The Little Ninja Saga - Episode II

(Originally published Nov 17, 2011)

 

So now we have decided that we have to save this poor helpless abandoned kitty that our neighbours left behind when they moved out. Our first obvious major obstacle was going to be catching it. She had been alone for a couple weeks already, fending for herself (with the help of some dry food the neighbours did happen to leave). She was so scared and skittish. Simply by making eye contact she would run away to her secret hidey-hole by the neighbours’ garbage cans. This is where google came in handy… if only to help me & Cheryl to set-up some type of time line for attack, and to take advantage of all the little tricks that seem to work for others (meaning less trial and error on our part).

As anybody would expect, food was apparently the easiest way to trap a live animal. Knowing that this poor little kitty probably hasn’t had a full prepared meal in a while (now that the bag of food left behind was depleted), we figured she’s gotta be pretty hungry. Laura & Immanuel had already made a couple successful attempts to feed the Little Ninja. Laura used some of the extra cat wet food her cats, placed it on a dish and sat in the little side alley between our house and the next. The kitty was hungry enough to overcome her fear of people, and after some time decided to munch her way desperately through the wet food with Laura only a few feet away. Immanuel had done the same and apparently managed to stand only 1 foot away! So we knew it was possible to lure the little kitty… like an ice cream truck driving by a school yard.



Just a simple trick to lure in the hungry

Our first step would be to put out some food. We had an extra food dish laying around already from the year before, when we thought the neighbours were originally going to ditch and leave the kitty behind. At the time, we would just put out a couple of pieces of Temptations… but that never really worked and the kitty never fed back then (it still had a home, so why would it come over to us?). I picked up some dry food, just your middle of the road high-protein bag of Whiskas. I didn’t want to be cheap, but I also wasn’t sure if this plan would work so I limited my investment, I guess. I could’ve gone more expensive and get the really delicious stuff, but the kitty was probably hungry and hopefully not too picky.

Apparently, the key to a successful trap was consistency. Every morning when I got out of bed and got ready for work, my first task was to fill a bowl for food, another for water and take it outside. We weren’t sure where to put the food though, where to keep the food so it’ll be visible, where the kitty would be comfortable eating, and where we can easily keep an eye on it. In the end, I got a bit lazy. I knew the cat had sometimes wandered past our front door… so our area was a little on her daily route. So, yep, I opened the door and plopped the 2 bowls right in front of our door where I can just stand back and watch the feeding begin. The other helpful trick was knowing that her original owner (the crackhead girl) would often call the kitty “pretty girl” (but we never confirmed any ‘real’ name). Every morning at 6:00am, I would open the door, rattle the food, call “pretty girl” and step back to continue with my day (shaving, ironing and such).

 

Nothing was witnessed the first couple of days… but since we did leave the food out all throughout the day, some food was definitely eaten before we got back from work. Only half empty after the first couple days. Later, it was completely empty. After the 3^rd day, I did see that in the time between setting the food dish out in the morning and me going to work (about 45 minutes), some food was even eaten then. A couple more days of food being eaten right after I place it outside, we knew she was waiting for it, expecting it. That is why consistency was the key to this all, I guess. On the 5^th day, I even saw her eating from the dish, in the afternoon after work as I pulled up the car next to the house. I didn’t want to scare her, so I just sat there in the car waiting for her to finish. Only took about 10 minutes, but I was happy to actually see her eating.

The really unexpected part about this whole endeavour (but we really should have seen it coming)… was that the poor black Little Ninja was not the only cat we attracted. I guess word got out that there was a free meal sitting outside of the door all day long. That was how we met the mysterious and friendly white cat.

To be continued...