Catstory 101: Tikki 1978-1996

Tikki in 1980

Tikki 1978 - 1996

Yes, that is correct, Tikki lived to 18 years old.   Tikki was a feral cat from the hills around Sheridan, Oregon.  She was loud, she was fierce, she took a long time to domesticate and tame to a level where she could be kept as a pet!  Although my mom went and got her after Sampson died, I like to believe that she was very much my cat and we were very close.   Tikki was named after the Kipling character Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, and she certainly lived up to the ferocity and combativeness of her namesake.

Being feral, Tikki was a high difficulty cat. She would scratch and bite and when she did, she meant it.  Seeing other cats through the window would send her into a boiling ear-shattering rage in which she would throw herself against the window to attack.  I once got in the way of one of these rages and was severely scratched.  After that attack though, Tikki glued herself to me as if to show she was sorry as she was in the middle of a berserker rage when it happened. 

Tikki was very loud.  One of her sobriquets (and she had many) was Tikki the Wawool, named after a catlike creature in a 1970s Star Trek comic.  The Wawool's yowling was so loud and bizarre that it would literally drive people insane.  Tikki's yowling was similar.   My sister's fiance was tasked with feeding Tikki when we were out on vacation one day.  He had to enter the lair of the beast, alone, unarmed, and leave food.  Somehow, he survived and escaped with his life.  It was his initiation test and to this day he still remembers the horror!

Actually, Tikki was a very loving and loyal cat, to me and my mother.  She would sleep in bed with me, usually at my feet and was very cuddly with those she adopted as her cat slaves.  But she never could hold back her attacks as she had never learned to 'play', anytime she fought a toy or a stuffed mouse, it was for real.  She's been the most aggressive cat I have ever seen while playing with cat toys.  She knew the proper attacks and would always do the 'neck snap' maneuver on any string or cat toy she could find the neck on.   Having been raised a feral, once her nails were out, she had to draw blood.  She was like a Klingon cat!

Tikki had a calico type coat with a huge prominent black spot on her back.  I could swear that the black spot got larger in the winter and smaller in the summer but I probably was just imagining it. 

I wasn't home when her end came.  I hear that she just got more and more frail, more and more sick until she finally died. She was buried under a tree in Forest Grove, Oregon on a farm my mother lived on.  Perhaps, on nights of the full moon, the yipping of the coyotes is answered by the loud warbling full-throated yowl of a cat who has no fear of anything, certainly not a pack of coyotes!