Today I went in search of a missing trap. I came up shy a trap and paniced over it, unable to remember where it might be. I worry if a trap is missing. What if I left it set somewhere in a state of exhaustion and a cat is in it, is what I think.
I travelled from Corvallis to Monroe, even to Springfield, in search of that misplaced trap. All along, it was where I suspected it was, with someone who took in some of the DD cats. But I had been unable to contact her, and couldn't let it go in my mind. 'What if?' was all I could think.
I travelled to anywhere I had trapped between now and when I could last account for it, which was in a photo I had saved of one of the DD cats in a trap just after surgery. This is another reason I take photos of all the cats I take in to be fixed, to help me keep track of all sorts of things.
In Corvallis, at the Whitey2 colony, I picked up the next to the last cat from that colony needing fixed. The caretakers had put him into a carrier I had left for that purpose. In Springfield to make sure I had not left the trap there, where I'd trapped, I could not resist setting the one trap I had when I saw many of the targeted unfixed cats who looked ripe for the trapping. I trapped the black and white long hair. I could have caught more of those unfixed, I lamented, if only I had more than one trap along.
In Monroe, I urged Mr. sweet beer drinker camper man, to keep after that Siamese, which he vowed to do. He did not have my extra trap.
Back I came, only to then hear back from the woman who has had the trap for some time. What a relief.
In the meantime, I went over to HTN. The old man was in a tizzy and has been since Sunday when again two dogs tore onto his property and went after the cats. None were killed. These were different dogs than before. Soon, two boys followed the dogs into his yard and the old man erupted at them, yelling at them to get off his property and that if this were county, those would be dead dogs and if they came back onto his property, they'd be dead dogs anyhow.
I guess the kids were swearing up a storm at him, he said, so he lit into them back with the same. Then here came one or both mothers of the boys and started swearing at him too and threatening to call the cops on him for swearing at the boys. He said he told her to go ahead and do it, right then and there, that this needs dealt with once and for all, but the cops never came and he couldn't sleep at all that night.
I realize now how much he was affected by the dog who killed so many of his cats, how he now feels very vulnerable and angry, rightfully. I believe those two women are two of people whose tame cats I got fixed last weekend. but I couldn't really tell from his description. If it was them, they know dogs killed some of the old man's cats, because I told them. They should have had some understanding.
I believe they were their dogs, although I don't know that for sure either, one from each household, who ran loose last Sunday, tore through many yards in the area. They should know better, those owners, but it might have been, as I told the old man, just a one time accidental thing, that the dogs got out and ran into all these folks yards. They weren't the same dogs that killed his cats before.
I just wish they could all have some understanding out there, one to another, the old to the young and the young to the old and for this old man's loss and fear, for gosh sakes.
So I tried to calm him down and asked what I could do to make the situation better and I think it helped him just to be able to tell someone what happened.
He never knew the neighborhood would be so rough, when he bought that property cheaply years ago. But there are a lot of properties out there that are basically junk yards. I don't know how people let things go to the point where they're almost living in a junkyard or trash heap. I don't know why people get big dogs when they don't have fenced yards or time for them. There are so many dogs out there, it sounds like a dog pound with all the barking at night.
The old man keeps up his property spotlessly. His neighbors don't. This likely bugs him. One neighbor is a scam artist always trying to work something out of nothing for free, or demand things from him and other neighbors for free. There are abandoned houses out there. There are houses chronically under construction. Then, oddly enough, there are a few very well kept places mixed in.
Amidst all this human drama, the animals of those streets suffer intensely. That is where I came into the fray. And I"m always just hoping people will work together, drop their differences and get along. They all have so much more in common than not, I think to myself, really not knowing because I don't live out there. I don't like the constant conflict. I don't like the neighbor against neighbor dispute with the Whitey2 colony. I don't like this one either. I just don't. It destroys my hopes, that everybody could get along, work together, be nice to one another, respect one another's differences.
I think people turn on one another when their own lives are stressed to the max. I don't know for sure, but that's what I think. But turning on one another causes more stress, and you lose chances at getting what you need, like human understanding, compassion and neighbor to neighbor comraderie.
Those two dogs shouldn't have been running loose into other people's yard after their cats. That's a given. Those two boys shouldn't have come onto someone else's property either. But yelling at kids gets nobody anywhere. And the parents then coming down and yelling at an old man makes things even worse.
But in reality, none of these were big deal events. Nothing got damaged at all, no more cats were killed, no property damage from the dogs or the kids and the kids being yelled at for being on someone's private property, they deserved it. So I say---no big deal. Everybody apologize, shake hands, and vow to work together instead of plotting against one another. That's my opinion, anyhow.
Anyhow, I trapped the old women's final cat today, too, the female. I already trapped two they fed, both males, a gray taby on white and a gray and white. Then I had trapped the owned cats, from across the street, then got them fixed last Saturday. Now the female, a black and white long hair, is caught too.
And the other cats going up tomorrow: the two Whitey2 neighbor cats, both bobtails. They caught them!
And the DD colony black and white long hair female, pregnant now. Only two left to catch there.
Six cats going up to be fixed. One DD female. Three whitey2 kitties. One HTN female. One Springfield male.
DD Corvallis colony black and white long hair young female.
Springfield black and white, likely a male.
HTN old women's black/white long hair female.
Whitey2 neighbors brown tab bobtail to be fixed tomorrow.
Whitey2 neighbors gray tab tux bobtail manx female.
White male from Whitey2 proper, cat number 12 to be fixed from that colony and the tenth white cat from that colony to go in for fixing.
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