One reader had a great suggestion for the newsletter, which was to write about a book titled, “Cat Culture: The Social World of a Cat Shelter,” by Janet Alger and Steven Alger. I’ll refer to our reader as “LT’s mom.” (LT stands for “Little Tortie,” who will most likely be the subject of a future article!)

I had completely forgotten about the book, so I was quite happy to be reminded of it by LT’s mom. Her email got me looking for my copy of the book. I had gone to the book signing, back in 2002 or thereabouts, after the book was published. So, I do have an autographed copy, but of course I can’t find it anywhere! 

Janet and Steve were local ailurophiles (my new word from Capital Purrspective Issue #6) and sociology professors at Siena College and College of St. Rose, respectively. They were also long-time supporters of and volunteers with Whiskers, in Albany. I first met them at the book signing, but later became one of their cat sitters after one of their cats needed subcutaneous fluids on a regular basis. They retired in 2007 and moved to Florida. Steve passed away in 2021. 

According to the Amazon.com summary: “This work contends that the anti-social cat is a myth; cats form close bonds with humans and with each other. In the potentially chaotic environment of a shelter than houses dozens of uncaged cats, this work reveals a sense of self and the build of a culture - a shared set of rules, roles, and expectations that organizes their world and assimilates newcomers. As volunteers in a local cat shelter for 11 years, Janet and Steven Alger came to realize that despite the frequency of new arrivals and adoptions, the social world of the shelter remained quite stable and pacific. They saw even feral cats adapt to interaction with humans and develop friendships with other cats. They saw established residents take roles as welcomers and rules enforcers. That is, they saw cats taking an active interest in maintaining a community in which they could live together and satisfy their individual needs.”

Of course, it is fun to read the book since all of the cat interactions took place right here in Albany! While I am sure that none of the cats in the book are still with us today, I am sure that the same patterns have continually repeated themselves in the current Whiskers cat population. 

You can still buy the book through various online retailers. Our local library system also has one copy. I hope I find my book! In the meantime, I did put in an online request to borrow the book from the library, so I’ll let you know next week if I re-read any highlights that you might be interested in.

I have been thinking about starting a weekly article featuring the story of one cool cat. I invite you to email me a story about any one cool cat you have had in your life time. Of course you can submit multiple stories about multiple cool cats you have lived with or helped. Everyone wants to see your photos, as well!

Cool cats can be cats who are alive now, or cats that have passed away. I feel like our cats are always a part of us, no matter how long or how short their lives were. I think about so many cats from my past, not only my own cats or rescues, but client cats, as well. 

My husband, Alan, and I just lost a cool cat last week. I’ll start off the first article talking about Ganymede, or “Mr G” as we often called him.

There are many tangents to Ganymede’s story. I won’t cover all of them! I met Ganymede when a customer of mine, who volunteered with the cat rescue associated with the Healthy Pet Center in Troy, was introduced to him at the store. At that time, the rescue had cats at the store that were available for adoption. My customer knew about a wobbly (cerebellar hypoplasia) cat we had, named Europa. (You’re catching onto the naming theme already, I’m sure.) He told me that the rescue had a similar cat, but the cat was lying on its side in his litter box and wasn’t coming out. The staff had to wash the cat every morning, from his waste. And he reported that they staff was worried that they might have to have the cat euthanized. 

I don’t know if that was quite true, but I said I’d go take a look at the situation and the cat. Maybe I could offer some advice. 

I did go to the store, and at the time I met Lisa Caporizzo at the front counter. However, it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I realized who she was. I said, “Hi, I heard that you have a special needs cat here …” and I didn’t get to finish my sentence. Lisa grabbed my arm and led me to the cat room. 

In a cage, on the floor, was a black cat, maybe 8 months old, lying on his side in a litter box. I kind of have one rule about taking these cats, they need to be able to get around the house, to their food, water, and litter, because I’m not actually home much, and at the time, Alan worked full time outside of the home. We couldn’t have a cat that needed to be placed into a litter box multiple times a day, or have its bladder expressed, or anything like that. The cat had to have some independence. That could even mean flip-flopping around to move around the house; walking on one’s cat feet was not necessarily required. 

Lisa didn’t know if the cat could walk or not. So, I lifted him out of the litter, and placed him at the other end of the room. He immediately flailed his way back to the cage. Ok, he could “walk,” so that was good. I did suggest that the store change his cat litter from clumping litter to something that wouldn’t stick to him, like pine pellets, or newspaper pellets. Lisa said, “You have to take him home.”

I might be a crazy person, but not 100% crazy. I told Lisa that I had to talk to Alan about it first. I left and told Alan what I found out about the cat and that Lisa did really want us to take him. There is a whole other story about how we came to the agreement to take this cat home, which could be told another week! I did go back to get “Stumbles,” as he was named, and brought him home. 

The funny thing was as I brought him into the house, in a cat carrier, he started purring. I brought him to the upstairs cat room, all ready for him with toys and food. He came right out of the carrier, stumbled around the room, and started to play with toys! 

I’m not sure how he even knew what a toy was or why he felt happy in our home immediately. The back-story I got on Stumbles was that he and his mom were living with a homeless man, in Albany. I don’t know if that is completely true or not, but he was taken in from living outdoors. (Part of the story was that the man got housing, and had to give up the cats.) The mom cat was also at Healthy Pet Center and was later adopted. She appeared to be healthy and was not wobbly.

The original idea was that we would foster Stumbles and find him a home. Alan and I do have this “joke” that if someone re-names a cat, it means they are keeping the cat. He started to tell me how much he didn’t like the name “Stumbles.” I said, “I’m not renaming him!” 

He was renamed Ganymede. The naming scheme started with the very first cat we had together. That cat came to us as a very small kitten (back in the days of “free” kittens). We were told that the kitten’s mother’s name was “Jupiter,” so we decided to name her “Io,” which is a moon of Jupiter. The idea was that any future cats we had would also be named after moons of Jupiter. (Clearly, we had no clue how many cats would pass through our lives!)

Ganymede was an interesting guy. He was all black, no white spots of fur at all. He did stumble around and he did fall over. He came to us with a broken canine tooth, so he did definitely hit his head hard sometimes. He couldn’t jump at all. He was reluctant to use any cat steps we set up for him, to get to the bed or the couch. He might get partway up, then stiffen up, and fall over backwards.

Ganymede got very good at telling us what to do. He would meow to get picked up to sit on a lap, or to get onto the couch or the bed. He developed a urinary blockage early, at age 2. The veterinarian who treated him told us that while he had struvite crystals in his urine he also had idiopathic cystitis and that stress is the main trigger. This was before I really knew much about cats, so of course I had to ask how on earth he could possibly be stressed.

The vet asked me if he could look out the window. We have no windows that go down to the ground, so I said, “No, he can’t.” She pointed out that something like that could cause him to feel stress. So, for many years, we would place Ganymede on the kitchen radiator, at the window that has a bird feeder and bird bath, and block him there with a wooden chair turned backwards against the radiator, to keep him from falling off. Of course, we wouldn’t dare go too far! Ganymede learned my breakfast routine (making a smoothie), and as soon as the food processor stopped, he’d come stumbling into the kitchen and meow at the window for his lift! I basically ended up sitting on the chair to drink my smoothie.

In trying to keep Ganymede entertained, he would watch his Cat TV DVD on my old laptop, on the floor. I got him a treats puzzle … it took a lot of effort for him to move the flaps covering the treat holders, and spin the wheel to access more treats, but he did it! 

Ganymede had a seizure on May 11, 2026, which fortunately happened while we were home. I could write a novel about what happened after his trip to the ER at Upstate Veterinary Specialties (UVS), but that would take away from the story about how cool he was all of his 15 years with us. He was diagnosed with metastatic lymphoma (cancer). We brought him home and did everything we could for him. He even lived long enough to see an oncology veterinarian and try a special injection (L-asparaginase). Ganymede started to die on June 3, and we took him to UVS to speed his journey and keep him from more pain. 

No matter how many cats we have had or helped, every single loss is sad and we cry. It’s ok, and that’s how it is. Mr G was a cool cat, he had 15 years of good living, and I’m happy to share his story. I think his energy is still with us, and hopefully he can inspire some more awesome rescues.

Email me about your cool cats at [email protected].

During the week, I realized that I left out one big component of winning over Cetan and many other cats … well, we are still working on the semi-feral “pets” that we have at home! It sounds kind of dumb, but one thing we start with everyone these days is we say, “I pet you,” before and during extending a petting device, whether it’s a wand toy, a gloved hand, or a bare hand. 

Of course I am sure the cats don’t know what the words themselves mean, but we do use a certain tone. Cetan will now come over to get petted if he is nearby and one of us extends a hand and says “I pet you!” It is pretty exciting (to cat nerds, anyway). 

Today’s tale is about “Bennu.” You might recall from past articles that I caught Bennu at the same time as Cetan and others, in January 2025. As I mentioned, I kept Cetan because of his feral nature (back then) and his dental issues. Bennu actually did not hide out in the cat carrier in her cage, when I had to hold the cats for a few days before their spay/neuters, so I didn’t really peg her as “feral.” 

I was easily able to coax her into the cat carrier and take her to her surgery that way. Cetan, on the other hand, went in a trap. I might have explained this before, but if a cat is feral, you have to bring them to surgery in a trap. The technicians have a variety of methods of getting the cat to one end of the trap and then they inject the cat with the sedative right through the side of the trap. This way, the cat does not need to be handled while it is awake and trying to rip any’s face off, or trying to escape with more desperation than you have ever seen! The cat is sedated, and the staff removes the cat from the trap and preps it for surgery.

Anyway, friendly cats can go to surgery in cat carriers. I worked to find foster homes for some of the cats I caught. I did find a foster home for Bennu with someone who I thought would quickly be able to socialize her. But, for reasons I won’t go into, to protect the person’s privacy, it didn’t work out that way. All on friendly terms, don’t get me wrong!

I brought Bennu over to the person’s house and put her in a room by herself. Bennu was not coming around at all and needed more interaction than she was getting. I was asked to move Bennu into a room with some other cats. I thought I would just go over and maybe with a little trouble, get her into a cat carrier and move her. 

Forget it! Bennu was so wily. I was 100% unable to get a hand on her. When I thought I had her cornered behind a dresser, she just scaled the wall and flew over my head. Plan B, I brought a humane trap over, and set up a web camera. The only food she got was in the trap. After a 2+ day hunger strike, I gave up on that idea.

The next idea was to bring over a drop trap. The one I borrowed was big and heavy. I had to drag up up a narrow flight of stairs. I’m not sure the whole process could have been more annoying! If you’re not familiar with what a drop trap is, I usually describe as something you’ve probably seen in a cartoon …. A box, held up on one side with a stick, with a rope attached to the stick. The rope is usually quite long, and you have to be able to see that the cat has gone under the box to eat (the food goes under the box), and once you’re sure the cat is all the way in the box, you pull the rope, and the box falls down and captures the cat. This particular “box” was actually a wooden frame with chicken wire making up the sides and top. 

I had the web camera going. I slide the rope under the door of the room, and watched the trap on my phone. I don’t even know how many times I went over and did this. Bennu would walk around the trap, and maybe even go partway under it, but never all the way. I had to give up, I just didn’t have the time to deal with this.

Next idea was a cat net! Imagine a big fishing net. It’s basically the same thing, but made with an opening and netting appropriate for cats. Some are fancier than others, but the usage is basically the same. 

I borrowed a cat net and watched a few You Tube videos on how to use one. I recruited my husband, Alan (poor guy), to come over to the house with me to help herd Bennu. 

Believe it or not, we netted Bennu within 20 minutes! That was a big accomplishment. All this, just to move her to another room in her foster home. I promised the foster that as soon as we had space for Bennu we would take her to our house. 

After Cetan graduated from his room, we were able to get Bennu (a friend helped me get her into a cat carrier this time) and bring her to our house. She is now in the overflow cat room that Cetan lived in for a year.

Bennu has been here a couple of months. She still hides if one of us goes into the room, although if I sit in the room and work on my computer, she might come out and sit far away from me. We can’t touch her yet. She does play with toys on her own and she does participate in feather wand toy games with us, so that is big progress.

Bennu does come to the gate in the doorway and stays there when we walk by or talk to her. She is IN LOVE with Cetan! It is so funny! He wants to go into the room, after all, why is someone in his room? We let him in and he makes his usually goofy announcements, which makes Bennu POP out from under the dresser. All he wants to do is eat her food! 

Bennu rubs on Cetan and follow him around. She gets in his way. She purrs very loudly. It really makes me wonder if she remembers him from Outside over a year ago? They could be siblings. There’s no way to know. 

We will keep working with Bennu until she is adoptable. For my next installment of Tails From the Feeding Station, I’ll circle back to February 2025, but rest assured that the Bennu Project will continue!