Stowaway. Cat in my Garage. And I know him.

I have a cat in my garage. I'd been hearing things, scrambling, when I'd go into the garage, but I was fairly sure it was the cats in the garage room. It's not. Tonight, it was loud when I went out. Then later, when I went out again, Mops was in the garage run looking down at the floor of the garage, where I again heard the scrambling. I thought, "It's going to be that possum, must have snuck in."

There's been a possum periodically going through the yard, from the neighbor man's open garage feeding station, for his own cats. There is a neighborhood stray rabbit too. I thought it could be him.

Tuesday night, when I had that female in a carrier in the garage, recuperating from surgery, I had a food dish atop the carrier, ready to give to her in the morning. In the morning, it was knocked off the top of the carrier and most of that food was gone.

I startled the cat tonight, after getting my flashlight, turning off the garage light and looking where Mops had been staring. It's a brown tabby tux and young. "I know that cat," I thought to myself.

He's the cat I actually released Monday, or thought I did, one of the three who turned out to be already fixed, from the Sunday NS clinic. I didn't take them back until Monday night. He must have crawled back into my car after I let them all go. I had the back hatch up after releasing them, then went up on their porch to retrieve another trap I'd left there for them to try to catch the fourth. During that short time, he got back into my car. And he's stayed in my garage despite it often being wide open. He likes me, I guess.

I immediately called those folks up, to see if they have seen him since Monday night. They've seen the other two, but not him. Bingo.

He has to be nearly starved to death. I don't have open food in my garage, but often my car is open inside the garage, for recuperating cats and often there is food in it. And the car brings in with it from the outside water, that pools on the floor. So he had something to drink.

He's getting hungry and thirsty and bored with garage life now, after four days, so that's why I have heard more scrambling around. I have a trap set now and water out and that was a shocker, to see a cat. I didn't figure it was a cat I was hearing. Man he must have hunkered in that car. When I returned after releasing those three Monday night, I opened up my car outside, unloaded the empty traps and cleaned them. He didn't budge apparently, and stayed in the car and then rode into the garage with me in it. Stowaway!

Well, the little buggers big adventure is about over. I'll catch him and return him to his friends and family members. But if he is without an eartip, and he hid too quickly tonight for me to get more than a split second glance at him, all bets on his origins are off. No eartip means it isn't the same cat. But he's a spotted tabby, Bengal looking, just like the Old Salem one is, so it's gotta be him.

Update: Well, I caught him. Sure enough, it's the Bengal boy. Fresh eartip. So, I feed him and take him back, let him out far away from my car. The caretakers are out watching and he dashes, but he goes towards my car. We can't believe he'd try to get in it again. Nonetheless, we spend an enormous amount of time checking under the car. The caretakers think he shot by it to the berry vines. That's where all four siblings come out of, to eat at night. They're pretty much tame, but shy about being tame, and since all were recently fixed, within the last four months, they've been abandoned. Somebody once loved them. Then dumped them.

The caretakers think all is ok for me to leave. I'm not convinced. I open my hood. There he is, laid out like he belongs, atop the engine, which has a nice thick plastic heat shield over it. There's lots of muddy footprints on it, too. He's been making the top of my engine his home. That's how he came home with me. And in the last four days, who knows how many trips he's accompanied me on. He isn't easy to get out of the engine compartment but we finally accomplish it. He's so sly about it, however, I'm not convinced he isn't back in my garage. If he is, he gets to stay. I think that's his whole motive.

It's sad when cats are dumped. They don't want to live in berry vines, scrambling for food, having to avoid the raccoons and big dogs and angry people and hormoned up big toms with huge issues, and they don't want to freeze nights either. Why would any cat want that for a life? Shame on you assholes who abandoned four lovely cats, not long after you got them fixed. You're dirtbags!

UPDATE: I knew those cats looked familiar. I know where they came from. I just went through my fixing records. I got those cats fixed actually. They came from the 11th street apartment and were all tame at one time. She had 14, but then the landlord made her get rid of all but two, so she took them to a friends' place, out near Crabtree and would switch them, bring two or three home for a week, then trade and bring others. She referred the Crabtree people with 8 cats to me, who then referred the neighbor with 8, who didn't feed them and I ended up with three of those. The first 8 cat people that she referred told me she had moved. I bet she lives near those people now, that feed them, or gave them to a friend who either abandoned them or just rarely notices them, that lives nearby. She loves her cats so she would never knowingly abandon them, but some her friends aren't so great.