quick trip out to the farmhouse only to find the road barricaded and the farm completely deserted.

Now, here it is 2010 and Cyclone returned last week. He is out in my cat enclosure recovering from yet another fight and is missing most of his teeth. He is ten years old (thereabouts). Since his first introduction to our family, he has lived outside and in 2006 after nightly raids from coyotes, I assumed he was gone. It appeared he had vanished from the face of the earth. The coyotes in this area leave little behind on their raids and since Cyclone didn?t show his golden face for weeks afterward, I assumed the worst.

Our winter this year, unusually harsh for this area forced me to confine him in my triple level cage. He takes his confinement remarkably well, but we didn?t name him Cyclone for nothing. It is still early, and I suspect, he still has a story or two left to tell me.