Happy Tail: Archie
Not to overstate the point, but there is something almost cosmically special about ginger boy Archie.
To his adopter Rusa, Archie “understands the assignment,” which is keeping Frank — her other ginger boy, also an ACR cat — comforted and company after losing his brother Sammy in 2020. Coming from a college instructor with a PhD, “understanding the assignment” is high praise indeed.
For Michelle, who fostered Archie in spring 2023, he is “the one who got away,” the cat she bonded with and sometimes wishes she had “foster failed” but also the cat that propelled her to do just that with her next two fosters, Roxy and JoJo. And Michelle delights in Archie’s happy outcome with Rusa.
To trapper Rosary, meanwhile, Archie’s sudden appearance one day in the Finch and Weston area where she just happened to be on-site attempting to trap two homeless cats* that a coffee truck operator had been feeding but hoped to rescue with ACR’s help, was… well, kind of miraculous.
All three women agree that Archie — orange like much of the décor in Rusa’s home and possibly lost or abandoned given his relative ease in adapting to indoor life — is a veritable, fur-covered receptacle for love. And for adjectives, ranging from “charming” and “naughty” to “cuddly” and “rascally.”
“Frank was always reliant on Sammy to scope out situations,” Rusa says. “He was skittish, so when Sammy died, I decided to get him a companion.”
As it happened, Rusa had been following Michelle’s Instagram postings featuring Archie — see her beforementioned orange cat preoccupation, which had extended to a previous cat — so Rusa knew he would be heading for adoption soon. “Rusa saw how loving Archie was with me,” Michelle says. “Eventually she came over to my house. Archie hid the entire time!
“She didn’t get to meet him face-to-face, but we chatted about him for an hour. She had a good sense of what he was like through my posts. Plus, she lives a nine-minute walk from me, so it was easy for me to drop him off and get him settled in his new home. It’s nice knowing he is close by.”
Archie’s initial nights in both Michelle’s and Rusa’s homes found him hiding under the bed. For Michelle, a Churu gained the cat’s trust. Rusa deployed slow blinks. “I knew the little dude was afraid,” Rusa says, “but he knew I was good. He seemed to relax when he met Frank. Their transition was quite smooth.”
Rusa, who teaches in the Community Worker Program at George Brown College, has gifted her students with buttons bearing her cats’ images. “I talk about their escapades,” she laughs. “During the pandemic we were online so my students would see the cats. I still teach online, and Archie has been getting braver about appearing on Zoom.
“Archie really does understand the assignment,” Rusa continues. “He snuggles with Frank, who requires forced loving, and with me, who doesn’t. And he has adapted to the cat condo, which they peacefully share. He has been a great addition to the house and he and Frank have become great brothers.”
-Kim Hughes
*Rosary did successfully trap the two “quite feral” cats being fed by the coffee truck operator. They found a permanent home at Feral Cat Rescue in Shelburne, ON.
