a truly important question: with animals wandering around, what are the odds of a wild cat or some other cat-like creature being near the river full of fish and what are the odds that it might be injured and that it would let nicky take it home (perhaps with the help of his power of calm) and become (semi-)domesticated with a lot of patience

tl;dr i want nicky and joe to get a cat and then for joe to discover his powers when he draws the cat a companion

if not a cat(-like) creature, any potential alternatives?