My posts are kind of random, as I try to catch up on the happenings of the last few months...Yesterdays' post was mostly about making bread and cold weather...Today a new subject--"Cats."
In November when Bobi was here for "Thanksmas," she made her usual dressing/stuffing, a delicious concoction of artisan bread, artichokes, onions, celery, parmesan cheese, sage, turkey and broth. Two large pans of it, were covered and put outside on a high shelf (my winter fridge) for the night...During the night something helped themselves to a good portion of one pan...Rusty determined from tracks in the snow that it was a cat...That made sense because just a few days before, I had seen two strange cats/kittens in our backyard...Since our backyard is bordered by farmland, we have always had feral cats, that keep the rodent population under control...These cats were new and young!
We assume that the young cats had been abandoned, (dumped) somewhere near our place on Barton Heights...They took shelter in a neighboring barn and were surviving...Something had to be done or in a short time we would probably have a couple of batches of kittens in our neighborhood...I sent out emails to neighbors on the chance that they belonged to someone, before contacting the humane society, about their "spay and neuter" program...We got vouchers from them to pay for part of the cost of having the cats "fixed."
Our plan was put into action...We continued feeding the cats, each night, the rest of the one pan of dressing and then, tasty concoctions of dry cat food and leftovers from our fridge, for about two months...We occasionally saw them in our backyard, during the day, but they were very wild...How do you catch two wild/feral cats to get them to the vets office?..I made an appointment with the vet, Rusty set out two live traps, baited with tuna fish and the next morning he transported two very frightened cats to the vets office...And yes they are both females.
Two neutered cats spent the next week in my living room, in a large wire cage (thanks to Debbie), where Rusty and I fed them, talked to them, until the wild look, finally left their eyes and Rusty could actually, very carefully touch, pet and scratch them, just a little bit...
I had no intention of having house cats, so at the appropriate time they were put back outside, where they have a bed and are fed daily, still sleeping part time in the neighboring barn, but as the weather improves, they will learn to fend for themselves, with occasional food from us, we hope!...Hugs to All...OWAV:)
Not so scared.
No comments:
Post a Comment