just a cat

A Typical Evening Feeding:

 I walk through the gate. Boot watches me from the edge of the pond. Down the hill Sasha, Ranger, and Minnie retreat from the spring as I approach. Thomas walks towards me and utters two muted meows of greeting. Allie emerges from the bushes, trots to the food bowls at the pole and paces. She is joined by Calico. Others emerge and watch, waiting for the food to be placed and me to back away. Two bowls filled with kibble and topped with a can of paté split between them. Convergence. These are the west-side cats.

Betty, the grand matriarch, observes from her stone perch on the steps. When the initial frenzy has lulled, she walks to the bowls and eats her fill. 

I walk to the spring 20 yards away. I fill two more bowls. Thomas leaves his meal by the pole and settles on the grass at the mid-point, observing me and the other cats. Minnie, always looking a little anxious, walks past Tom with a glance and carefully surveys the food bowls at the spring.

Meanwhile the east-side cats approach to eat at the spring. Tanya walks across the middle of the field, tail held high. Fluffy stays along the edge of the pond, sniffing a plant or two as he passes. Boot has stopped at the holly, ready to hide if I approach or continue towards the food if I allow him space.

Bobbie rushes past all of them, careless of how close she comes to me, and goes to the food at the spring. Although her kitten is old enough for independence, she is still nursing and likes to keep it nearby. She will hurry back after she eats her fill. Only Tom will eat at a bowl with her. The others respect her space.

I walk back home. As I close the gate I look back. Tanya is sitting pretty, asking me if I have forgotten something.

"Of course Tanya, I haven't forgotten." I pull a couple special treats out of my pocket and toss them to her. She watches where each one lands. She waits until I step away before she retrieves and eats each one. I go home and walk in the door to be greeted by Tanya's domesticated sister. "Yes Scout, you can have a treat too."

Fluffy and I are still working out some issues related to visiting the vet. He still needs stitches out and his eye checked.

All the other cats are happy to eat the food in the trap. He won't. When I'm around,  he watches me.

I have heard that feral cats don't meow. Is this true?

VolvoHeretic said:

I have heard that feral cats don't meow. Is this true?

 Most of the feral cats that I encounter don't, but there are a few that do. I have known Tanya since she was weaned. She will cautiously approach me and meow when she is asking for something. Is she truly feral if she has interacted with me daily for more than a year? Thomas often walks up to me 'mouthing' a meow, but not making an audible sound.

Minnie and Hellcat the kitten make a soft sound in their throat - a sort of closed mouth howl. Bobbie occasionally meows directly at me, but I don't hear them meow to each other. They do howl and hiss at each other when one crosses a boundary.

Found unnamable orange cat dead on the road this morning.  Decompensating 

He didn't give us a choice about adopting him, but he had a better 7 months with us than being feral.  I'd at least spent some waulity time with him wrapped around my head on the bed last night.

Going to be missing him hiding and jumping out while I water outside.

In reply to Karacticus :

Thanks for caring about him and making the world around him a better place.

AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Karacticus :

Thanks for caring about him and making the world around him a better place.

Your replay provided some comfort-- thank you.

Though we were unable to name him, he was more my buddy than any other cat we had, and I usually referred to him as "little man".

Sorry, hate seeing this happen.

This thread is such a rollercoaster. To all who work to make the lives of the critters around them better- Thank you for the selfless work you do.  

We've owned several cats and dogs, all rescues. The current critter is Aggie, a German Shorthair/Labrador Retriever/Bloodhound mix. She's 100lbs of pure, uncut Derp. I'd really like to find a Maine Coon, but I don't know that Aggie will react well.

I had an appointment and fed the cats late. While They *would* have been eating a tree fell across the area. I don't think that any of them were hurt, but since it fell only a few cats have shown back up.

The wire that was pulled down by the tree is the power to my house and it remained live. It has been spliced and repaired now. I'm off work this weekend and plan to do some more clean-up and census of the cats.

Finally after almost a month of attempts, I have Fluffy Cat trapped. He's going to the vet first thing Monday morning.

Since his last release, he started spending most of his time at the neighbor's yard. They put cat food out most days, so Fluffy was not very motivated to eat in my trap. This weekend they are away and that made a great opportunity to have him hungry and motivated to commit to the food.

Fluffy's visit with the vet this morning went well. He was easy to hold while the stitches were removed, but his third eyelid was stuck so he was anesthetized to make sure that was okay. The eyeball looks good. I've got him home with me now and will release him when he fully aware. I'll edit this post and add a pic when he is released.

Edit: I released him a little after sunset. I didn't want him out in bright sun after having the eye closed for a month. It still doesn't look quite right to me - a little glazed, but I expect it will return to normal soon. After exiting the cat carrier he ran a short distance, then sniffed and looked around and started hunting bugs. He is a happy, carefree cat, back at home.

Yesterday evening as I was getting mail from the mailbox, Thomas walked up to me and said that If I didn't feed him NOW, he might die. He's the fattest feral around and very insistent about regular feeding times. After dinner we hung out at the curb with Tanya and I gave them dessert.

PTSD triggered yesterday evening after having not seen Goblin, one of the barn/tack room cats since the prior night.

Went looking, found her shut in the dressing room of the horse trailer.

She'd been shut in there for 24 hours, but seems not greatly worse for wear.  I did have to clean up some urine though, so that was obviously a bladder stretcher.

In reply to Karacticus :

Glad your internal radar went off! We have a neighbor behind us with two outside cats. They both love to hang out in our yard and sleep on many of my projects. Occasionally, Lex will sneak into my shop and inadvertently get locked in. We'll get a call and the neighbor will not have seen him for 3 days (her radar isn't as tuned as yours). I'll open the shop door and she usually calls 5 minutes later to let us know he is home and chowing down.

Not fake, saw this on FB.

Bobbie's kittens, Una and PJ (Pajamas), are growing up and have very different personalities. PJ is quiet and calm. She Loves Mrs AAZCD and demands cuddle time with her. She is indifferent to me. When I approach her, she walks away and won't let me easily pick her up.

Una is thunder and lightning. She loves to sneak up on the dogs and plots attacks with a quick escape plan. Our cat Scout mothers her, pinning her down and cleaning her. Miso is her fun Aunt.

I have not seen Bobbie's third kitten, Hellcat, for a couple weeks. I expect that she is still okay and settling into an independent routine. She was only easy to spot when I did regular feedings at the old tree house. I have seen two 'new' kittens near the feeding area and I expect that they are Sasha's and seem to be about 6 months old. No pictures yet, they run away while I am still far.

Thanks for the work you do.

We have a gorgeous Siamese fellow who started coming around about a month ago who is VERY wary and timid. We are out in the country-farm land and woods.

My wife has finally got him to eat canned food out of her hand. I want to wait a bit before I trap him to see if he will calm down a little as I don't want him to totally freak in the trap. He's interesting in that his beautiful Siamese markings stop at his feet which are perfectly white. I'll get a pic or two soon.

SWMBO named him Elvis. This is the best I could get of him this time. The other is Miss Lemon talking trash to him while he eats.

Our local shelter put out the word that they had just received a couple of senior cats and they needed a foster family for them, as senior cats fare very poorly in shelters. We went to visit on the weekend. Janel got absolutely mobbed by cats who know a meal ticket when they see one and we came home with the two seniors. Paris is a 10 year old black female who is, umm, well fed. Hastings is a very fast looking 7 year male who can jump on top of a 5' high dresser from a standing position without making it look like a challenge. Fostering senior cats is not really any different than adopting them, especially a black one. We're okay with that.

They're currently living in our laundry room as they get used to the change of scenery, although they did break into the laundry chute and teleported up to the top floor - which was a bit of a surprise when the laundry room turned out to be bereft of cats. Paris is about ready to come out and meet the rest of the family but Hastings is still a bit skittish. He is very wary of me. Janel spent most of the weekend sitting on the floor and talking to them to get them out of hiding. Also, this weekend we learned that a motivated skinny cat can fit under our freezer.

I think Paris will fit in well. Hastings looks like he needs room to run and jump and that may be a problem for our current fastest cat, who will not appreciate losing her crown and who is a little cranky with anyone who challenges her authority. We've never had a jumper before, this will be interesting. Names may change.

Paris.

Hastings.

Shape comparison.

Trapping this morning when I got home from night shift. My targets have been Minnie and Sasha lately. Both showed up in the early spring and were obviously pregnant soon after they became 'regulars'. They both appear to be gaining weight now, so I may be late on spaying them.

Anyway... Minnie didn't show and Sasha avoided the trap. I was ready to head home for a nap when a 7 to 8 month old cat committed to the bait and was trapped. I'm pretty sure she (possibly he) is one of Sasha's spring litter. I only started seeing it about a week ago and couldn't identify it from the 100 yard distance it allowed. I think it's name is 'September'. At Dr Bill's office now for spay or neuter.

Edit-

Evening update. I just picked the cat up and it's a male. His name is Handsome Dan. Releasing him back to his home in about an hour.

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

Handsome Dan has some knockout peepers...

I have mentioned trying to trap 'Sasha' a couple times. Still no luck, but this morning I trapped another one of her older kittens. At the vet's office, they asked for a name and I didn't know the gender yet, so I went with "Pat".  Now he's named 'Patrick' - no relation, but I may end up calling him AC for short.

I have seen Sasha with up to six kittens, but they all disperse while I'm still far away. There are two age groups, so she is either a nanny or a kitten machine. No pics of the youngest ones (three?), but here she is with the ones that are about 6+ months old.