C is for Cats

Anyone following me on Twitter or Facebook knows we are a dog family. We have three, all rescue dogs. Snickers is our 45# pointer beagle mix. Takumi is our 60# chow shepherd mix. Duke is our 85# lab mix. Try walking that pack all at once. ;)

But here is the story of the cats. About a year, eighteen months ago, our neighbor's teen daughter found a black kitten in her backyard and kept it. Then said neighbor's teen daughter left home, and left the cat. Intact. In the backyard. Fast forward to last December, and one of the offspring from that original kitten (because there had been several litters, but all stayed next door) had her litter in our front hedge. Four kittens, two of whom are no more. One we THINK we may have recently seen. One was carried off by a hawk.



Anyhow, last December 23 we took the two remaining boys, Bold and Brutus, to the vet for neutering and vaccinations. We found out they were about four months old at that time. Since we had no idea how long the mama had been hiding them in our holly bush, we had no idea of their ages. Not long after, more of the older cats started hanging out in our hedge, this due to the fact that we started feeding the mama so she wouldn't leave the kittens for long periods to find food, and we wouldn't have dead kittens in the street.

Something had to be done, and we talked to our neighbor, and she had talked to a shelter about trapping them, but they needed her to provide the traps, and pay for the spays/neuters/vaccines. I told her we could start trapping them for her and get them fixed. I did not tell her we would pay for it but that was the plan. Her husband is a laborer and she a teacher at a small religious school, so there's not a lot of disposable income there. Not that we have tons to dispose of, but I was making some extra money through my self-publishing efforts.



Flirty was the first cat we spayed. She was easy. No one was yet wise to our ways. Next came Rocky, Flirty's sister, and the cat we named Satan. She tried to dig through the cardboard litter box we set up in the metal dog crate where we kept her post-op. Next, we actually managed to catch two of the cats who were again in heat, Nancy and Mama, the mother of our hedge kittens who were still hanging around. They were followed by Billie, another of Rocky's and Flirty's sisters, and then Chloe, who doesn't look like any of the colony. She just happened by at the wrong time for her! Finally we caught the original mother cat, Lil.



Then we started in on the boys. Brother has been living in our hedge with the kittens for months. We originally called him Sister because, well, who can tell. Dan was unlucky enough to get trapped when we next put out the cage. As of this writing, we know of two more pregnant females, yet both are wily and crafty and we may not be able to catch them before they give birth, though we are not giving up. Or I should say, #1 Girl and the husband are not giving up. They even caught one of the cats in a fishing net.

Calculating just the females we've had spayed, if each had given birth to five kittens, we would now have another THIRTY-FIVE unwanted cats in the neighborhood. We've got another tom to de-nut this next weekend, one who's not as feral as some we've seen. He lets us pet, hold and brush him, so he's next on the list. We call him Fat Daddy and are pretty sure he's the father of Bold and Brutus. Mostly likely, he's also their grandfather …

The message of this post? SPAY or NEUTER your pets!!!!!!!!!!!!

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