The Fairy Creature

In Scottish mythology, Cat Sith is a fairy creature, sometimes a witch, resembling a large black cat with a white spot on its chest -notorious for haunting

the Scottish Highlands. 

The creature can move in silence,

 and strike before its seen.  

Cat Sith is legendary and ferocious,

with a bold and fiery spirit,

and of all the Scottish wildlife,

it is the creature considered to be

the most "untameable".
                                           Kerry Kilshaw

Leaving the Highlands always seems a little surreal to me  -as if one should pass through a misty veil that separates the wilderness from the city of Edinburgh.  Perhaps it was there, I just didn't see it. Instead, I had allowed my mind to sway back and forth between a wakeful state and slumber, as the bus ride transported me back towards the city -leaving all the waterfalls and heather-covered mountains of the Highlands somewhere behind that veil of mist.

Upon my arrival in Edinburgh, I took time to settle into my B&b before pulling out the research papers (all 3,200 minutes of them!), and turning on the computer.  It's an odd feeling in this age of technological dependency, to press the "start" button on  a computer -only to find oneself  starring at a totally black screen.  I fortunately had done a backup on the portable device back home before I left Sweden.  If I hadn't, the research, the blog, and this blogger would all have come to an untimely, dramatic end.  Heart failure is not a joking matter!

Two weeks have passed since the burial of my computer, and now all is well.  The research for the first writing deadline has been completed, and I'm slowly starting to gather up speed for the second stage of the project.  I love the process of writing.  It forces me to sift through a multitude of details -a high class junkyard in my case, in order to find the core of what's  truly important -and in this project, I believe I have.

To be honest, when I first began the research, I knew very little about cats -in fact, I wasn't much of a cat person at all.  I respected their independence, but I really didn't understand it.  However, studying these little creatures for the last 3 months has surprisingly taught me a great deal about myself.  They taught me - despite all the research that's been done, and all the conclusions that other people have drawn, that a trainer and an animal start their relationship with a clean slate ...that you shape the relationship with love, first and foremost, before you ever reach for a reinforcer.

Very few people have attempted to train a European or Scottish Wildcat, and those who have, generally have used a 'trial and error' method -which typically ends in an 'error'.  During my training sessions with the European wildcats, I attempted to use a new training method developed at the University of North Texas.  I will go more into detail in the next blog, but for now, let me just say -It was highly effective! 

Untameable? -perhaps. 

Untrainable? -not in the least.

Lesson Learned:

You don't always have to love

only that which loves you back

                                                         

                                                           Mike Tomkies

                                                            Naturalist