Algy – Journey…

Algernon – Algy for short – came to us in the last few months from the Meow Foundation in Alberta. We don’t know if he was a feral or a stray; he’s actually dealing quite well now with human contact, so he was probably the latter. But in his original shelter, he was obviously anxious, exhibited through asthma and over-grooming. That may have been caused by being shut in, or too many cats around him; now that he has room to wander, we’re seeing much less of that. More seriously, he was pretty aggressive, and in danger of being euthanized because of it. Meow Foundation reached out to us, and he made the long trip from Alberta to the coast.

When he came to us, he still carried his original name, but someone didn’t like it, and renamed him Journey in the records. However, a number of the staff and volunteers still call him Algy, and the name frequently has to be clarified.

Algy is a sturdy manx cat, with the broad face and jowls of a late-neutered tomcat. His taillessness is right on the edge of Manx syndrome; he’s not actually incontinent, as some of our other manxes are, but he’s one of the cats that needs his backside checked, and an occasional cleaning.

His originating shelter dealt with his aggressiveness by putting him on anti-anxiety meds, and when he arrived, we had to wean him off them gradually. Now med-free, we’re beginning to see the cat he really is. He’s not very social with other cats, but neither do they seem to bother him, and he is quite willing to interact with humans, especially when they let him understand that he can set the pace for contact.

He is one of the regular greeters at the gate to the back courtyard, though I think a lot of the intensity of his greeting is the hope that we might let him through the gate. That’s common with a number of cats – it’s not so much the hope of escaping as simply the desire to be on the other side. Jasper and Cole are our regular gate-crashers, and they just want to poke around a bit before they’re returned to the back again. Algy is also reluctantly cooperative with being redirected, though he never quite gives up hope.

He’s not ventured on laps, as far as I know, but can frequently be found exploring the table as volunteers share a (distanced) coffee-break, and he seems to enjoy a little petting and attention.