Every morning, I left the food outside our door in hopes of attracting the poor abandoned kitty, the Little Ninja. Luckily it did seem as though she was hungry enough to leave her comfort zone and venture into our territory for breakfast and dinner. I would watch her eat in the morning as I sat in the kitchen with the lights off, sipping my coffee and finishing my cereal. She would come now within about 5 minutes after I placed the food out and called to her. We felt better knowing that she was finally eating properly… but it seemed that she wasn’t the only one who was getting a good meal.
After the first couple days, we noticed a second
cat getting its fill. A white and creamy
looking cat, with some adorable, almost seal point light orange colouring. Cute bugger.
Unlike the scared black kitty from next door, this big guy was possibly
the friendliest creature to sneak into our backyard. As soon as it saw me, when I caught it eating out
our food dish, it came right up to me, jumped up to nudge its head on my knee,
and circled around my feet. Obviously
friendly. Obviously domesticated. Obviously previously owned. Likely homeless
too.
It came back every day afterwards. It would come to our door in the evening,
whimper out a ‘mew’ and sit and wait for me to come out with more food… or just
to give it some company. I would sit
outside with it. Rub its cute little
ears. Play with it a bit. And it was so vocal. Mewing and mewing all the time. We let it into the house a couple times, just
to see what it would do. It would sneak
around, smell stuff, and at one point just sat on the couch to clean
itself. It was almost too friendly and too vocal. Cheryl understood that some pregnant cats get
super friendly, and noisy, and super hungry … but is this what was
happening? Were we feeding a pregnant
cat too?
The question was now… do we save 2 cats. Still unsure if we can even trap the black
kitty, we knew that this white cat would jump at the chance for a new home. Cheryl and I threw the thought around of
trying to raise two cats… especially trying to keep them indoors since the other 2 cats that lived upstairs had
full right the territory outside our door.
I was actually kinda excited about having 2 cats, one black and one
white. It lent itself well to matching
names like “Amos & Andy” or “Checkers & Chess”, but all that was running
in my mind was the song “Ebony and Ivory”…. and I’m pretty sure we would be hard
pressed to make them “live in perfect harmony”.
We didn’t know what to do really, with 2 cats. Should we get them both? Do you capture both but send one to
SPCA? Do we rescue one and leave the
other to fend for herself? If so, which
one? The needy or the possibly
pregnant?
In the end, we decide that the black one needed our
help the most, but it also needed a quiet stress-free life indoors… which meant
no other competition, no other cat. We
would rescue Little Ninja and take the cream one to the SPCA. She was friendly enough to quickly be
adopted. She could easily fall in love
with anybody just willing to pet her.
The black one, on the other hand, would be a challenge… and we were already willing to accept that
challenge. Any possible, unsuspecting,
future owner may not be as willing or as ready to deal with it. So the decision was made. Trap them both… one to keep, one to give to a
new home.
Something was nagging me in the back of my mind,
though. This cream cat that we had been
feeding was just too friendly. Was it
really an abandoned cat at all? Or was
it just a lucky sneaky bugger looking for a free meal away from her real
home? There was only one way to tell…
try to find her owner. A couple options
for contact seemed possible. We could
post on Craigslist, something like a “cat found” ad… but that would depend on if
the cat was really lost and if the owner somehow managed to specifically look
for her on Craigslist. We could also put
up some “cat found” posters… but I had a lot of trouble getting a good picture
(always blurry, and too dark). And was
getting discouraged with having a suitable poster,
A light bulb came on when we realized the best
chance of finding this girl’s owner… if there was any. The only connection between us and the cat’s
owner would simply be the cat. We had to
send a massage with the cat… like a carrier pigeon. I went out and bought a collar (since it
didn’t wear one already). Cheryl wrote a
nice note on small piece of paper. A
simple note to the effect of “We have been feeding your cat; are you the owner;
we are about to adopt it; call us at … “.
That evening when the big white cat came by again, I went outside to play
with it, collar (with note attached) in hand.
It took a couple of tries, since she got a bit squirmy, but the message
was placed and I let her go home. It was
just a waiting game now.
20 minutes later we get the call. Seems this white cat did in fact have an
owner. Cheryl had the pleasure of taking
the call and was able to explain our situation.
What we thought was a pregnant cat, was actually a male named Wex. Wex had been a rescue already, back in
Seattle. The owners were a couple who
had recently moved to town. It seems his
current owners welcomed him into their house after his life as an alley
cat. He was never one to stay indoors,
but he was good at finding his way around the neighbourhood. I guess his skills in the alley helped him
find the batch of free food we happened to leave out for him every
day.
With that little mystery solved. We opted to take better control of the food,
in an effort to ween him off of our friendly meal. We also had to redouble and focus our efforts
in trying to trap the Little Ninja and bring her into our home.
To be continued…
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