We once had a cat who had been kept in a cage.
One long-ago Friday the Thirteenth, we took “Orca” off the local shelter's death row and brought her home to our tiny apartment.
Drawn by insistent meows, a woman had found Orca alone in a field, hungry and displaced. Unable to keep her inside, the woman had a large cage built in her back yard, and that's where Orca stayed for years, becoming fat and bored until relinquished due to her rescuer's health problems.
Orca had a few quirks, such as an initial reluctance to jump on the furniture and a bizarre fear of rulers, yardsticks, and other measuring instruments. Instantaneously she was queen and sovereign of the house. Wondering if she missed the outdoors, we fitted her with a harness (it took a dog harness to span her considerable girth) and ventured out for the first of what would become a daily adventure.
As time went on, the allure of these extensive walks (along with the love of ritual and routine that is every cat's birthright) enthused Orca so much that she would race over, belly aswing, and hastily shove her head into the initially-abhorrent contraption. Piloting us around saplings and through shrubberies, incessantly tangling the lead, she would gape at the stately hardwoods and study their massive trunks. We wondered how we'd look holding onto a leash that disappeared into the air.
One day, plagued by the persistent taunts of a bombastic squirrel, Orca spasmed out of her harness and scampered up the closest hickory tree. Lashing her tail, she scrutinized us from aloft as if to say, “I scoff at your bogus authority, and I weary of this pussycat charade. Clearly I can take care of myself. This should make our relative positions unmistakable.” We retired the harness.
Despite the five or six tough years Orca had weathered, she was happy and healthy for almost ten years before finally succumbing to kidney failure.
Spirited but self-possessed, Orca showed no signs of instabilitiy or neurosis. She even cautiously admitted a subordinate companion, Ariel, who is still with us at age 15. Orca eventually even allowed us to vaccuum her. What cat does THAT? As an elderly cat she remained playful and remarklably dextrous, able to pick up pencils and disposable lighters with one paw. We still miss our little whale.