Feral Cat Fridays: If It’s A Black Cat, It Must Be George
My father liked to name our black cats George in “honor” of a very good friend. My father has been gone for 25 years now, but when Mama, the first feral cat that settled on our property, earned her name with a litter containing 2 black kittens she solved our naming problem for 3 cats at once. She became Mama and the black kittens were Big George and Little George.
Big George was prone to wandering, so Little George became just plain George. He was the first of the ferals to shed some of his feral nature and become comfortable near us and he was the first to want attention. He was particularly fond of Loretta. If she was out on the property or on the deck, George would accompany her on her walk or look fondly at her as he sat on the deck rail.
George was a VIP (or is it VIC?) in the colony. As George matured, he filled the aging Ernie’s shoes as the lead cat. He was likely to be seen enjoying a summer afternoon along with the other cats, but it was George who was keeping an eye on the territory while everyone else napped.
The birth of George and his littermates was the first warning sign that we needed to get our trap, neuter, and release program underway. Mama had been just a feral that hung out in the woods near our house until then, but the litter of kittens drew her closer to us, both physically and emotionally. It took us a while to get our TNR program going and tame the feral problem we faced, but Mama and George deserve much of the credit.
Of course the first George I thought of was George Foreman, and all of his kids named George. Then, I remembered that he has a daughter named Georgette. Following that logic, it occurred to me that there might be a Texas corollary to Foreman’s name choices: Bubba, Bubbette, Bubbalina, and Bubba Bob. If a new cat family ever showed up at my doorstep, I might go for that.
I suspect your George would stick his tongue out in disapproval, though.
As a matter of fact, our naming the black cats in our colony George (and Georgette) was inspired both by my father and by George Foreman’s naming system for his children. There was one black cat in our colony that had a build reminiscent of a boxer, with narrow hips and a a broad chest and shoulders. We named him Foreman, inspired once again by George Foreman and by Foreman’s occasional position of monarch of the colony. He’ll rotate up to a featured Friday spot eventually, I’m sure.
Bubba, et al sounds like a good system for any future families that arrive en masse, even if George would give it the raspberry treatment.