Zero The Cat

This weekend was a magical experience for everyone involved. Remember when we found a stray cat in the yard? This one beats that.

We brought breakfast outside and tied Zero up to his rope. As we ate, he watched some squirrels, and it was a normal, lovely Saturday.

Shortly after settling into the backyard, I could see Zero turn and see something and he kind of froze and stayed near the fence. I looked and saw a young deer slowly making his way into the back of the yard. The house backs on to an alley way so he must have wondered down from the stream nearby. He was crunching on acorns as he moved slowly closer to Zero, not looking up or seeing that this cat existed for quite a while.

Random Guy and I looked on in awe as the deer grazed slowly around, crunching acorns without any concern at all. Eventually, he locked eyes with Zero. This was upon being stalked by the feline. He lifted his head and turned to look, leaving Zero in an awkward state of looking away and pretending he hadn’t been instinctually out for the deer’s blood. This made me laugh. It was like Zero couldn’t understand why, but he knew he had to hunt this giant beast.

At one point (highlighted in this video), Zero and the deer (we had named him Hakeem by this point), came nose to nose. Zero in a light panic, brought out his bapping paw, but knew better than to actually use it.

Eventually, Hakeem wandered back down the alley, and we were set to start our day, so we parted ways.

This experience was really amazing. I think it was so good for Zero. He really hasn’t had a lot of interaction with other animals, and the fact that Hakeem was so still and calm made the whole situation so nice and easy for Zero to be okay with. Most animals he’s interacted with so far, it’s like he’s felt this need to protect or claim his territory. Hakeem was so gentle and big that Zero didn’t feel threatened, but even though he had the hunting instinct, he didn’t feel the urge to actually act on it.

What We Learned