[-V-]

You may have noticed me posting less the past two months. I had a side project that was taking up a lot of my spare time.

It began when I was doing some rare maintenance on my front yard shrubs and I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye. It turned out to be a 1 day old kitten with its umbilical cord stuck between two branches. Two others were dead. Two others were clinging to their mom, the neighborhood bird catching feral cat, hissing at me a few feet away.

Using a large cardboard box, I built a cat condo in a safer location in my back yard and moved the kittens there. I worried that their mother would not hear them and climb the 6 foot wall in time to feed them again. Within 2 hours she had moved them back to the front yard. I was relieved when, the following day, she changed her mind and checked her new family into the condo. But the day after that they were nowhere to be found.

Knowing the problems ahead if the kittens were left to grow up in the wild without human interaction (see the TNR post below), I set out to recover them in what turned out to be a quest no easier than "Finding Nemo". On and off for the next few days I was hot on her tail until I finally found "the precious" on the side of a neighbor's shed. I took the two kittens home and wondered what happened to the 3rd.

I already have 2 cats so the plan was to trap the mother and have her raise the kittens in my spare room until they could be put up for adoption. She eluded the cat trap 5 times, so I built my own trap out of a dog kennel and string. Ironically, the night I was to spring the trap, I found out from a neighbor that she had been seen carrying the 3rd kitten. I could not take her away from the last one. I was doomed to be Mr. Mom.

Bottle feedings every 3 hours (night and day, you parents know the drill) and inducing them to do #1 and #2 by rubbing their bottoms. To make matters worse I contracted an infection from letting them suck on my fingers. It required antibiotics and has still not fully healed.

Eventually, they learned to use the kitty litter and eat solid food and I took them to the park where about 100 people were participating in a girl's softball league. All the kids wanted to hold them. Two convinced their parents to let them keep them.

When I handed off the kittens that night, I knew they still needed and wanted me but were better off with their new families. What I didn't realize until the moment they were out of my hands, was that I needed and wanted them too.

I posted this for two reasons. To help spread the word about TNR programs and because I'm still suffering from separation anxiety.

(Nemo & Holly a few hours before I gave them away)

[-V-]

Q: What is a TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return) program?

Trap: Cats are humanely trapped using food as bait.

Neuter: The cats are taken to a veterinarian where they are spayed or neutered. Their left ear is tipped so people will recognize that the cat has been sterilized.

Return: The cats are returned to their original environment.


Q: What Are the allternatives to TNR for dealing with stray cats?

Do Nothing: Eventually the problem will reach unmanageable levels and cause untold suffering. One unaltered female cat and her offspring can produce 420,000 cats in just seven years.

Trap & Kill: Aside from being inhumane, this approach is not a solution. More cats will simply move in to fill the void and start the cycle over again. This method is also more expensive than trap, neuter, return.

Catch & Tame: With the exception of young kittens, this approach is not realistic. Wild adults cannot be socialized to humans to the point where they are able to find homes as pets.

Relocation: There is no other place for them to go and studies show that if you remove cats from their original location, others merely move in to take their place. This is known as the vacuum effect.

In Arizona, http://azcats.org
Check the net for TNR organizations in your community.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

That is so sweet of you, -V-, you made my cry. My aunt and Art Bell both caught ferral cats, kept them and over not too much time made them a tame part of their families. The one my aunt took in was a real fighter with part of one of his ears missing and scars many places on his body. He was skin and bones and very weak when my aunt began feeding him outside on the porch at first. Eventually that cat ventured inside her house, but was very wary. Now he's an about 7 year old, well fed lap cat, recently neutered. The last cat Art caught he named Comet after that name won the radio listener contest he held for naming his new, then ferral, cat. Comet became his favorite cat of six he had. Don't be afraid to take in a ferral cat. They just need some time, space, respect, food, security and love. With those things ferral cats do come around to be great pets once you've been adopted by them and show you know who of you is the boss; the cat of course.

[haus]

At risk of politicizing a non-political topic, can you imagine how a Regressive would have handled this problem?

Step 1: Construct 700 mile fence around house.
Step 2: Try to shoot kitties but end up shooting friend in face.
Step 3: Amend Constitution so that kitties can't marry.
Step 4: Declare kitties links to Al Quaeda and torture them.
Step 5: Give $19B/month to Haliburton on no-bid cat trap contract.
Step 6: Have Ann Coulter write a book on how kitties destroy the fabric of Western Civilization.
Step 7: Wiretap every person in the world, due to the fact that they might be calling kitties.
Step 8: Have Texaco work on a renewable energy solution with secret ingredient --Soylent kitty.

[-V-]

Jen, it is inspiring to hear your success stories regarding feral cats. I suspect the ones that are more easily caught and tamed may have had some earlier contact with people. I will be (attempting) to catch mom this week. Given the disposition of her and my cats, however, the "fur would surely fly" if I attempted a rehabilitation.

Haus, that is a funny stuff. There is a root of truth to your humor, however. Regressives are often terrific lovers and caretakers of their own cats and dogs but insensitive and inconsiderate of others, e.g. strays, farm animals, etc.., i.e. hooray for my family, my religion, my country, my cat, and I'll poison or bomb your's if they become an inconvenience.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

-V-, I am providing you the following google link that has some interesting and important things to be aware of about taming and bringing into your home feral cats. An important one of those links is being aware that feral cats may have diseases, and most likely have fleas and maybe ticks and possibly worms. That means an eventual trip to the veterinarian for shots in a humane trap carrier without handling them before bringing any feral cat into your home where they could infect the other healthy cats you have. It'll all work out in the end. You just have to handle them and their situation in the right ways. The veterinarian will know what to do if you just call first to discuss the fact you have feral cats and bring the cats to the vet. in a humane trap carrier. If need be, the vet. can put the kitties to sleep first, then, clean them up, give them their shots and even neuter them. You should talk all that over with the vet. ahead of time so you're both ready once you have the cats.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=taming+ferral+cat&btnG=Google+Search

[zaphod80]

I ran a cat rescue, and I'd just like to emphasize that quarantining feral or outside cats is extreemly important if you have your own indoor house cats. Feline AIDS, leukemia, and infectious peritonitis are rampant in many cat populations. They are usually lethal and highly communicable. Also, a true "feral" cat would be very difficult have in your home, as they are basically wild animals. I've dealt with some of them, and you can't get near them. Outside "ownerless" cats that are acclimated to humans can also have a lot of behavioral difficulties. I live in CA and I heard that the state TNR program funding unfortunatly wasn't reapproved.

[-V-]

thanks for the tips.

Finally, after numerous cat and mouse episodes (with her playing the mouse) the wily little mother is under my custody tonight with an appointment to go under the knife in the morning.

I was concerned that she had read my mind and would make me miss that appointment 2 nights ago when she failed to make the food I left for her disappear for the first time in 3 months. But she showed up this evening and I pulled a string manually when she entered the trap instead of relying on the triggering mechanism.

As per the TNR program, the she beast will be released back into my neighborhood the day after and I will continue to feed her, as long as she isn't too pissed/hissed at me to come around my house. You know how "catty" females can be.

[-V-]

Upon picking up Miss Wily from her successful spaying today I found out there would be one final twist to this story. The Vet said she probably had another litter of kittens within the past couple of days (hence, her missed feeding the other night). Sadly, as of that moment she had been in my custody for over 20 hours and those new kittens would have already expired by dehydration under one of my neighbor's bushes.

I don't want to discourage anyone from getting involved with feral cats. It has been frustrating and sad to be a witness to their plight at times but that is no comparison to the amount of dispair and suffering we are not witness to when we don't get involved. We brought cats into our urban world where they didn't belong and we now need to share responsibility for every one of them.

The city streets are an unnatural environment manipulated by man rather than moderated by the laws of nature. The weak felines aren't swiftly cleaned up by other predators and there isn't enough prey to meet their own needs. They are left to reproduce, scavange, and perish slowly by hunger or extreme temperatures under our neatly trimmed bushes or prematurely at the bottom of a wheel on one of our tar paved roads.

I know I can't change the world and I can't help every cat and kitten. But I can change my street for the better and help every cat and kitten on it. If we could apply that philosophy to every problem what a wonderful world this would be.

=========
On another pitiful sidenote, Miss Wily, despite being terrified, and my expectations of much howling, has not uttered a sound since her capture (even with every instinct in her body surely commanding that she return to her kittens). Her stoic behavior being in stark contrast to my own pampered, domesticated pets who are relentless in letting me know everytime they are displeased or wanting. I understand that this wild thing perceives no one, least of all me, as her friend, and feels that any sound eminating from her would never bring help, only danger from a world full of enemies. For tonight, at least, she is sheltered from the relentless Arizona heat by central air conditioning. But she suffers in silence. And she'll never know the stroke of a human hand on her mangy fur and no human ear will ever be graced with her intoxicating purr.

Tomorrow she will return to her urban jungle and the stillness in the bushes. :(

[-V-]

Miss Wily at the R stage of the TNR program.
Now go, be fruitful, but do not multiply...)

[-V-]

I sighed a breath of relief this afternoon as I cleaned up the spare room and threw out the remnants of my rescue odyssey.

but the early evening, held a new revelation:

it's not over...
they Live!

[-V-]

I followed her to what was supposed to be the "stillnes" in the bushes after 35 hours from mother's milk. But that "neighbor's bush" turned out to be my brother's -- two houses down, and what at first looked to be 2 small lifeless black bodies with white paws, were 2 breathing ones. Then I spotted another -- and another -- and another -- and another. Six healthy sleeping kitties born of feral cat lust. I scooped them up and, again, began to contemplate my options.

(3 hours later)
I called my brother who was in NY on a business trip. He told me not to ask his family to get involved with my cat crusades. I told him, "this time they were born in your backyard and your family wants me to get involved in their cat crusade" (his wife and 2 daughters were, as we spoke, crouched down in their livingroom with the lights out, holding on to a string passed through the window, tied to a dog kennel I rigged with 6 hungry kittens inside as bait).

I told them, above all, don't let momma make off with any kittens. She eventually showed up but bolted when she saw movement in the window. Having failed, I went over to pick up the kittens for the night. Sure enough, 2 were missing. Miss Wily strikes again!

I recovered one from the original nest. But, like the first time, 3 difficult months ago, one is still with her. This time, however, it is 5 in the hand, 1 in the bush. I can't handle the suragate motherhood gig again right now, especially with 5. I'm beat, and at this early stage in their lives, I am willing to concede that this batch is best destined for "Animal Control".

(the new batch)

[-V-]

A few phone calls to the local animal orgs but no help can be had at this high volume time of year. The women at the animal shelter said that they won't even allow people to adopt out black cats in October (when they would be grown) because of the potential for Halloween related abuse.

The front desk at Animal Control said that there was a slight possibility they could raise the kittens to adoption age, probably with the aid of a mother cat on hand. When I walked them around to the processing room in the back (the phone rang interrupting this sentence).

(10 minutes later)
-----------------
I am pecking out this sentece with my right hand because there is an object I am clinging to in the palm of my left hand (see next post). When I free both hands and I will continue with what I wanted to say in this post.
------------------

(continued)
they said there was a zero possibility and they would be put down immediately. I walked away. I walked away empty handed and teary eyed, like the big burly man before me who had, moments before, been holding on tightly to the lid of a 500 sheet printing paper box, barely containing a struggling cat he had found. "She's a friendly cat", he told me". Then he said "I'm sorry" to the box as he took his turn at the drop off counter.

I accepted, that although I should try to help every cat and kitten on my street, I can't save all of them. As Hillary said, "it takes a village".

In the last 3 months I invested about $100 in kitten formula and supplies. $100 in treating a painful finger infection I got from them, $45 in spaying the mother, at least 150 hours of time and effort, and what I got was a couple of new, permanent scars (only one of which is on my finger).

I mention the above, NOT as an example of what happens when you "get involved", but as a example of what happens when you "don't get involved". That is the most important point of this thread.

If I had Trapped, Neutered, and Released Miss Wily when I first realized she was feral there would have been no stressful story to document.

This never was "A Tale of TWO Kittes" as I naively started it out to be. It is a tale of 15 kitties in 3 months: father + mother + 6 babies + 2nd father + 6 babies. And the mathematical possibility of it being "A Tale of 420,000 Kitties" in just seven years!

I wondered if, in the months ahead, I would see the one kitten that got away when she grows up. But then there was that phone ring, calling my attention to the strangest twist of all . . .

[-V-]

Let me sidetrack for a moment, to introduce another character in this tale. Meet my brother's cat, Gigi, pictured below.

She is as close to royalty as a feline can be. She gets her long Persian hair tended to by professionals and she enjoys a variety of the finest treats that she insists must be fed to her individualy by hand. So secure is this princess on her pedestal, that she often languishes about the house sleeping in the middle of the room surrounded by the noise and clumsy feet of a dozen day care kids every week day.

(Princess Gigi, lounging next to a daycare toy)

[-V-]

Gigi has a secret friend. In the wee hours of the night, she is visited by the the black & white mixed breed commoner from the other side of the sliding glass pane door. They sit facing each other, inches apart. How many days and nights over the past 3 years has this outcast of society peered into the glow of the family living room watching these curious humans nurturing each other and smothering the pretty white princess with love and affection?

What was she thinking when, very uncharacteristically, in broad daylight, under the hot Arizona summer sun, she deposited her last baby on the front doorstep of the house in the middle of my sister-in-law's busy daycare day? Why relinquish control of one of the "precious" that she had, on so many occasions, struggled mightily to keep me from getting to?

Was she having trouble producing milk now that she was fixed? Was it painful for her to have her baby suckle in the vacinity of her operation? Or did a trace of domestication passed on to her through thousands of years of human interaction along with her glimpses of the world she saw through the looking glass, convince her to surrender her last and only kitten in the hopes her child might have a chance at the priviledged life she would never know?

I can only speculate (and perhaps exaggerate). But when I received the call, only minutes after returning from the pound, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. Mother watched from 20 feet away as I scooped up her offering on behalf of my sister-in-law who was busy assuring her anxious children that I would take good care of this one. As I walked away I made a mental commitment to Miss Wiley then and there that I would never hand this one over to Animal Control or some stranger in the park.

[-V-]

(baby Moses, the chosen one, in the palm of my hands
moments after being sent down the river in a basket)

[Lionhearted]

tin, you are no doubt a good person and a kind soul. as i have stated before (i have touched on this topic before) i personally love cats (lost one last month after 15 years of companionship) and if i had the wherewithall i would take in every stray i could find. however i simply cannot and refuse to condone any program that re-releases these animals back into the wild. studies indicate that free roaming cats may kill over a billion small mammals and hundreds of millions of birds each year and many of these creature's populations are already stressed by habitat destruction and the common use of pesticides. worldwide it is thought that cats may be involved in more bird species extinctions than any cause other than habitat destruction. they are usually found in higher concentrations than native predators and therefore are taking food off these creature's table as well. it is know that domestic cats have spread feline leukemia to mountain lions and may have also infected the endangered Florida Panther (a mountain lion subspecies) with feline distemper and feline AIDS. then there is the matter of diseases they can transmit to humans like rabies or toxoplasmosis. i must disagree tin, euthanasia is the only recourse. i love cats, and lord knows we humans are a terribly destructive species even when we don't intend to be, but in a situation where i must choose between wild, native animals or domestic or invasive species, i will always do whatever is necessary to preserve the native species.

[-V-]

I agree with you about all the problems Lion. Trap, Neuter, and Return is the solution to those problems. Euthanasia doesn't work because you can't catch and destroy them all and it ony takes 2 to set forth a cycle that could produce 420,000 in 7 years!

My feral cat had 12 in 3 months. Those 12 would have moved on to other neighborhoods and filled in the vacant gaps left by any cats that had been "displaced" by natural or induced death.

As is now, my fixed feral cat will protect my territory from new females, the males will move on, and my neighborhood will produce 0 new invasive, predatory cats.

Here's an example of the other approach. My brother-in-law trapped half a dozen cats in his neighborhood and moved them to other neighborhoods because they crapped in his sandbox. Today he is still scooping cat turds out of his sandbox.

TNR is a progressive, out-of-the-box approach that statistically works.

The alternative is similar to Bush's "Kill them all" strategy on terrorism. But the more you kill the more you produce. Terrorism can only be neutered (nutralized) at the source by dealing with the social conditions that produce poverty, ignorance, and desperation.

[zaphod80]

After running a cat rescue for a year and a half, I realized that your really just spittin' in the wind with the cat over-population problem. We primarily dealt with unwanted house cats, but we had a few groups of feral cats also. Until people begin to take responsibility for their pets, I think TNR programs are the best stopgap. Maybe euthanazia in huge disease ridden cat colonies, if no other solution is feasable. Good for you for taking care of those kitties, its very hard work. We had a feral mother with kittens in our house, and eventually decided to take them away from her(we didn't want the kittens to be feral). So we happened to find a cat that had just a few kittens, and let her raise them from then on. We did have a couple of litters though, were the mothers had died, that we had to raise by hand. We lost one litter to Feline Infectiuos Peritonitis, the other we adopted out all but one, who is still my companion today. Hang in there!

[-V-]

The Adventures of Catman, continued...

I pulled into my mother's parking lot tonight and a few feet away I spotted a Calico cat, about a year old, with a 6-8 week old kitten trailing behind. I sighed internally and externally. As of 4 months ago, the last time I saw kittens in the wild was 25 years ago. Now I keep bumping into them.

Despite already having a 3 week old kitten at home (with endless diarhea I might add) I made a grab for it but it slipped through my fingers and disappeared into the wheel well of a car. I wrote a note for the car owner. As I was about to place it on the window the couple pulled up in their second car and I told them about the kitten. The man asked, "if we catch it what are you going to do with it?" I said, "no, the question is what are you going to do with it?"

They opened the hood and, sure enough, sitting on top of the engine was the all-white kitten, now looking more like a siamese with shadings of grease all over her body. It offered no resistance as he scooped it up. As he cradled it in his chest and I knew the couple was on the hook. I thought "thank you lord" even though I'm agnostic. They said they'd find a home for it and they're going to borrow my cat trap so that the mother can be the next TNR success story.

I'm so happy the breeding season is coming to a close.

[-V-]

I'm happy to report that Luna (formerly known as Moses until I realized she lacked the testicles) is now 6 weeks old, off the bottle, diarhea free (after I discovered she was eating the kitty litter), litter trained, and a happy, healthy, frisky kitty ready for adoption.

GOT MILK? (her last nip at the bottle, last week)

[-V-]

As you might have guessed, I couldn't part with Moses/Luna/? who is 3 months old today and wild as the wind. In human years the "terrible 2's". The vet told me it was a boy after all so I am back to the name game.

This week I have settled on Pyewacket. According to the wikipedia, in 1644 in the UK, way before Bush endorsed similar techniques on suspected terrorists in Iraq, a suspected witch was sleep deprived for 4 days until she named names. In this case, she named her "familiars" (animal accomplices). One of the nonsensical names was Pyewacket, who was identified as an imp.

The wikipedia defines an imp is a mythological being similar to a fairy -- mischievous more than seriously threatening, lively and having small stature, and usually male. Imps are the least evil of all demons, described as dark, shadowy creatures that slink or skitter about. While mischievous and somewhat destructive; they do not go to the extremes of, for example, gremlins or poltergeists. The trickery ascribed to them is, generally, confined to missing, misplaced, or moved articles (socks, keys, etc.) and stubbed toes. Some accounts of imps treat them as capable of being turned to good, because they are so desperately lonely they would do almost anything — even commit good deeds — to have a committed friend; however, it is regarded as almost impossible for any imp to fully forsake its "impish" ways.

The last part of the description reminds me of some Republcan neighbors I've known. They are capable of doing good to preserve a friendship or allie but it is impossible for them to fully forsake their conservative "hooray for me and f*ck everyone else" ways.