Old Friends

I've had a lot of cats come through my yard since I moved here.  I've faithfully gotten them fixed.  Forty some in all.  I rehomed a good share of those cats and even a stray rabbit two neighbors hated and wanted dead or gone.

The Dead Neighbor's cat, Sunny, watches the stray rabbit, whom he really liked, along with another stray cat, off behind the rabbit.  The old man loved the rabbit, and his cats did also.  They all played together.  But two neighbors, with gardens, complained and complained and wanted the rabbit dead.  So I trapped the rabbit and she went to the Corvallis Rabbit Whisperer.

Lately some of those cats, big boys mostly, who get thrown out at a higher rate than the girls, when people don't fix them and they start acting like big boys, fighting and marking, have returned.  Old friends, who look up at me watching them through the window, then return to eating.

Last night one of the five brown tabby boys I've gotten fixed since moving here, was back again.

Roger Roger is the brown tabby who visited again last night.  I got him fixed a couple years ago.

 Then, along came Mr. BW (black and white) fixed back in July of 2011.  Hadn't seen him in awhile and it was too dark to get another photo, but here is what he looked like back when I got him fixed:

He's huge and beautiful and sleek now.

This spring and summer alone I took in five more to be fixed.

There was Jake, the tame brown tabby boy, who stuck around a few weeks after his neuter, but then, as I tried to find him a home, he vanished.  Now I see him now and then, in front of a house nearly 3/4 mile away.

This old Lynx Point feral came through this spring.  I trapped him and got him fixed.  I've seen him only a few times since.  Spring is when they come through, roaming, looking for girls!   If they stop through here, they are severely disappointed, (nothing unfixed allowed here) and end up in an "altered state".

Goliath came through, a shaggy huge gray and white male, this spring.  I'd already tried to get some cats fixed a few blocks away, a cat house with irresponsible people in and out and unfixed cats. I'd asked about who was impregnating the cats and they described a big long hair gray and white male.  Well, a month later, guess who showed up here?  And guess who got neutered as a result?  Later, I'd see him trotting along the bike path along a nearby street and knew he was headed to my place hoping for wet food.  So I'd beat him back and have it out and ready.  Who doesn't have a soft spot for a big old tough guy who has never had it easy who just wants some wet food?

Next it was Blackhawk, this spring, coming through, and fighting and even going into the Old Man's house, which spooked him out, because he'd yowl and go after his cats.  So he got neutered.  I know where he lives but you come through here, unfixed, cause issues, you leave fixed.  Too bad.

Last but not least, and rounding out the five cats helped this year alone from this block, is little Ben Zen, the kitten living in my neighbors sewer vent pipe.  Where did he come from?  Nobody knows.  But KATA took him in after I caught him in my neighbors garage.

This is not the best area where I live.  Druggees and crime abound.  This week a neighbors house was broken into while they were inside.  The three thieves, visible on another neighbors security cam, unloaded stuff from his garage for two entire hours in the night.  One thief stood outside a neighbors sons bedroom to receive stuff being handed over a fence.  The robbed neighbor is devastated and it makes everybody else madder than hell.

How sad is it to think he worked long hours for the thousands of dollars of things stolen and those things will be sold for almost nothing and probably the money will be used to buy drugs.  How sad is that?  This area is over run in drug people and crimes just like that.

I feel unsafe here.   I wish I could move away.

But people who steal and do drugs don't fix their cats or care for them.  Or for their own kids and most have them.

That's why there have been so many desperate cats coming through my yard in the few years I've been here.  Bad bad area.  It's almost like a doomed town, that one day will be just shuttered rotten buildings and homes, completely abandoned.  Maybe that is what should be.