HARRY THE CAT

In August of 2001, on a day when I had been giving ‘my’ family of kookaburras their occasional feed of
chopped up chicken necks, one of the saddest looking creatures I’ve ever seen turned up outside my
kitchen door, looking for food. I moved towards him and he immediately fled. That evening I put out a
bowl of cat food and listened from inside the house, hoping he would come to eat the offering. Eventually
I heard some scuffling and carefully peeked out the window. He really was a sight: very short scruffy fur,
a skinny tail dragging on the ground, a bleeding front tooth, severe limp and the most abject expression.
Afterwards, when I put out food on a daily basis, if I went outside, or even moved too quickly in the
kitchen where he could see me, he would immediately dive under the verandah.

It actually took quite a bit of planning to feed Harry, as I called him, since there’s also a family of
brushtail possums who come out at dusk to look for scraps. Harry wouldn’t come near during the
daytime, so sometimes his food was eaten by the possums, as they easily frightened him off, but
gradually he became a little bolder when he learnt that the food would appear regularly. However, he was
the most paranoid cat I had ever come across, so concluded that he must actually be feral and at the end
of his ability to hunt for himself. Nevertheless, I very gradually moved his food bowl a little closer to the
kitchen door and sometimes sat outside while he ate, but he would always run away at the slightest
movement.

It took until January before he became a little more relaxed, even beginning to sleep on the verandah
doormat. I had been worried initially that he would attack the kookaburras and a family of magpies who
also came for food, but thankfully, that was never a problem. The birds were all perfectly at ease when
Harry was nearby, and the magpies would simply wait until he moved away before coming to steal the
remainder of his food. I was also worried he would harass my fourteen-year-old female cat, called Blue,
but it was just the opposite: she harassed him, hence his name.

Bit by bit, Harry’s jaw healed and his fur grew as he became quite plump. His tail stopped dragging on
the ground too and grew almost fluffy, yet there was always one strip of fur along his spine that he could
never clean because his back was so stiff. It just had to moult of its own accord, but looked quite
ridiculous. I so wished I could brush him!
Unfortunately, I broke my foot in mid-January and was in a cast for quite a long time. As a result, there
was no choice but to put Harry’s food bowl on the doormat just outside the kitchen door, since I wasn’t
able to go outside, not being strong enough to use crutches. Oddly enough, one of the young magpies
turned up with a broken foot as well, so I made sure she could always get some of the food. She soon
recovered very nicely.

I was amazed that Harry learnt so quickly to eat by the door, but one day, for the first time, he came up as
I opened it, and I chose just that time to accidentally spill his milk all over him! Well, away he went at top
speed and it was three days before he came back, once more quite paranoid. It took three months before
he trusted me again.

By April, Harry was treating the place as home, sleeping on the verandah and in the garden; I'm fairly
sure he slept under my bedroom floor at night, since I could hear cat-snoring noises! He had the most
charming habit of folding his front arms when he lay on his stomach; I’ve never seen another cat do this.
However, I still couldn’t touch him or approach too quickly. After a while longer, I began coaxing him
with pieces of chicken while I fed the kookaburras, since he always turned up when they were around.
Eventually, he took a piece of meat from my fingers, so I hoped that perhaps one day I’d be able to brush
that scruffy, itchy piece of fur from off his back.

By August 2002 he was well programmed: as soon as he heard the kitchen door open he would turn up to
look for food – which was just as well because I had to go to hospital for an operation so had someone
come over to feed him and Blue. It was more traumatic for Blue because it was the first time in her life
she had been left totally alone for any length of time. For two days after I came home she followed me
everywhere, even to the toilet!

Two of the most interesting things about Harry’s progress were the direction of his gaze and his
understanding of why his food appeared every day. When he first arrived he never looked upwards,
always hanging his head. As he became more confident that his food would magically appear on a regular
basis, he began to hold his head in a more normal manner and occasionally glance upwards. It was pretty
clear, though, that for a long time he really didn’t associate me with food: only the sound of the kitchen
door and the presence of the kookaburras. I told my sister about this, since she also has a long history of
taking in stray cats. She had noticed something similar with one of her cats and thought that it took a
while before they formed a relationship with our faces, rather than just our feet! I think she was right
because he eventually began looking at my face and waiting for the sound of my voice before deciding
there really was food waiting for him. This seemed to coincide with the progress I made in offering him
meat from my hand. The other interesting thing was just how fond I became of him, even though he
wasn’t a pet.

In February the following year, Harry developed an enormous abscess on his jaw, so I was faced with the
problem of how to catch him in order to take him to the vet. Fortunately, he had no idea what a cat carry
box looked like and took no notice when I left one open for a while on the verandah. I eventually pounced
on him and popped him into the box before he could escape. The poor creature was so frightened he
didn’t make a sound the whole trip. The vet managed to sedate him before the examination and we
decided to treat the abscess, remove the rotten teeth and neuter him all at the same time. I was also
delighted to be able to give him that good brush he so needed before he woke up from the anaesthetic.
The vet thought he was probably about eight or ten years old.

The vet kept Harry for a week so that antibiotics could be administered since I knew I had no hope of
giving them to him. He then came home and, probably for the first time in his life, stayed inside, in one
of the bathrooms. He immediately worked out what the kitty litter was for, which is extraordinary, and
ate and drank well, despite the crushed antibiotics in his food. After two weeks inside, he went back to
the vet to have his stitches removed and a general check-up. All was well, so back home he went.
However, as soon as I let him out he was off! It took two days before he came back, but he then began to
settle down remarkably quickly, letting me stroke the tip of his nose and, eventually, the top of his head.

In May it began to get colder, so I put a basket outside, which he immediately adopted, and which he
loved sleeping in, enjoying the morning sunshine. Overnight, though, he still went under the house,
where it was warm and dry. As things were going so well, I thought I’d find him an even better place to
sleep so bought a little cat house.
It was not long after this that I brought Harry’s basket into the kitchen and coaxed him in at night. He
still ate his food outside because that was what he wanted, but each night he now came inside and
snuggled into his blankets, purring for the very first time. Before, he had never made the least sound.

He was too timid to explore any other part of the house and always preferred to be outside during the
day, but became very ill in January 2004 and had to stay inside. It appeared that he had developed both
cancer of the lip and chronic kidney failure. The cancer was removed as a long chance and he was placed
on steroid tablets for his kidneys, but a few months later he collapsed, unable to stand. He still purred
every time I came near and still wanted to eat, so I nursed him carefully, often getting up several times
during the night to make sure he was warm and to clean up after him as he had become incontinent.

For a short while, a couple of months, Harry rallied and could be outside in the sunshine again, but the
cancer returned and he became extremely weak, barely able to walk. However, during the last few weeks
of his life, he finally came into the lounge room in the evening, to sit on my lap and to enjoy the warmth
of the open fire. I gave him painkillers in his food, but when his mouth began to bleed continuously I
decided he had finally reached the end – but it was so hard to put him into the cat box for that last trip to
the vet; I had hoped he could die in his sleep.

The photo accompanying this story was taken of Harry in his little house on the 21st of June 2003, just
one year before he died.

Inge Meldgaard
2013