Mysterious cat is mysterious
<p>Our new cat Zola, it appears, has a mysterious past.  The computer that knows about the ID chip embedded under his skin thinks he&#8217;s a dog.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s more to the story. And it makes us think we may have misread Zola&#8217;s initial behavior. I&#8217;m torn between wishing he could tell us what he&#8217;d been through, and maybe being thankful that he can&#8217;t.  Because if he could, I suspect I might experience an urge to go punch someone&#8217;s lights out that would be bad for my karma.</p>
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<p>On Zola&#8217;s first vet visit, one of the techs did a routine check and discovered that Zola had had an ID chip implanted under his skin. This confirmed our suspicion that he&#8217;d been raised by humans rather than being feral or semi-feral. Carol, our contact at PALS (the rescue network we got Zola from) put some more effort into trying to trace his background.</p>
<p>We already knew that PALS rescued Zola from an ASPCA shelter in Cumberland County, New Jersey, just before he would have been euthanized. Further inquiry disclosed that (a) he&#8217;d been dumped at the shelter by a human, and (b) he was, in Carol&#8217;s words, &#8220;alarmingly skinny&#8221; &#8211; they had to feed him up to a normal weight.</p>
<p>The PALS people didn&#8217;t know he was chipped.  When we queried Home Again, the chip-tracking outfit, the record for the chip turned out to record the carrier as a dog.  The staffer my wife Cathy spoke with at Home Again thought that was distinctly odd.  This is not, apparently, a common sort of confusion.</p>
<p>My wife subsequently asked Home Again to contact the person or family who had Zola chipped and request that the record be altered to point to us. (This is a routine procedure for them when an animal changes owners.)</p>
<p>We got a reply informing us that permission for the transfer was refused.</p>
<p>These facts indicate to us that somewhere out there, there is someone who (a) got Zola as a kitten, (b) apparently failed to feed him properly, (c) dumped him at a shelter, and now (d) won&#8217;t allow the chip record to be changed to point to his new home.</p>
<p>This does not add up to a happy picture of Zola&#8217;s kittenhood.  It is causing us to reconsider how we evaluated his behavior when we first met him.  We thought he was placid and dignified &#8211; friendly but a little reserved.</p>
<p>Now we wonder &#8211; because he isn&#8217;t &#8220;placid&#8221; any more.  He scampers around in high spirits.  He&#8217;s very affectionate, even a bit needy sometimes.  (He&#8217;s started to lick our hands occasionally during play.) Did we misunderstand? Was his reserve a learned fear of mistreatment?  We don&#8217;t know for sure, but it has become to seem uncomfortably plausible.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s never any good reason for mistreating a cat, but it seems like an especially nasty possibility when the cat is as sweet-natured and human-friendly as Zola is.  He&#8217;s not quite the extraordinarily loving creature Sugar was, but his Coon genes are telling.  He thrives on affection and returns it more generously every week.</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t know if we&#8217;ll ever find out anything more.  Nobody at PALs or Home Again or our vet has a plausible theory about why Zola is carrying an ID chip registered to a dog, nor why his former owners owners won&#8217;t OK a transfer.</p>
<p>We&#8217;re just glad he&#8217;s here.</p>
