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This is the post to talk about a recent visitor to our home. Zeca is an older tom, at least six or seven years of age, but probably between nine and eleven years. He is small for a male, and was a bit scrawny; both of these are a result of a lifetime on the street. We know nothing of his origin, he just showed up about a year and a half ago. Likely, he was expelled from another territory. In any case, he became a fixture on our street, defined mainly by the fact that all the female cats kept attacking him (note: the females). After a short time he became the de facto boss of this area. We saw him on multiple occasions fighting dogs and other cats, only to show up the next morning for food with various cuts and he always acted as if it were the most natural thing in the world. We also eventually found out why all the females bore grudges against him: every female in the area, every female, has had kittens that look just like him...
Anyway, about two months ago Zeca showed up with another cut on his cheek. At first we thought nothing of it, just another fight... But then the cut formed an abcess; you all know what that means. We were able to drain the abcess and thought it would heal and Zeca would return to normal. But we have a neighbor on the next property, that property is a genuine public health hazard. He means well, our neighbor is not a bad person, but we have seen cats die there due to his negligence. The cats from the street go there because it is overgrown, giving many places to hide. But it also has things like insects; Flies from there laid eggs in Zeca's (drained, but still open) abcess. When we saw it all that was left of Zeca's entire cheek was a pocket full of writhing larva. I immediately rushed him to the vet; being an emergency on a Sunday afternoon it was very, very expensive, but the veterinarians did an outstanding job (which is why we always go to them: they are expensive, but they always do excellent work) with Zeca.
So,why all the fuss and effort for one street cat? Everyone needs a little help now and then, but for all of his fighting and getting females pregnant Zeca is also a devoted father to the kittens living in front of our bulding. There is a female, named Minnie, that we have not been able to catch and spay. We've tried more than once, she is far tougher than her petite frame suggests. She is now on her fifth (
) pregnancy. There are kittens from two pregnancies living here, one who is roughly the same age as Billy (technically older by 1.5-2 weeks) and three from a more recent pregnancy; they are now six months old or about to complete six months. Zeca has always helped care for them, now that the mother has abandoned them in favor of the new batch in the oven they cluster around him. While Zeca was with us recovering some of the kittens lived in the corridor of our apartment; they knew Zeca was inside and they only left when he did.
So, the recovery itself. Like I wrote, Zeca basically lost his entire cheek. I'm not going to post photos of his injury; for the macabre among you imagine a cat starring in a Hellraiser film... He made a full recovery, but it took six weeks as he had to regrow all of the skin. He now has another scar, but once the fur regrows it won't be visible. It was a stressful time here, since Zeca had to be physically separated from Billy- Zeca the hardened warrior was afraid to be in the same room with Pantera, who made it very clear from the beginning that she was not at all interested in friendship. Proof that Zeca is smart, since Pantera is bigger than Zeca. It seems that Zeca and Pimenta had some sort of unspoken agreement, as the two simply avoided each other as much as possible and thus there was calm. So the only real problem was the reckless teenager Billy. Of course, he continually tried to fight Zeca; he succeeded a few times either because we weren't paying attention, or later because Billy learned how to open the door to the balcony (where Zeca stayed)! Yes, Billy figured out how to open doors and used that knowledge just to look for fights...
Zeca is very clever, very tough, and a dedicated family cat but he is not innocent. To give an idea, before he came to stay with us we rarely saw other male cats on our street, and never more than once or twice. Once Zeca left his territory several toms showed up and for almost two weeks we would hear every night and early morning cats fighting. The cat that finally won the territory was bigger than Zeca, but was run off by Zeca less than an hour after he left our apartment
During his convalescence he quickly demonstrated how to remove the cone we put on him; later he figured out how to remove the bandages without removing the cone. Like all toms he marks every territory he can, and worse, he kept egging Billy on. After about two or so weeks Billy stopped trying to attack Zeca and seemed to accept him. So Zeca decided that was unacceptable and attacked Billy. Now the teen thinks that he is supposed to fight every male he sees thanks to Zeca.
Ok, I didn't intend to write an entire novel here, but oh well... Zeca is back on his turf, his kids are happy he's back. He immediately went about patrolling his territory. Once we get a few things resolved we plan to take him to the vet to be neutered; it's time for him to retire. We would like to find somebody to adopt him, but as an older cat he faces an uphill battle Here are some pics
Here's Zeca now, recovered and back on duty
Zeca's recovery
Anyway, about two months ago Zeca showed up with another cut on his cheek. At first we thought nothing of it, just another fight... But then the cut formed an abcess; you all know what that means. We were able to drain the abcess and thought it would heal and Zeca would return to normal. But we have a neighbor on the next property, that property is a genuine public health hazard. He means well, our neighbor is not a bad person, but we have seen cats die there due to his negligence. The cats from the street go there because it is overgrown, giving many places to hide. But it also has things like insects; Flies from there laid eggs in Zeca's (drained, but still open) abcess. When we saw it all that was left of Zeca's entire cheek was a pocket full of writhing larva. I immediately rushed him to the vet; being an emergency on a Sunday afternoon it was very, very expensive, but the veterinarians did an outstanding job (which is why we always go to them: they are expensive, but they always do excellent work) with Zeca.
So,why all the fuss and effort for one street cat? Everyone needs a little help now and then, but for all of his fighting and getting females pregnant Zeca is also a devoted father to the kittens living in front of our bulding. There is a female, named Minnie, that we have not been able to catch and spay. We've tried more than once, she is far tougher than her petite frame suggests. She is now on her fifth (
) pregnancy. There are kittens from two pregnancies living here, one who is roughly the same age as Billy (technically older by 1.5-2 weeks) and three from a more recent pregnancy; they are now six months old or about to complete six months. Zeca has always helped care for them, now that the mother has abandoned them in favor of the new batch in the oven they cluster around him. While Zeca was with us recovering some of the kittens lived in the corridor of our apartment; they knew Zeca was inside and they only left when he did.So, the recovery itself. Like I wrote, Zeca basically lost his entire cheek. I'm not going to post photos of his injury; for the macabre among you imagine a cat starring in a Hellraiser film... He made a full recovery, but it took six weeks as he had to regrow all of the skin. He now has another scar, but once the fur regrows it won't be visible. It was a stressful time here, since Zeca had to be physically separated from Billy- Zeca the hardened warrior was afraid to be in the same room with Pantera, who made it very clear from the beginning that she was not at all interested in friendship. Proof that Zeca is smart, since Pantera is bigger than Zeca. It seems that Zeca and Pimenta had some sort of unspoken agreement, as the two simply avoided each other as much as possible and thus there was calm. So the only real problem was the reckless teenager Billy. Of course, he continually tried to fight Zeca; he succeeded a few times either because we weren't paying attention, or later because Billy learned how to open the door to the balcony (where Zeca stayed)! Yes, Billy figured out how to open doors and used that knowledge just to look for fights...
Zeca is very clever, very tough, and a dedicated family cat but he is not innocent. To give an idea, before he came to stay with us we rarely saw other male cats on our street, and never more than once or twice. Once Zeca left his territory several toms showed up and for almost two weeks we would hear every night and early morning cats fighting. The cat that finally won the territory was bigger than Zeca, but was run off by Zeca less than an hour after he left our apartment
During his convalescence he quickly demonstrated how to remove the cone we put on him; later he figured out how to remove the bandages without removing the cone. Like all toms he marks every territory he can, and worse, he kept egging Billy on. After about two or so weeks Billy stopped trying to attack Zeca and seemed to accept him. So Zeca decided that was unacceptable and attacked Billy. Now the teen thinks that he is supposed to fight every male he sees thanks to Zeca.Ok, I didn't intend to write an entire novel here, but oh well... Zeca is back on his turf, his kids are happy he's back. He immediately went about patrolling his territory. Once we get a few things resolved we plan to take him to the vet to be neutered; it's time for him to retire. We would like to find somebody to adopt him, but as an older cat he faces an uphill battle
Here are some picsHere's Zeca now, recovered and back on duty
Zeca's recovery
