Tough Old Gal's Hood

I returned the male this morning, to Tough Old Gal's driveway. She wasn't home. I stopped by another trailer where Nick had left a trap for the Second Stray Feeder to feed inside, until the day before the clinic. The trap was closed, cage cover pulled into it, paper lining trap shredded. What does this mean? There was a cat in there.

Why? She wasn't supposed to be setting it until Saturday night. And, she is the person who trapped kittens before and had them killed. I left Nick a message about this, and said the trap needs retrieved. I'll go get it myself, if he gives the word. I don't want to step on toes, but if she is trapping cats in an FCCO trap and having them destroyed, that is a violation, of FCCO policy and of Nick's trust. I don't know that she is doing that. She wasn't home, so I couldn't ask her why she set that trap.

I finally called the office of the nonprofit who owns that place. The nonprofit was actually set up by the current mayor of Albany, to increase affordable decent low income housing in Albany. I know the secretary there also, since a cat showed up there, young and pregnant, abandoned by tenants next to the office. I got her fixed and later SafeHaven took her in to adopt out. Then, the secretary was also having trouble with three big males at her place, abandoned by tenants at a crap house complex near where she lives. I trapped all three and got them fixed.

It is tiring to responsible people all over town, to have so many Albany residents treat animals so badly.

She is going to call the manager of the place and enlist the help of tenants to list all cats they see or feed in the complex, and also to let them know if any they know of are already fixed. Their pet policy is that tenants can only have a pet with a doctor's prescription stating the pet is needed for the tenants mental or physical well being. All pets must be kept inside and fixed.

She says there has been a cat problem there forever, mainly caused by the complex next door, where tenants often abandon pets when they move. She said any unidentified free roaming cat on their property is fair game to be trapped and fixed. I had wanted clarification. Now I have it.

UpDATE: It was actually Tough Old Gal who set Second Stray Feeder's trap. When she called back, returning my message, it took a long time to get this information out of her. First she wanted to tell me how outraged she was that the trap at Second Stray Feeder's place had caught Boots, the already fixed female and she'd been in there awhile.

When I found out it was actually Tough Old Gal who set the trap at Second Stray Feeder's in the first place, I told her, "Then it was your responsibility to watch the trap."

I told her the trap at Second Stray Feeders' was supposed to be tied open and the strays fed in it, then set on Saturday. So Tough Old Gal goes on and on about how she caught the gray one and she never would have caught the gray one if she'd done it that way, by tying it open first and that was a stupid way to do things.

There is no way to communicate with this head strong know-it-all. I could have told her, "Hey, the gray cat was caught because I set that trap and set it right." But I didn't. She said she questioned Second Stray Feeder about "What are you going to do with a cat if you catch it," and she didn't know, gloated Tough Old Gal.

I said, "The clinic is not until Sunday. Why then did you set the trap? Are you going to hold any cat caught until the clinic?"

"Why no, duh!", Tough Old Gal was again treating me like a retard. "I'm going to call Nick and have him come get the cat."

I finally could not take it anymore. It's like swimming in mud to talk to her. Nothing you say registers in her brain. I gave up. I salute Nick. He's tried for over a year to deal with this situation until its driven him nearly nuts.

In such situations, my usual course of action, is to take away all traps from such folks, and tell them I'm having an operation (to give them about the only explanation they might accept for not immediately serving their needs). I then sneak back in the night and take care of trapping all the cats myself. I love dealing with only the cats in the night, under the stars or in a storm, doesn't matter. It's so much easier.