TC (aka Terror Cat)

I can barely remember the mean she-devil kitty that Terror Cat (a.k.a. TC) was back in 2001. TC was originally owned by a friend of Trudy, who is a co-worker of mine. Based on what I've heard, TC has had a rough life and didn't trust people much at all. After her original owner got married and his new wife refused to allow the cat to live with her, Trudy found TC a new home with Web, another co-worker. I really can't remember how long Web had TC before he decided that she was just too wild for him to tame. He would come to work with tales of the demon cat and he reached a point when he decided to put the cat down, and well, I just couldn't bear the thought of it. I told Web that I would take TC in and see if I could work with her and perhaps even rehabilitate her. My aunt let me borrow her "cage for troubled cats" (it is a very large cage with elevated ledges/perches) and that has been TC's home for the past two years.

We try our best to make sure she is let out for a couple of hours every day to run around now, but it has been a very gradual process. At first TC would bite and hiss at whoever or whatever approached her. She would eventually settle down after you had been in the room for a rather long period of time, but if you left and came back in she would start in with this eerie jungle cat shriek of a growl again. Each time I fed her I would try to pet her and after getting bitten for the umpteenth time I too almost reached to point of deciding to have her put down, but being the stubborn woman I am, there was no way I would admit defeat, so I persisted. I started letting her out of her cage under supervised conditions and would put her back if she started biting or fighting with the other upstairs cat. This was the routine for nearly 18 months, so when I let her out of her cage this past Monday and she crawled up on Scott's lap and stayed there for the better portion of an hour I could hardly believe it. She still needs to learn to control how aggressive she is when trying to get attention, but I swear she's not the same cat!