Jinx

When feral sister and brother Mindy and Jinx came to the sanctuary, Mindy seemed to at least want to be tame. Jinx wasn't so sure.

Leslie says he could be quite vicious when he first arrived. He was such a brat, in fact, that he earned himself the name of Jinx.

Over time, he did become tame but will still revert to feral if put in a position where he feels cornered. When I first encountered him sitting on one of the benches along the edge of the front courtyard, he was uncomfortable enough with only a choice of left or right escape route that he wouldn't let me touch him without running away.

 

Meet him out in the open though, and he's a whole different kitty. There, it was all I could do to get a picture of him with all the purring, rubbing and weaving around my ankles.

Mindy

On a nice day, visitors to the sanctuary will often barely have a chance to shut the front gate behind them before a welcoming committee of front courtyard cats has begun to assemble around them. There are some regulars in this committee, with other members rotating based on, as a wild guess, such factors as who's feeling extra friendly, extra moochy, or simply not otherwise engaged in napping.

This evening, a pretty little tuxedo cat in the mood for some attention put herself forward with the advance party.

Her name is Mindy and I'm told she came in as a feral with her tabby brother Jinx. Both are friendly now, though Jinx does get nervous if he's closed in on and doesn't see an easy escape route, and Mindy still hasn't quite lost the "if in doubt, swat" impulse.

To tell her apart from other cats with similar face and chest markings, look for the little patch of black on her right foot.