No one has stepped up to adopt this boy, so it falls on us to reverse the damage done to him before he arrived here and try to help him find balance in his life, so he can co-exist peacefully with people and other animals.

He has attitude which is rare for the orange boys. So far, any cat that I attempt to put him with has failed. He is full-on Alpha in the presence of other cats (and dogs). When it comes to people he is loving to the point of being scary. He is so starved for affection that he will attack you when you stop petting him. Yesterday, he nailed me right above my glasses when I bent down to grab my shoes, after petting him for a few minutes. If I hadn’t been wearing my glasses, he would have easily nailed my eye.

In the mornings, when I let the inside cats out, I will open up the tunnel doors and allow him inside. That will be the first step. I have told Mike repeatedly that if Solo makes an appearance near him, to please just ignore him. This is hard for Mike to do, but as I explained, this is not permanent. This is just the first step of many to tone down his aggressive tendencies and let him walk freely through the house.

When the other cats come inside, it is usually a matter of minutes before they meet each other and the screaming starts. Then I go in to break it up and put him into the tunnel, leaving him to stay in the big enclosure all by himself. Hopefully, with time, this conditioning will show him that he must behave like a cat and not a tomcat in the presence of other kitties. We will just see how this goes.

I am always happier to work with the true feral cats and not ones that have been owned by clueless, ignorant or cruel people. You can always work with the feral ones, but when people are the ones who mix up the cat’s natural instincts and create in essence monsters of a different sort, that is a higher challenge.

Case in point, our Lincoln kitty. He was owed by an elderly woman who had simply lost her mind. He wasn’t allowed to eat until he sat up in a chair at the dining room table, accepted a  bib put over his neck and then had a fork and spoon duct taped to his paws! Seriously, I do not make this chit up! Talk about a royal mess when he arrived here well over ten years ago. Now, he interacts well with other cats but wants nothing to do with humans and who could blame him? Just the removal of the duct tape residue build-up on his pads would have made any burn victim cringe. The process was painful.

We allow him to wander freely outside and live life on his terms. It took awhile for that to happen, he was that messed up.

So Solo is a challenge because of how his human treated him. We are hoping in time, to reverse the damage and let him live the rest of his days among new feline friends.