Linus the deer-licked cat

By Jane Greiner
Sun staff writer
An Empire cat named Linus has developed an unusual relationship with the deer that visit the back yards of the homes on La Core Street. On a number of occasions Linus has been sleeping in the yard only to be approached by a doe from the herd that carefully, yet fully, licks him. While one deer is licking him, the other deer stand nearby and watch.

Linus seems to enjoy the deer-licking. He will lie on one side and accept their offering, and then roll over to the other side as if to say, “now get this side”. The procedure may go on for 15 minutes; long enough to call the neighbors and have them look out their window to enjoy the spectacle.
Jeanette Daniel, her husband Dick, and the neighbors Carol and John Peterson, have all witnessed this ritual.
When he comes inside after a licking, Linus is wet and sticky. Jeanette says he is often so messy after one of those lickings that she has to bathe him.
The story of Linus is “a most peculiar thing,” says Jeanette. “He came one sleety March night and forced his way in on us.” He was on the deck begging to come in and driving the Daniel’s two cats Luey and Libby crazy.
The Daniels took pity on him and brought him inside. Libby, their female cat, accepted him right away, but it took some time before the male cat Luey bonded with Linus.
At first the Daniels tried hard to find Linus’s family, but they had no success. He had no identification and no one recognized or claimed him. In the meantime the Daniels fed and took care of their new pet and gave him a temporary home.
“Linus is a very sociable cat,” says Jeanette. He gets along with “all children, other cats, dogs, and really the whole neighborhood.”
He seems to have adopted Jeanette and Dick, although she says “we really share him” with Carol and John and the neighborhood. “We can’t make Linus an indoor cat,” she says. He is not one to be restricted to just one house.
For example, he may be visiting the Daniel’s house but he knows the sound of John Peterson’s boat trailer. When Linus hears John return from a fishing trip he insists on going to John’s house for fish cleaning scraps.
About two years ago when the Daniels were on vacation in Alaska, the Petersons looked after Linus. They held a big Memorial Day picnic in their yard and Linus schmoozed with everyone there. Suddenly Linus suffered a grand mal seizure.
When the Daniels returned they had some hard decisions to make. They had considered taking Linus to the animal shelter. But now they realized that no one would adopt a cat with epileptic seizures.
So Jeanette said, “Oh, what’s one more cat?” And Linus had a home.
They took him in to the veterinarian for shots and a surgery. Linus settled in and continued to make himself loved by all.
About a month later he had another grand mal seizure, this time at the Daniel’s house. “It was awful,” Jeanette said. He was flopping around and turning summersaults. But, by some miracle, that second seizure seems to have been his last one. No one has witnessed a seizure since then.
Things settled down for a while until about a year ago when Linus started losing weight. He had been a rather hefty kitty, but now he dwindled away. He acted listless and just seemed to lie around a lot. When they took him to the veterinarian, she said the cat had severe anemia, so severe that “he should not be alive”.
Just about that time the Daniels first noticed Linus getting licked by the deer. He loved to lie right in the middle of the backyard, and in his listless condition he spent a lot of time there. At some point the deer must have come into the yard, found him lying there, and decided to investigate.
Whatever the cause, the deer began licking, and the sociable kitty that he is, Linus lay there and let it happen.
Then it happened again and again. Jeanette says, “We watch the deer approach. It’s usually a large doe who steps forward very cautiously. She walks up and starts to lick him from head to toe. This isn’t just a little lick. It lasts a long time.”
The deer licking became a routine for Linus and the doe. At some point the Daniels noticed that he was gradually beginning to recover. He began to put on weight and started to play again with the other cats. “He has made a splendid recovery,” says Jeannette, though he is not yet back to his old form.
Today he looks and acts like a handsome, healthy cat. Jeanette had him indoors for his “interview” for this article. He showed a normal feline lack of cooperation in having his picture taken but was happy to sit on the reporter’s notebook.
Did the deer save Linus’s life? “It’s a puzzle,” Jeanette says. Friends and neighbors speculate that perhaps his fur tastes salty to the deer and that is why they lick him. Or maybe the doe who licks him (Jeannette thinks it is usually the same one), at first mistook him for a fawn when he was curled up in the yard.
One thing is clear; Linus, the sociable cat, has found a place in the hearts not only of the Daniels, the Petersons, and the neighborhood, but also of the Empire deer.