This story accompanied an article on Cat-Plants I had in a little publication called "Wild Foods Forum," P.O. Box 61413, Virginia Beach, VA 23462 in mid-1994. (No email address!!) (Time has passed ...and it now has a website...)
The Doomed Kitten
"That little kitten is doomed." That was how my friend referred to a little gray kitten that had come into her Charlottesville apartment through an open door - and had stayed for two days despite repeated attempts to get it back outside. The frantic little creature was quite deft at escaping just at the moment the erstwhile captors thought they were about to meet with success. Eventually, the door was just left open and when my friend returned home that evening - she found that her uninvited guest had gone back to its home, into a crack underneath the house. I arrived the next day for a spell of cat sitting while my friend left town for a few days and was immediately told the story of the little intruder.
I decided that I would try to tame the wild little thing. A long string was the first tool I used. The kitten just couldn't resist that string and would come out chasing it when I put one end in the hole under the house. As long I was a substantial distance away, the kitten would follow the string, retreating back into the hole if ever it sensed I was getting a little too close. Then I got the idea of tying a long stalk of catnip to the end of the string. The kitten was so enamored of the catnip that eventually I was able to begin shortening the string so that finally I was just holding the 3 ft. stalk of catnip. I was amazed that the kitten was now allowing me to get that short a distance away. In short order, I moved my hand all the way up the stalk of nip until I was actually petting the little cat, and it was purring! She no longer feared me and when I returned to Maryland, she made the move, too. (My friend had not been interested in adding to her household.)
To the Owl and the Pussycat