(Originally published Dec 10, 2011)
I woke up early again that following Sunday,
letting Cheryl sleep in since I wasn’t as confident as I was the day
before. Maybe we’d catcher her, maybe
the trap would work, maybe we wouldn’t have interference from other
neighbourhood cats… or maybe I’d be standing at the doorway watching shadows for
4 hours again. As per the routine, I
filled the food bowl (adding some wet cat food on top for irresistible
yumminess), put the food in the trap, set the trap outside my door and called to
the Little Ninja. And I waited. She never did eat the day before so she must
have been starving. I was hoping this
wouldn’t be a long wait
After ten minutes I finally saw her run right by…
like she didn’t even see the food, like she had better things to do than to
finally eat. And again I waited. Impatiently, I called “Pretty Girl” again
thinking she’d try to come to the food once more. No luck.
After 30 minutes, I decided to take a walk around the block to see if I
could find her. No sign. I then decided to go for drive. I had caught her a couple times eating from
the dish as I drove up after work at the end of the day. I figured, maybe she wanted to be sure I was
away before she came close enough to the house to feed. Still nothing (Note: Leaving an active trap unattended for
20 minutes was not the best decision. I
don’t recommend trying that one. I
could’ve caught another cat, a squirrel, a raccoon or even a small
child).
After an hour, the sun was starting to rise and I
was pretty sure I had missed my chance.
I looked for her again and saw her in the neighbour’s yard; she stared
right back at me. I would always try to
not look her in the eyes, apparently that’s a sign of aggression or
dominance. I didn’t need that mind game,
whenever I saw her I would look away immediately. I did the same here and quietly stepped away
from the fence. I was relieved to know
she was nearby, though. Instead of
leaving the trap by my door, I figured maybe she would prefer to eat someplace
more secluded and away from my prying eyes.
I moved the trap just around the corner, right near the fence where she
would often perch.
Another 10 minutes passed with nothing happening at
all. I cranked up the laptop and was
just about to google again “how to attract a feral cat’ when the loudest,
metallic ‘ching-clang’ made me jump
up from the couch. I opened the door,
with a thick blanket in hand. And there
she was! In the trap! Of course she was freaked out and very vocal
and backing to the rear, away from me. I
put the thick blanket over the cage, hoping that might relax her a bit, might
make her more comfortable being confined.
I quickly ran into the wake Cheryl up.
She jumped out of bed and quickly got ready. I called the vet to give them a heads up we
were coming. Coats on. My heart pounding. Car started.
Cat in the back seat, in the cage.
And so by 7:20am on November 6th, we rescued the Little
Ninja.
It was hard to listen to her sad little mews from
the back seat, she was obviously stressed, and we hated doing that to her. As people, we could rationalize that is was
all for her sake, that it will be better, that we rescued her from a likely
death as winter approached and food wasn’t readily available. It’s really hard to explain all that to a
cat.
Nevertheless we went to the vet and had her checked
out. She seemed fine, if only a little
thin and weighing just 7 lbs. The blood
results that came back the following week were fine as well. A relatively healthy cat. As the vet gave her the once over, I was
surprised to see that she immediately tried to crawl into Cheryl’s arms and curl
up. She didn’t freak out or squirm like
I had imagined. She wasn’t as fearful or
people as I had first thought, she was just a little timid and perhaps just wary
of strangers.
We brought her home in the cat carrier that Laura let us borrow (there was no way we’d get her into the trap for transport). We put the carrier in the room and left the door open, facing the food and facing a little nook Cheryl whipped up (just in case she need a private place to hide). We knew it’d be a while before she’d come out and interact and know that we weren’t there to hurt her… so she stayed in that carrier for the first day. Cheryl was the first the reach her hand in to pet the cat… and the Little Ninja seemed perfectly happy with a rubdown from a disembodied hand. Eventually, she came out of the cage to eat.
And praise the heavens above, she was even
litter trained!!
Cheryl was actually quite a bit ill the following
two days and stayed home from work.
I’m sure this was a blessing to both Cheryl
and the kitty. It provided some much
need bonding time and a chance for the kitty to explore her new home, to be
comfortable at home, and to not feel alone.
The kitty spent a lot of it curled up with Cheryl on the bed, easily the
first time the kitty was warm in over a month.
She seemed quite happy to have a new home.
At first we were going to call for Violet…
personally I like the name and liked the reference to the Series of Unfortunate
Events (which is what led this little kitty to end up in our home). Violet didn’t seem right though. It’s kinda hard to call out and it just
didn’t flow.
After some time, we settled on Charlie. Maybe as a shortened version of
Charlotte. We could even call her Chuck
if we so pleased (like Anna Friel in Pushing Daisies). I’ve always been a fan of boys names for
girls, like Charlie, Sidney, Frankie, or even Fred (a la Winifred). So it was decided, this little cat named
Charlie would become a newly adopted member of our family.
If you are ever wanting to help your own cat
settle down and become more at ease when at home, I wholly recommend Feliway (see photo
below). It comes in both a spray and a
plug-in diffuser, as over-precaution we got both. I’m pretty sure this is what helped Charlie
easily transition into becoming an indoor cat in a stranger’s home. It synthetically mimics the ‘scent’ or
pheromone that cats release when they rub their faces on things. It calms the kitty into believing that ‘this
is home’ and ‘this is safe’. Essentially
it’s an airborne anti-anxiety medication.
Effects are noticeably with hours, but sometimes may take a week. After 3 months of the plug-in, your kitty
should be right as rain. If you are
having issues with spraying or peeing on things or anxiety, this stuff seems to
really work. There, that’s it for the
commercial ad (fyi, I wasn't paid to say this or anything... I just think this
stuff is a godsend for our situation).
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