Tribute to Katmandu the Siberian Lynx

Anal electrocution was the only way to escape the fur farm…at least as far as Katmandu knew, until the day his older brother made a gallant run for it. Moments later though, the sickening sound of the shot gun blast and Katmandu knew he would never see his big brother alive again. There was little consolation in the fact that his brother's pelt was now too riddled with holes to become another fur fashion.

 

Katmandu had seen things that you just can't get over. His siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles all killed and skinned for their fur. He and Stalker had been spared because they were the biggest and most handsome lynx yet and their owner knew that their size and looks would pass on even better coats to "harvest."  They weighed 90 pounds each when grown.

 

When we arrived in 1993 Katmandu was only a year old, but he had seen the inhumanity that man was capable of and would never forget it. His little sister, Natasha, was too young to have witnessed or remembered the horrors of the fur farm and while they shared a similar birth, in the tiny, steel, wire floored cages in a metal Minnesota shed, their attitudes going forward were as different as night and day.

 

One of the first cages built at Big Cat Rescue housed Katmandu. Most cats figure out pretty quickly that coming here really is life on "Easy Street" but I don't remember a time in those early years that Katmandu didn't puff at me and strike the side of his cage whenever I would walk by. I always tried to give him an extra wide berth so as to not frighten him into such displays but, unlike the rest of the cats here, he never trusted me.

 

When we had to give the cats vaccines in the early days it usually meant netting them, which involved chasing them around until we could net them and inject them. Not Katmandu. To vaccinate him meant at least three big guys with nets and all of us dressed in enough padding to have been hockey goalies. The moment we stepped into the cage it was "game on" and the game for Katmandu was to see how many of us he could take down before I got him with the needle.

 

Thankfully our cage designs improved over the years so that the cats had a lockout area where we feed them every day that became the area we could call them into for shots. That became easier and easier through our operant conditioning program where the cats learn that coming into lockout is almost always something good like food and treats. But, not Katmandu.

 

It didn't matter that 364 days out of the year there would be something good about coming into lockout, he wasn't going to do it if there was any chance that a human was going to try and get anywhere near him. For 10 years Katmandu was the scariest cat on the property. No matter how much all of us tried to show our love and respect for him, I never saw any change in his ferocity until 2003 when he met, and fell in love with Dr. Liz Wynn.

 

She worked tirelessly with him and his cage mate Kanawha until she gained their trust. I didn't see how she initiated operant conditioning with them, but was just stopped dead in my tracks one day when I saw the result. She was standing over Katmandu who was in his lockout, looking up at her with adoration and expectation as she was giving commands and treats on a stick. There was no growling. No puffing threats at her. No slashing claws. Just Katmandu and what could only be described as puppy love in his demeanor.

 

I began to take note that every time she walked by he came, on the run, to see if she would stop and talk with him. It was one of those little pleasures that put a smile on my face every time I saw it because I felt that finally this brave cat had found a soul mate here, not only in Kanawha, but also in Dr. Wynn. All of the cats here have Keepers and Partners who are especially dear to them and we often note that they pick you rather than the other way around, but to see Katmandu have a person he trusted was something extraordin