Jazz
This story is from Asankaw from Calgary, Canada
Jazz was a big, long-haired cat who began wandering around our Calgary neighborhood in January, 2017. It was the winter season and very cold out a deep freeze we were heading into.
Jazz obviously did not have a home and very feral, so we began leaving food out for him. He was secretive, but our security camera would catch him in the dark hours of the morning, when he came to eat a meal we left out for him.
More snow began to fall, and Jazz was out during freezing sub-zero winter nights, and so we were worried for him. One day we had a particularly heavy snowfall. Even then Jazz came for his meal. I followed his foot prints early in the morning before the world woke up, to see where Jazz was living. That’s how i found out that he had to cross a main busy road to come for his meal
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That is when I got the Meow Foundation involved. That awesome foundation took charge and gave us the trap to catch the cat. It became obvious that Jazz did not know that some people were safe. He was very afraid, especially of males. The shelter workers who handled him found him too scared and violent to work with, and decided he was un-adoptable.
I couldn’t accept that. My husband and I prepared our guest bedroom for Jazz, where Jazz be able to adjust to living in a home. We brought him home and kept him separate from our pets, which at the time were four other cats and a Dog. Jazz was so afraid that he hid from us and looked terrified every time we entered the room to bring him food or change his litter.
I took the task of taming him, so he could one day find another forever home. After about a week, we were able to catch him playing with the toys that we left for him. Eventually, he began to accept me. I still wasn’t able to touch him, but I was able to go near him. He has never shown aggression toward the other pets or my husband and I.
We knew we had to wait for Jazz to be ready. He gradually developed trust. It took a few more weeks just to get him to play with his humans. A few weeks after that, we began to slowly introduce our other cats to him, beginning with our friendly cat Tigger. By this time, I knew that I’d never be able to give Jazz away.
Today, Jazz is an extremely affectionate cat who loves to cuddle with his siblings. So no way we could give him away. And i am so happy that he is a part of our family now. He is still bit scared of males. He is such a cuddly and loving cat who needs to be hugged and praise and attention. He owns me and Tigger. He loves other cats, and all the pets we had, Cindy, Yoshi (his boss, uncle, playmate), Ticky, and BooBoo the dog. Tigger is now the only other pet left for him and his bro and pal.
So Jazz was adoptable after all, and he decided to adopt us as his family.
