The 86 year olds are showing their age. It's turned into a drive in the fog, trying to trap there. The couple has run out of gas and can't even tell the cats they feed anymore.
We'ver retrapped one hungry fearless brown tabby tux three times, since he was neutered last Friday. We've trapped one of the orange boys twice more, and an already fixed black and white male three times now. Each time, they think it's a different cat.
She barely can see, and doesn't hear well. He can see, but doesn't hear well, and has Alzheimers. But they're trying.
Initially, they wanted me to catch about six cats--a calico mom, who has had many litters, and her latest five kittens, now adults. Those kittens are: an orange tabby, two black tuxes, a white and black, and a gray tux. I've caught the orange tabby, plus two more orange tabbies, and the white and black, an in heat female, plus two other black and whites, one of them the already fixed male, whom we've retrapped three times.
The other night, they called me over for a "big growling cat howling in the trap". It was a tame neutered tabby on white, who, once released, sauntered across the street to the neighbors house.
Tonight, the old woman called to say "We got the gray one!" I went over and it was a big black tux in the trap. She was standing way back from the trap, saying, "He growled at me!"
I said, "So is this one of your two black tuxes, then?" First she thought it was, then she thought it wasn't, then she just shrugged frustrated and said "Hell if I know."
She can't see. The old man, deep in exhaustion and Alzheimers fog, had poured a bunch of dry cat food right at the opening of the one trap left set. It was so much dry food that if the trap would have ever sprung, it could not have closed due to all that cat food there. I scooped it all out, moved the trap, since a leaking gutter was pouring water onto it, and the towel was soaked, and wrapped it in an old tarp.
The old woman will say she hasn't seen them all day, while one cat sits in the yard ten feet behind her.
I brought the black tux home in the trap. I have no idea if it is one of theirs or some neighbors cat or another stray or just who the cat is. I have never seen the two black tuxes she feeds. They'd be almost a year old now. This cat looks adult to me. I don't know.
They sure keep trying to catch the other four, or maybe just three now. And we've gotten six fixed already, so that's not nothing. We'll just plugging away.
That area is hard to trap. There are lots of free roaming cats, some owned, some not owned, and lots of places they can eat. Does no good on this street for the caretaker to withhold food to make trapping easier because they just go eat at the next porch. I think we've done ok, given the very difficult circumstances, to catch seven now, besides recatching a whole lot of the others, now fixed.
I told her to go ahead and feed the cats dry food, because otherwise, the fixed males are hungry and right back in the traps. On it goes.......
Who is this latest cat caught, the black tux in photos above? Is it one of their two black tuxes, we're after, or some other cat? I don't know.
She swears the two she feeds have no white on their chests. I don't necessarily believe her, only because she has macular degeneration and might not see that white chest from her vantage standing up, which is the only way she sees them, her standing, when the cats come in to an enclosed area, to eat, when she puts out food in the morning. She would see the white on the face and the white feet, but not necessarily a white chest. So I'm hoping this might be one of the two.
They just called me again. They said it was another white and black they caught and not fixed. I went over, grudgingly, because I have not had a decent nights sleep since this all began. I figured it would be the male who keeps retrapping, who is black and white. Or the female I just released last night over there, after she was fixed.
Nope. They were right. It is a MASSIVE black and white male, like a monster, like bigger than a bobcat. Oh boy, now what, since I have no appointments again locally until the week after next.
I am returning Crusty to the trailer park. I have no home prospects for him and the trailer park people say they'll feed him. It's too bad, but I have too many here. I'll have the latest Adair catch here until this weekend, too. And I still have the four from the homeless camp. Too many. Outside of that one homeless camp tame female, I haven't found any cats homes for months. Oh, except for finding a home for 12 for KATA. That counts. For those cats, at least. Doesn't help me one bit.
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