Remembering Tia

Those of you who know me well know that I love cats. Always have, always will.

When I was a child, we always had cats in our family. We had one dog as well, but the cats ruled. We were especially fond of Siamese cats. We had Tiki, and later, when I was a teen, my mother got a new Siamese kitten, and we named her Tiki (2). She was a joy to all of us, and was my mom’s constant companion right up until her death. Tiki 2 died at the age of 16, only a month after my mom passed away.

In my own adult life, I’ve had several Siamese as well. There was Jaydee and her kittens, Spassky (named after the Russian chess master) and Stonewall. In Japan, we adopted an adult Siamese tomcat and named him Tayka.

For a long time after that, my lifestyle didn’t really accommodate having pets, but then I agreed to take two young kittens, a brother and sister pair, that were part of an abandoned litter. Nekko (cat in Japanese) and Koshka (cat in Russian) were with me for 12 years until Koshka mysteriously disappeared and Nekko died about five months later of what I believe was a broken heart. I wrote about Koshka and Nekko in an October 2013 post entitled, A Sick Cat.

Enter Tia

Several years before Nekko and Koshka were gone, a new kitten entered the scene. One of my daughters moved in with me and brought a little black ball of fur she had rescued in Arizona. She named the kitten Tia. And she fit in immediately.

Although Nekko and Koshka were starting to show their ages, they were still pretty active, and they were used to having new kittens in the house. A few years earlier, my other daughter decided to move in with me for a while and brought her little gray tabby, Chili Gizmo, with her. Sometime after that, a girlfriend moved in with me for a short time and brought her kitten, Kisu (kitty in Finnish).

Cats usually find it difficult to adapt to a stranger in their territory, but Nekko and Koshka seemed to accept new kittens pretty quickly. They got along well with Chili and did the same when Tia appeared. Sometimes they were not in the mood for a kitten’s antics, but more often than not having a playful kitten around kept them a little livelier as well.

Eventually, my daughter got her own place in Boulder, and Tia went with her. But she moved around a lot in those days, and it wasn’t always convenient to have Tia with her. So on several occasions, Tia was back at my place in the suburbs south of Denver. It was always a pleasure to have her, especially after Koshka and Nekko were gone and I needed another soul in that big house.

The Hunter

One facet of Tia’s personality that soon became apparent was that she was a superb hunter – better than any other cat I had had. Koshka and Nekko were housecats whose outdoor experience was generally in a fenced backyard. But Tia, despite being a very warm and affectionate pet in the house, was a well-honed predator.

One particular spring and summer, she became the scourge of the local rabbit population. When I first moved into that house, I installed pet doors that allowed the cats to go from the house to the garage (where I kept their litter box) and from the house to the backyard. When Tia moved back in with me, the dead rabbits began to appear.

There was a pretty sizeable rabbit colony nearby, and despite her relatively small size, Tia became adept at catching the small ones and bringing them back to the house. Like most cats, she would “play” with her catch for a while before finally administering the coup de grace. It wasn’t uncommon for me to come downstairs in the morning and find a bunny carcass on the carpet.

But rabbits were not her only prey. She brought in small rodents, birds and even a snake. One time, I found what appeared to be a dead bird under my kitchen table. I brushed it onto a dustpan then carried it outside to toss over the fence. When I tossed it into the air, it flew away. I was astonished.

Finally, I had to lock the cat door and limit Tia’s access to the outside on an “ask for permission” basis. It worked – there were no more dead critters in the house.

The Mountain Cat

Eventually Tia went back to live with my daughter, and a while after that, I decided to move from the suburbs to a home in the mountains southwest of Denver. I had been there for just a couple of months when Tia came to live with me again. It was good timing too: I had a few mice in the house, a problem that was permanently solved after Tia came.

Tia was with me in the mountains for the three short years that I lived there, and it was during this time that we really bonded, and she found a special place in my heart. She was still the super predator, but she was also very affectionate and a great companion.

She came at the end of the summer, and for the first few weeks, I would not let her outside, no matter how much she begged. I lived in a forest, with foxes, raccoons, coyotes, and even bears and mountain lions. I was not sure that this little black cat could survive for long out there with all those critters. But she did more than survive: she thrived.

I knew that eventually I would have to let her out, but I wanted her to get accustomed to the house first, to understand that it was now her "queendom." Eventually, I started to take her out with me during daylight. I would sit on the porch while she explored the front of the house, then walk with her around to the back and watch while she explored.

Eventually, her exploration took her further and further from the house. And soon she was staying out at night. And I worried. But she knew where home was, and she always returned. She knew how to take care of herself, and she never came home with even a scratch to suggest she had a run-in with another animal. She knew how to avoid the dangerous animals, while being a danger herself to the local rabbits, rodents and birds.

There was no pet door, so she had to let me know when she wanted to come in. I had a pile of firewood stacked on my porch so that the top of the pile was even with the bottom of my bedroom window. Tia would jump up on the pile and tap or scratch at the window to let me know she needed in. Sometimes, when I was home, I left the window open just wide enough for her to go out or come in on her own.

Always the Predator

As at the other house, Tia tried to bring her hunting trophies into the house. I was usually successful at keeping her from bringing them in, but she did manage to sneak a couple of them past me.

One summer evening she had been out quite late, so I left the window open just wide enough for her to pass, and I went to bed. At some point, I heard a sound on the woodpile, and sure enough she came in, jumped over my head and onto the bed, then jumped down and went into the other part of the house. I figured she went to her food and water bowls, and I closed the window.

A bit later, I was awakened by the noise of some commotion downstairs. It sounded like Tia was running around, and I thought it was strange, because I was sure she would have wanted to sleep after being outside for so long. Suddenly I heard the telltale scream of a panicked bunny, and I realized what was going on: Tia had brought a rabbit into the house – carrying it in her mouth right over my head – and was “playing” with it downstairs.

I realized she was in the process of killing it at that moment, and I did not want to deal with it, so I closed my door and went to sleep. In the morning, I went down and cleaned up what was left.

Besides that rabbit, she managed to bring in a couple of birds and a ground squirrel. And I have no idea how many she caught and did not bring in. I was never angry with Tia for these episodes. She was a cat doing what comes naturally.

Affectionate Housecat

Despite being an efficient predator and successful forest cat, Tia was also comfortable as a housecat and was a very affectionate companion. She learned that in the dead of winter she could not go outside because of all the deep snow, and she adapted just fine to being a full-time housecat. But when the snow began to melt, she was more than ready to get back out. 

Even in the warm parts of the year, she enjoyed her indoor time. Her favorite place to sleep was on my bed, usually against my leg. Whenever I sat in an armchair or sofa, she was immediately on my lap, purring and wanting to be petted.

In the early evening when I returned home from work, I would unlock and open the front door to find a sleepy Tia sitting in the middle of the living room and greeting me with a yawn after her daylong nap (she had heard my truck pull up to the house). When she saw me, she would meow and then flop over onto her side and roll onto her back so that I would rub her belly. Then she would be out the door and ready to explore, except when we had several feet of snow everywhere.

Sometimes, she would meow for me to come outside with her, and we would take a walk together. When I was with her, she didn’t feel so much of a need to be stealthy and careful. She felt protected and knew that she could run where she wanted without having to worry about attracting the attention of a dangerous animal.

Living alone in the forest house was a little lonely sometimes, but having Tia there made it a lot less so. She made a big difference in my life in those days, and I was always grateful to have her there.

The Leaving

After I made the commitment to move to Ukraine, I had to sell the house. It was very, VERY hard to give up that idyllic home in the forest, and one of the hardest parts was having to take Tia away from it. When my daughter came to take her, Tia knew that something was happening that she would not like, and she did her best to avoid being taken. But we finally got her into the cat box, and they drove away.

I was sad for myself to lose the companion I had had, but I was sadder for Tia to lose the home and lifestyle she had come to love.

Tia lived in several different circumstances for the next few years, not always able to be the outdoor cat she was used to being. Finally, my daughter got a place on the prairie outside of Boulder. There was a horse property nearby and room for Tia to wander. But Tia was older and not quite as alert as she had been. And the property didn’t have the plethora of trees and other cover that the forest offered. And there were coyotes.

One time, Tia went out, and she never returned. We never knew what happened to her. My heart broke a little at the news, but this is the way of pets: their time in our lives is short. When we take them as kittens or puppies, we know we will outlive them, and we know we will have to deal one day with the sadness of them passing out of our lives.

And so it was with Tia. Technically, she was not my cat, but in the ways that mattered, she was mine, and I was hers. And I still miss her.

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I am not sure why I thought to write about this. It just came to my mind the other day, and I started writing. But sometimes it is good to remember – and write about – such things.