The Five Cats

Well, I'm still at it. The Sprite Oldies are still trapping. They keep calling me to say an orange cat is in the trap. I say, "Does it have an eartip?" "No," they say. I go over. And it's the same darn cat again. I show them the eartip and they say, seeming very interested, "Oh, ok, so that's it." Then I turn the cat loose. But then it happens again. They're such a cute old couple!

The old man said tonight (just got back from turning the orange cat loose), "Hell of a way to spend your birthday." I replied "Ehhhh."

So the Peterson Road four were two in heat females, one normal spay female and one male.

The black and white fixed today from the Sprite Oldies was an in heat female, the first female trapped there. Finally. A female in all those males.

I haven't been back to the trailer park colony yet, to catch those last two there. Been too tied up.

I had to bring one of the in heat females into my bathroom and turn on an infant vaporizer. She was rattling badly and having a tough time coming out of anesthesia, being the last one done and done late too, since the vet clinic has been fabulously busy. I told them again I was available for hire, if they needed extra help. I always remind them of that.

Their business seems to be booming in the bad economy, probably due to their very reasonable rates.

The Peterson Four colony caretaker held off for several weeks on getting them fixed while lacing their food with antibiotics. She thought they were long over their URI's, but not this one, now in my bathroom and not the other adult female either. Only the two kittens seem free of it.

I don't know what I"m going to do about the Adair cat. Boy, that's an issue. If it's the cat who was relocated and he's booked it back to his former territory, he'll be a hard one to catch. And it will probably mean that his brother is dead, because they would have returned together. That would be so darn sad, but a direct result of not containing them in relocation.

But it is possible it is their mother, who allegedly also was a long hair black. Seems unlikely since none of the feeders had seen her in six months time. The two other kittens, who would now be 8 or 10 months old, like the two boys, have not been seen in months either. One was supposed to be another short hair black and a short hair gray. So the only one it could be, if not the male who was relocated, would be the mom cat, due to the long hair.

The thing is, the other feeder woman, told the woman I know who had fed them, that the cat recognized her car and just came running, meowing, after her car.

That would make it seem like this is a very very hungry cat and make it very likely it is indeed the boy, who was relocated, since he knew her very well and has known her recently enough to recognize even her car and associate it with food. The mom, who disappeared so many months ago, would not behave that way.

I'm going to guess it's the relocated boy who has come home, unless they don't really have an accurate memory of the hair length of the third black kitten. They had not known, for instance, that the short hair male kitten had survived until I trapped him. It could be the third kitten, now desperate for food, since they haven't fed there in three weeks.

If it is, however, the relocated boy, now back "home", it's sad, because he doesn't have a place anymore where he's welcome. The county will kill him eventually if he is fed there.