They call him Tup, Blackie and Bucket, the jet-black feral cat that repeatedly eluded capture, leaving Hot Springs residents anxious as he rejected traps baited with fried chicken, baked chicken and tuna and darted around their neighborhood with a plastic lid stuck around his neck.
After several failed efforts spanning months, the cat with three names was trapped Friday and driven to Little Rock to have the plastic cut free. The feline was also sedated, neutered, treated for fleas, vaccinated and microchipped. He'll be returned to a Lake Hamilton neighborhood, where he made his home about a year ago.
"Everybody in the neighborhood wants him back," said Susan Loesch, of Little Rock, who repeatedly drove to Hot Springs to try to catch the cat after learning in August that he was stuck in a lid designed for a cereal container.
Loesch, a board member for Feline Rescue and Rehome, calls the cat Tup, a reference to what she believed was Tupperware plastic around his neck. She said the story shows how residential garbage can be hazardous to animals.
"He was probably so leery of everybody, because in a lot of ways he was defenseless," Loesch said, adding that Tup couldn't turn his head. "If he added a lot of winter weight and thick fur over the winter, it's possible it could have choked him."
Dr. Irene Toll-Schacter, the Pinnacle Valley Animal Hospital veterinarian who treated the cat, said she had never before seen a cat with its head stuck in a plastic lid. Toll-Schacter said the cat was missing a little fur around his neck but that she believes he'll be fine.
"I was very much expecting the plastic would have cut into his neck," Toll-Schacter said. "He's very lucky. He really should make a full recovery."
Feral cats, typically at least a generation removed from being house pets, roam freely and reproduce frequently. Feline Rescue and Rehome has, since 2007, trapped feral cats, had them spayed or neutered and returned them to the wild.
Hot Springs residents told Loesch that the plastic had been around the Hot Springs cat's neck for about a year. Loesch, who traps feral cats throughout central Arkansas for the rescue's trap, neuter and return program, spent the past four months trying to catch him to have it removed.
[EMAIL ALERTS: Sign up for breaking news updates and daily newsletters with the day's top headlines]
Loesch knocked on doors to try to learn what the cat liked to eat and where. One homeowner, who occasionally fed the cat dry cat food, gave her permission to set up traps in his yard, leaving the gate unlocked for Loesch's 7 a.m. arrival. That resident calls the cat Bucket, Loesch said.
Loesch tried drop traps -- basically yanking a rope attached to a propped-up box with hopes it would enclose the cat -- and traps designed to close automatically when an animal puts pressure on a small plate inside, but she had no success.
The automatic traps, baited with chicken, sardines, tuna and other table food, caught wild animals but not Tup, Loesch said. And the drop traps weren't producing better results.
"I sat outside the drop trap watching it for seven darn hours," said Loesch, 69. "At the end of that time, he hasn't shown up. [I thought], 'Where have we gone wrong here?'"
Loesch again went door-to-door and found Tup had another regular feeding spot at Betsy Wallis' house.
Wallis, 58, who also fed him dry cat food, calls the cat Blackie and said he has grown comfortable with her voice since she first saw him in July 2015. Wallis said she first noticed the lid around Blackie's neck in February.
"He comes back to this house," Loesch said. "[Wallis] feeds him every day. He responds to her voice. He plays out in the yard even with that Tupperware thing on him."
Wallis and a trapper with the Paws and Claws rescue group set a trap at Wallis' house Friday morning. They baited it with a mixture of dry and wet cat food in a bowl the cat regularly ate from. Within two hours, Blackie was captured, Wallis said.
Loesch drove to Hot Springs to retrieve the cat and deliver him to Pinnacle Valley Animal Hospital.
Wallis, who has two female cats of her own, said she is happy that Blackie will be returned to the neighborhood.
"I would like to have him back," Wallis said. "He is a feral cat, so he is familiar with his stroll through the neighborhood. I would like to eventually take him [on a trip] to Tennessee with me. ... Maybe over time he will get comfortable."
Metro on 12/10/2016