Of Cats and Coyotes

We’ve had our housecat, Gigi, a brown and white tabby for over six years and, like most cats, everything as it relates to our relationship is essentially on her terms. Unlike our Yellow Lab Greta, who passed away last year and who’s every breath revolved around food, attention from us and more food, Gigi is like a self-employed independent contractor. When she’s in the mood for a little affection, she’ll let you know. When she’s not, she’ll reluctantly sit there in your lap with her ears angled back and her eyes pursed with impatience as she waits for you to pause long enough for her to spring up and away.

Back in San Francisco, she was essentially an indoor cat. During our four years on Harrison Street, she had access to our roomy patio that was separated by a sheet metal fence from our neighbor’s, who had converted his outdoor space into a veritable mini-jungle with potted palms, bamboo trees, bromeliads and more. Gigi could spend all day over there playing her little game of rain forest panther. Once we moved to Union Square, her only outside access was reduced to a Juliette terrace off of the living room that measured perhaps forty square feet with two potted plants on either end that served as the flora to Gigi’s fauna.

That all changed upon arrival here in Newport Beach. Our townhouse has an enormous back patio that runs the entire width of the unit and beyond and overlooks one of the many greenbelts that run between the clusters of homes.

For the first time in several years, Gigi has had the great outdoors at her disposal and she took advantage of it from the first moment the patio doors were opened for her. Without hesitation she started the exploration of her new territory and within days she was an expert on the lay of the surrounding land.

Apparently, Gigi had quickly made her presence known amongst the local feline personalities as two began to routinely appear at the edge of the patio looking for her. It made me a little nervous for her as she’s a small girl and if her interactions with either bigger cat were to devolve into a scuffle, she’d no doubt be on the losing end.

Then, one night I was in the kitchen and was finishing cleaning up after dinner when, while standing at the sink I heard the howls of what sounded like an ordinary cat fight. I figured, okay, my concern about Gigi versus the big cats had materialized, so I quickly removed my apron, just kidding, and ran out the front door to save Gigi from what I expected to be one or both of the cats that had begun hanging around.

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw as I approached the spot from where the noise had come. There on the side of our quiet street at the opposite curb was what looked like at first to be a medium-sized scrappy dog and for a brief moment I even thought it might be a fox as a result of it’s really big and pointed ears. My confusion rapidly gave way to the realization that Gigi had become entangled in a life or death confrontation with a coyote who was intent on having her for dinner.

I yelled as I ran towards the coyote and it was enough to frighten him off and away from Gigi, who then darted past me towards the back patio. I ran after her to find her cowered in the far corner near one of the doors, trembling and hissing at the same time. I scooped her up and brought her inside. At that point, we didn’t think that her altercation with the coyote had gone very far, but she stayed there on the sofa all night long in a, pardon the pun, catatonic stupor.

When Fred went downstairs the next morning he yelled up to me that there was blood on the sofa. While looking her over, I noticed too that her collar, I.D. tag and little bell had somehow disappeared. I wondered to myself if the little chime might have assisted the coyote in tracking her down. I could only imagine how her assailant managed to remove such a secure little band from around her neck without taking her head off along with it.

I was the first person through the door at a local animal hospital when they opened and after a short while, the veterinarian came out of the examination room to inform me that she had indeed been bitten by the coyote, but that most importantly, the bites had not penetrated any of her organs, which was a very good thing. He told me as well that had the coyote had just a few more seconds alone with her, he would have easily won the battle. He went on to say that housecats rarely survive encounters that close.

When she was brought out, both sides of the back half of her torso had been shaved down to reveal very evident teeth marks; two smaller punctures on one side, the lower canines, and on the other side, larger marks made from the upper canines of the coyote. Gigi was still trancelike and petrified as I took her home with the caretaking instructions: keep her from hiding, force feed her, give her an antibiotic pill daily, apply hot towel compresses to both sides twice daily to induce drainage and the pièce-de-résistance: stick Q-tips into the puncture wounds to remove any infectious puss. Couldn’t I just pay someone to do that for me? I guess I could, but during these economically mindful times, remuneration for cleaning the puss out of your cat’s wounds is one of the first luxuries to go.

I can neither blame the coyote nor say that we weren’t warned. Even in an area as developed as coastal Orange County, there is wildlife to be aware of, especially considering our proximity to the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve. As well, a good friend of ours who’s lived in the area for many years, upon hearing the news of our moving to within just a couple of miles of her house, told us to be wary of letting the cat out at night. Just last year she received a 6am visit from the police and when she opened the door, the officer stood there holding up her cat’s collar and i.d. tag, but no cat.

Gigi’s been through a lot, including having to endure my fingers shoving wet food and antibiotic pills down her throat, piping hot (doctor’s orders) compresses applied to her wounds and most recently, shunts inserted in between both sets of punctures to keep the wounds from closing prematurely. They’ve since been removed and if it wasn’t for her peculiar front-half fur, back-half skinned cat appearance, you’d never know anything out of the ordinary had happened for she’s back to eating just kibble, trying to nestle between Fred and I for space in the middle of the night and cutting short any unwanted attention. After several days of being afraid to even go near the back patio doors, she’s once again taken to standing there, staring longingly out at her from-now-on forbidden Eden.

I feel somewhat guilty keeping her inside for the foreseeable future, but we’ve learned that when cats encounter coyotes, they either just disappear or the owners receive ominous visits from the police who likely only knew where to go as a result of the information engraved on the pet’s I.D. tag . Gigi may have lost her collar in the melee, but at least she’s alive and home, albeit with a new little necklace, sans the bell.