As I mentioned in an earlier post, I volunteer at a cat shelter, helping to socialize the cats that had been strays before coming to the shelter. I get assigned to 2 cats to work with for 3 months at a time.
There are a lot of black cats, black and white cats and several black and beige tabby cats. Some have collars on them to help tell them apart. There is a directory of a sorts, with pictures, names and sometimes a little more about each one. But there have been a couple of cats that I’m not sure which one they are. But I was fine with the two cats I was working with: Mooney, a pretty gray and white cat (the only one that’s mostly gray) and Mohammed Ali, one of the tabbies. How some of these cats get their names (my current 2 cats are Phanty and Nyoka), I have no idea, but that is something for another day. Given how many cats have needed names, it’s not surprising that some are out of the ordinary.
Mohammed Ali (Mo Ali for short) had been pointed out to me on my first night at the shelter for orientation. So when I was assigned to him a week or two later, I knew who he was. I did check his picture before looking for him on my first day there alone. I found him, and he was a bit shy, taking a little chicken baby food from my finger, but backing off when other cats, who also wanted some of the treat, came over. And he didn’t want to be touched; he swatted me when I tried. I went over to him each week, usually after seeking out Mooney, trading baby food on the finger for cheek rubs with her. I also saw the other tabby cats often, and checked out the pictures, trying to figure out who was who. Some of those tabbies look very similar, you really have to check how much white, if any, is around their mouth, and how much brown is on their nose. Well, I figured out which ones were Sally, Liberty and Nyoka. At the end of each of my stays, I wrote my notes into the log book, and checked what the other volunteers had said about Mooney and Mohammed Ali.
Last week that round of socialization was over and I was assigned two different cats: Phanty, a pretty buff-colored cat, and Nyoka, another one of the tabbies. Each week notes are emailed to the group on the cats’ progress. In the notes that came out Saturday night, someone was a little confused on which cat was Nyoka. In the back and forth emails, I made a comment about Mohammed Ali’s description being ‘long and lean’, and that those words didn’t really fit him (since he’s rather round).
Well, guess what? Mohammed Ali is very lean; in fact he’s lost some weight recently and was brought to the vet the other day to be checked out to make sure he is OK.
Uh-oh
I had been socializing Robin, not Mohammed Ali! Well, at least Robin was in the socialization program, too, he was just getting a little extra attention, and poor Mohammed Ali was getting less than a cat with such a name deserved. I haven’t been back to the shelter yet to look at the pictures again to see how I made the mistake, and to find this skinny tabby with the big name. And did I really give Nyoka baby food, or did I mix up another tabby? I will make sure I have the right cat this time.
Can you tell which is which in the pictures? Mohammed Ali is on the left and Robin is on the right.