Telling this one tale in multiple parts:
PART FOUR: THE TAMING OF THE FEW
My brother and his GF rented me their third bedroom for $100 a month. It was a good deal, because he was also doing the night shift for me in feeding and giving water to the cats. In fact, sometimes he would sit in there with them and pet the mother cat (especially on the 4th of July TG!). As part of the taming process, the kittens would spend time in the cages so they would not be so wild:
With the help of the cat adoption agency - BeBe & Goliath - I got all the cats spayed/fixed and their shots at a local NPF vet service called First Coast No More Homeless Pets. I found out there that all the kittens except Bobtail were females. Bobtail was the only male. "If it has a tail, its a female" was the motto of this litter. As my brother's house was less than 10 minutes from my work, I did the day shift: I would take an extended lunch hour. First thing was to pet and love them:
While it took a while to get through to Tiger...
...Bobtail was the easiest to get through - just a few days in fact! Next I would let them out to run free while I cleaned out their cages:
Heckle loved to run and play...
...while Jeckle was distant. How can you tell the two apart? By sight, the triangular white patch of fur under their chin. Heckle's patch is half the size of Jeckle. By personality, Heckle is outgoing while Jeckle is extremely shy. Jeckle can calm down and enjoyed being scractched and loved, while Heckle couldn't sit still while being rubbed/scratched.
This is a great picture of Bobtail. You can see his little stubbed tail! Cats being born with a bobtail are very rare I'm told!
Tiger was my hard case. This cat had a lot of bad attitude. My brother tried to pick her up and scratched him all over his hands! I followed some advice on a website to get through to her by "bathing" her. I would wet my finger and pet her with the wet finger. By doing this, I would be mimicking the cleaning process of her mother, and it would establish a bond between us. It did work, but with limited success: Tiger would tolerate me, but no one else. Also, if Tiger got out of hand, I had her mother there always to give swift discipline:
After a few weeks, while I was having success with Bobtail and Heckle, Tiger was still too agressive and Jeckle far too timid and shy...
to be continued