Copenhagen - Chapters 5-8

[thorny]

thorny, I agree about Sigrun not speaking Cat. Neither did she approach the cat as one would approach a wild animal, just assumed it would cooperate. Having rescued quite a number of wild animals from dangerous situations such as the middle of a highway on which they have been injured, I find it wise to assume that the animal is confused, in pain, possibly semi-conscious, and it is very likely to lash out at any approach, taking it as an attack. In Sigrun’s place it would have been better to take off her jacket before climbing, carry it up with her and throw it over the cat.

That would indeed have been a much better technique. [ETA: as you probably know but for others who might come on such a situation: it would have been a much better technique even for an injured animal who was entirely accustomed to and ordinarily friendly with humans -- as you say, in pain and confused; they may bite/scratch anyway, even at their usual housemates.]

And I think Emil's making some of the same wrong assumptions that Sigrun is (which is one reason why I think they may also be Minna's wrong assumptions, though she does sometimes show them to be ignorant of the same sort of things.) If the mother cat had been only moderately injured, they could possibly have treated her and then released her, with some food, in a safer location within her home territory. But she's severely injured -- doing that would be a slow death sentence, as even with food left for her she wouldn't have been likely to recover soon enough to manage again for herself. They'd need to hold her for weeks while she healed -- by which time they'd be nowhere near her known territory, again drastically reducing her chances of survival when released or when she succeeded in escaping. And she is, again, entirely and absolutely feral. She'd be terrified of the humans. She'd communicate that terror of humans to her kitten, unless they were kept where they couldn't see or hear each other --- and how to do that, within the cat tank? She'd hide or flee the cat tank, unless caged; and she'd be likely to hurt herself further trying to fight her way out of a cage, once she was awake enough, if only to get to the kitten -- and again, if the kitten's in with her, then the kitten's going to stay feral, because that's what Mama Cat will teach her; and any attempt to do anything to or with either of them would be violently resisted by Mama Cat.

There is no possible good outcome to this story, given that Mama Cat's wounds aren't minor. And if they had been minor, she wouldn't have collapsed while trying to fight Sigrun off and get back to her kits; so they should have realized this as soon as that happened. Bringing her back so that she could have a gentle death instead of a slow painful one made sense. Bringing her back in the hope of healing her didn't really -- except if everybody's assuming that feral cats of any age are quickly tameable. The kitten is indeed within that early window during which that's possible. But taming an adult feral cat takes years, if it works at all.

-- in the other direction about knowing cats, however: bringing the dead kittens along with the mother would have served a useful purpose if she'd only been slightly wounded: showing her the dead bodies would have meant she probably wouldn't have wasted her energy looking for them. Of course, she might well still have looked for the living one, if they hadn't released both together.

[lwise]

There is no possible good outcome to this story ...

All true with respect to a Y0 cat, but I wonder if a Y90 cat, even a feral Y90 cat, might respond differently.  Look at Tapsa's cats (Tapsa is the cat-man in Toivosaari), and the way they point at the door where the troll is hiding.  That doesn't strike me as something a Y0 cat would be able to do.  Also, the way the Grade A cats are described makes them sound more intelligent and far more trainable than Y0 cats.  So Sigrun and Emil may have reasonably supposed that, if the mother cat recovered, she would come to understand that they were helping her and the kitten.

[NightMareMage]

Trust is the most important thing here and she would not trust them. Mama cat could learn that humans feed and shelter her and her kitten, but that does not mean she would like being in the Cat Tank or around humans or having her kitten there. I find it very unlikely that she could even learn that it's okay, she can trust humans.

But it could be possible for her to learn to trust them, but it would be long and hard and she may still choose to run off. Everything would be an uphill battle. And cats are not the only thing the Team has to worry about.

[Jitter]

Minna said somewhere, I guess in the comments in early parts (perhaps at the Shushing Cat in the river boat from Keuruu) that the cats in the comic are definitely normal animals (and not e.g. magical sentient creatures) but she makes them a bit smarter than our reality cats, making it easier to train them and for them to agree to cooperate with hoomans. So, perhaps Sigrun’s actions make a little more sense than it seems to us, and there could have been a reasonable chance to actually get the mama cat to cooperate if it wasn’t quite so badly hurt. She only sees the extent of the injuries after getting the cat down.

Or it’s just that she’s used only to cats that are used to humans, like already suggested. Or perhaps cats are considered such valuable companions and partners that she doesn’t quite think of them as ”mere animals” but something that you have to try and save. A bit like if she’d seen a feral human child out there. In which case she realizes that it’s not a particularly good idea to climb after her, but what are you going to do? It’s not like leaving her is an option at all.

Which reminds me of the excellent Human Kitty stories from a while back! Good stuff.

[NightMareMage]

One thing to remember is that Mama Cat has had no prior contact with humans, she has never even seen them before. They are truly alien to her.

Also, the only option I like for Mama Cat is to keep her, but I don't think it would work even if she had survivable injuries. I think thorny covered that well.

For Sigrun and Emil, I think their thought process was mostly, "Save the cats," and not much more than that. Reflexive, not thought out. Both due to their characters and because, well, it was not really the time or place that most people would stop and think about it. Some more thought would have been good, but being reflexive here is understandable. Though if Sigrun should have known better is a fair question.

Oh, and I have heard of Human!Kitty AUs but I have only seen one or two of them. I did not know it was an actual fandom trope. I may have to try and find those later.

[Róisín]

Taming an adult feral cat can happen. I, and several people I know, have done so. But it is a difficult process, and in every case I know of has taken months. Feral kittens are a much easier proposition. Letting the cat slowly adapt to your presence and come to associate you with food, warmth and companionship until it joins you by choice seems to be the best method, so not something that the team could easily do.

And you are also correct about even a domestic animal biting you when it is injured and confused. I remember getting our loved and long domesticated dog out from under the car that had run over her, and getting bitten in the process. She would never have done that if not crazed with fear and pain, poor thing.

[dmeck7755]

Taming an adult feral cat can happen. I, and several people I know, have done so. But it is a difficult process, and in every case I know of has taken months. Feral kittens are a much easier proposition. Letting the cat slowly adapt to your presence and come to associate you with food, warmth and companionship until it joins you by choice seems to be the best method, so not something that the team could easily do.

And you are also correct about even a domestic animal biting you when it is injured and confused. I remember getting our loved and long domesticated dog out from under the car that had run over her, and getting bitten in the process. She would never have done that if not crazed with fear and pain, poor thing.

Róisín, you are so correct here!!
Sometimes the best you can hope for is that your ferals will share the same room with you.  7 years ago we wanted to adopt 2 kitties to replace the oldest 2 we needed to put to sleep.  (They were 20 and 19. One developed cancer and the other was in pain.)

One of the local shelters was having an adoption day at one of the big box pet stores, so we decided Let's see what they have.

We had other cats still in the household, so we usually opt for kittens, as they assimilate to the household easier.

We found a pair that were about 4-5 months old.  They let us hold them and so we filled out the paperwork and once it was processed, we paid the money and took them home.  The day we went to pick them up, they told us that they were a still little feral. 

They were not a little feral, they were mostly feral.  The only reason we think that they let us hold them, was the noise at the adoption event overwhelmed them and they just became rag dolls. 

They hid.  Cats can hide very effectively.  They were in a room, but all the places we searched, we could not find them. 
We let them out and we did not see them.  We knew they were around.  They ate the food and they used the boxes.

We were like UGH!, now what.  We kept them, because we knew no one would want to adopt a feral cat, and we did not want them to spend their lives in a shelter.

It took years for us.  One now will sleep with us, and crawl on me for scritches and cuddles, but only if i am in the bed.  Once I am up, he will spend the day near me, but no touchie!  The other still is extremely skittish.  She is our hunter.  We have an old field-stone house, so mice, chipmunks, voles do get in. (I do patch the holes up every spring, but the critters do dig...)

She now will sit near me and once in a while i can pet her.  She is our invisible cat.  Though se absolutely adores our oldest male cat. She will chirp at him rub all over him. 

They are still petrified of the vet, and we have to give them drugs because they bit the vet.  The vet won't see them unless they are drugged. We have been lucky, we have gotten scratched when thy get scared, but usually things are peaceful.

This is what we got, so we are happy with any advancement we get.  It is a slow process.  The one sat on my spouse's lap the other day while watching TV.  Whoa!!

[dmeck7755]

I think the only reason Sigrun got the cat, was it was severely wounded.  The kittly was riled about her babies getting attacked, the dog beast, then noisy humans.  She probably wondered what new kind of monster is this!!

Sigrun also had the disadvantage being below the snarling kitty. 

The who scenario showed to me that Sigrun is can be very no-nonsense about things, and Emil has a soft mushy heart.

[Róisín]

dmeck, I know that one. We had two cats that hid. The more recent was Sophie, the cat we had before Gil and Agatha (Gil died last year at nineteen and a half, Aggie is still with us though rather old and frail). Anyway, Sophie was given to us by a friend who wanted to save the cat from her horrible small son. The family was moving to Western Australia, and she took the opportunity to find the cat a gentler home. She dropped Sophie off at the house we were then renting before we started buying this place. It was a pioneer -era house which had a large fireplace in the bathroom. Sophie promptly went up the chimney and stayed there for several weeks, coming out at night for food and water and litter box before finally condescending to socialise. At that stage my kids were grown, but one set of grandkids often spent time with us, and the little girl got close enough to Sophie to be able to wheel the cat about in her doll’s pram. Which was good for Sophie, since she had lost a leg.

The other hiding cat was Greycat, whom I inherited when she was still quite young because her owner, who had been a dear friend, had died. Greycat was dropped at our Melbourne place, where she promptly dived under the piano and stayed there for several weeks, only emerging at night for the necessities. At the time we lived in Melbourne because I was newly widowed with small children and my youngest son was having ongoing medical treatment which necessitated our staying in a city with a children’s hospital for several years. Not easy. When Greycat finally emerged she decided that she was the protector of my youngest son whenever he wasn’t in hospital, and also of my youngest cousin who was sometimes living with us while he was studying. For years she would come to me whenever something was wrong with either of them, and was a great help and comfort to them both. She was a good cat.

[Jitter]

The who scenario showed to me that Sigrun is can be very no-nonsense about things, and Emil has a soft mushy heart.

Indeed. Whether Sigrun's choice to help the injured cat is considered a wise one or not, it does show that as she is determined to save her, she will go to trouble and take personal injury to help the animal. She also opts to comfort Emil instead of just ordering him to get up and go on page 349.

Emil's kindness also shines here. Not just with the cat, but on p 346 too. He's just been scared nearly to death by  Spiderdog, and yet he feels immediate empathy for it when it calms down and flees. He was just freaking out about it, but now he's calling after it in the hopes of letting it out of its misery. No wonder he's devastated about the kittens when he's even sad for the monster dog that just about ate him.

This also tells us about Mikkel. He's snarky when the cats are presented, but nevertheless he DOES dedicate his time and effort, and what must be a rather limited supply of a tranquilizer (??) drug on giving the momma cat a better way to go. Like Sigrun, he is compassionate and kind, even though it isn't necessarily immediately visible about him.

[Róisín]

I would expect that in their world first aid kits, especially in areas near the Silent World, would contain an euthanasia drug, for people who were too badly wounded to survive, or who had been exposed to the Rash and were beginning to trollify.

[Jitter]

Oh, right. I didn’t think of that. But you are right! A drug intended for killing a human not be much depleted on a cat.

A chilling thought, to have an euthanasia drug available as firsthand aid. But I do agree completely.

[thorny]

All true with respect to a Y0 cat, but I wonder if a Y90 cat, even a feral Y90 cat, might respond differently.  Look at Tapsa's cats (Tapsa is the cat-man in Toivosaari), and the way they point at the door where the troll is hiding.  That doesn't strike me as something a Y0 cat would be able to do.  Also, the way the Grade A cats are described makes them sound more intelligent and far more trainable than Y0 cats.  So Sigrun and Emil may have reasonably supposed that, if the mother cat recovered, she would come to understand that they were helping her and the kitten.

I have had a Year -0 cat point at where another cat was hiding; not with a paw, but with his attention. I looked where the cat who was in the open was intently looking, and sure enough, there was the hiding cat.

But yes, it's possible you have a point there; and it's true that Kitty appeared to be trainable in the same fashion as other cats in the Known World, which implies that the difference would also apply to cats who were the many-times-descendents of cats who became feral by lack of choice in year 0.

However, I still suspect it may have been either that neither Sigrun nor Emil had any prior experience with feral cats (and again, there may not be feral cats in the Known World; they may be too highly valued to let that happen), or that Minna herself has the automatic reflex that I've run into with some people in the current world of 'domestic species? Must innately think of humans as potential friends!' when it's actually that domesticatable species have a (generally fairly narrow) window in early youth during which they can be convinced that just about any species is potentially part of their social group. -- it's fairly easy to teach a young husky pup that cats aren't for hunting. A grown husky, or other dog with strong hunting instincts? Not so much.

-- and yes, if that cat hadn't been so badly hurt, it would have been Sigrun who was badly hurt, if she'd managed to get ahold of the cat at all by that technique. Most people seem to think that a cat who scratched or nipped them was serious, and that cats can't do much more damage than that; but those cats were holding back, using just enough force to make the human back off. I was once bit by a cat who meant it. One bite, and his teeth met in the middle of my hand. (I let go instantly, and he ran off as soon as I did.) I couldn't use the hand right for days. If he'd been a fraction of an inch over and gotten the tendon, I might not ever have fully used the hand again. And that was one bite, I let go immediately, and he wasn't full feral. Trying to hold on barehanded to a fully feral, frightened and enraged cat, and with that cat right by your face? Not bright at all, Sigrun. Compassionate, yes; but not bright.

-- I've tamed feral kittens; if they're under about four months, that's generally not hard, though it's liable to take at least a few days, and maybe a few weeks especially if they're at the upper end of the range. I have good friends who fully tamed an adult feral cat; that took years. They found him on their porch, starved, wounded, and sick; took him for a stray who'd come to a house looking for human help; scooped him up (carefully) and took him to a vet. It wasn't until he started getting some strength back that they realized he was feral, and had only been so weak that he couldn't fight back. He'd been on their porch for the same reason a starving fox or bobcat might have been: there was food there, and he'd been unable to catch any. He must have used the last of his strength trying to get to it, and had none left to flee or fight.

Once he was uncaged he spent a year or more living in their basement, hiding in the rafters whenever a human came down there. Eventually he associated them enough with the appearance of food that he let himself be seen occasionally. After quite a long time of that he started venturing upstairs -- the basement had probably gotten very boring. After considerable time in which that didn't result in disaster -- and during which he must have seen the humans patting and holding other cats -- he started to allow an occasional touch.

In the last three or four years before he died of old age he would even come to me for pats and lapsitting, and he only saw me a couple of times a year. It is possible. But it takes a huge amount of patience, and a very long time.

[Jitter]

Oh, I fully agree that Sigrun possibly hasn’t seen or considered a feral cat. All in all normal but wild mammals are rare, the other species due to the Rash and cats as you say because they are so very valuable (incidentally any closer-to-reality ecology effects might well have resulted in massive numbers of cats in the Silent World as there are still birds, but no other mammalian predators. But, ecology chain effects are not taking place in this universe.) I was just pointing out that this could be an additional reason why it doesn’t occur to her that the mama cat is not going to be welcoming.

She’s not barehanded btw, they are all wearing gloves. But her eyes are far too close to the claws!

[JoB]

Minna said somewhere, I guess in the comments in early parts (perhaps at the Shushing Cat in the river boat from Keuruu) that the cats in the comic are definitely normal animals (and not e.g. magical sentient creatures) but she makes them a bit smarter than our reality cats, making it easier to train them and for them to agree to cooperate with hoomans. So, perhaps Sigrun’s actions make a little more sense than it seems to us, and there could have been a reasonable chance to actually get the mama cat to cooperate if it wasn’t quite so badly hurt. She only sees the extent of the injuries after getting the cat down.

Or it’s just that she’s used only to cats that are used to humans, like already suggested. Or perhaps cats are considered such valuable companions and partners that she doesn’t quite think of them as ”mere animals” but something that you have to try and save.

And then there's the possibility that Sigrun, at least, is a lot more utilitarian WRT cats than we'd like to believe.

It is stated in-story that cats-in-training go through a final exam in which the occasional trainee fails to associate an actual grossling with the artificial scent it's been trained on. And it is likely that, like their Y0 counterparts, they occasionally bring freshly-killed or even still-living prey into the house with them. I can't see the Y90 people taking the risk that a cat that flunked that exam might infect its not-all-immune humans, ever, so I don't think I'd need three guesses at what happens to them. And if they're ready throw those out the gate in the palisades, or worse ...

A drug intended for killing a human not be much depleted on a cat.

Uhhhh, careful there. At least as far as anaesthesia goes, a dosage proper for an animal often is perfectly lethal to humans, even in cases where the animal weighs a good deal less than the average two-legs.