Carrie Brooks knows she can’t save all the cats, but she tries to save the ones she can. Sometimes that means spending an entire weekend trying to wrangle one.
An orange cat had taken up residence near Lakeside High School where Brooks teaches ceramics, and several people had become attached to the animal and fed him.
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“Faith Scott, one of the secretaries, said the cat greeted her every morning when she came in,” Brooks said
Students also noticed that the cat appeared to be friendly.
When rumors began to swirl that animal control would soon be called to take the cat away, Brooks said students pressed her to do something.
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At the end of March, she set out to catch the cat and find a home for him. She knew she had a limited time frame– one weekend.
The task proved harder and took longer than she thought it would.
Basil and Carrie Brooks, the ceramics teacher who saved him. Photo courtesy Carrie Brooks.
Brooks said she’d never used a cat trap before. The first one she tried didn’t have a lock, and after she caught the feline, he figured out how to get out. It sent Brooks back to square one.
The next trap she found did have a lock, but the cat was wise to her by now. And she was on a race against the clock. She had to catch him before Monday. The weekend was rapidly slipping away.
After repeated attempts, Brooks finally wrangled the cat into the trap, covered the cage with a blanket to calm him, and took him home to her four cats.
“It only took three days,” she said.
She had been concerned that he might be feral, but she discovered he was gentle. He quickly adapted to his new surroundings although he was a bit skittish at first.
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“He’s so sweet, and I’m so happy we were able to save him,” she said.
The next phase of “save the orange cat” was easier than the first. Brooks knew she couldn’t keep him. She already had four cats, and she cares for a couple of cats in her neighborhood. She wasn’t sure how the ginger cat would do around children, so she reached out to a fellow teacher, Grace Bellmer, who teaches English at Lakeside.
Bellmer has two cats, Bob Scratchit and Bodie. She’d seen the cat at the school and had no qualms about bringing him into her fold.
Bellmer picked the name “Basil” for the young cat. Her love of words inspired the search for the right name.
“He has a kingly presence,” said Bellmer, who studied the name’s etymology to find that Basil is derived from the Greek meaning “royal or kingly.”
Brooks said she was sad that her foster kitty was leaving her, but she knew he was going to a great home.
Bellmer said Basil was adjusting well to his new environs.
A day after moving into the Bellmer residence, Basil had wrapped his two new siblings “around his baby paws,” Bellmer posted on Facebook. “He is taking over.”
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Bellmer had an Instagram account already for Bob Scratchit and Bodie. She changed the name to accommodate the new addition and to allow people to follow his progress. Bellmer said students and some faculty wanted to keep up with him.
Now that Brooks knows how to catch a cat, she plans to trap the feral ones outside her own home and take them to be neutered.
Charmain Z. Brackett is the Features Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach her at charmain@theaugustapress.com.
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