Tim was an adult and not at all tiny when I first met him, but he had a lame foot and I guess I wasn’t feeling very imaginative so I christened him Tiny Tim.  He showed up regularly for months for a daily meal.  One day he brought a friend, and then another: Tigger and Slim,  as they are now known.

It took a week or two for me to realize that Tigger and Slim (who, despite their names, are both females) were his girlfriends.  Very soon both of them started to put on some weight.  I think you could officially call this the moment I reluctantly became a pet rescuer.  Slim, so-named because she was not slim, took a shine to my only cat at the time, Figaro, so she was easier to trap.

At the direction of the local cat rescue (who had dozens of kittens waiting to be adopted) I chose to have a spay/abort performed on her.  A few people I know were saddened, maybe even shocked, that I had arranged for a cat abortion, but pragmatism is a major part of this job.  If there are already hundreds of kittens in your zip code who cannot find homes what practical merit is there in allowing more to be born if it can be easily remedied?

While Slim was fairly easy to trap, Tigger put up a good fight on two occasions (including one in which the cat was in my house and opened a sliding glass door with one paw).  I didn’t see her for a day or two after that and when I did she was noticeably thinner.

She showed up daily for a huge meal and returned to wherever her babies were hidden.  I tried numerous times to follow her but she always managed to outwit me.  When the kittens were about a month old she began to bring them for visits, allowing them to eat some of her food in preparation for their weaning.  The bed I had made for her long before she delivered them they began to use; within a week or so, they were mostly living in my yard.

None trusted me very much, but this did not stop them from following Figaro into the house to play in the living room.  This is where I made my big mistake.  Tigger—who you must remember is a feral cat, one that cannot be so much as touched by a human, began to bring the kittens in the house in the evening to spend the night.  They would all sleep under my sofa while she stayed in the yard, essentially guarding them.  In the morning, they would all leave and she would walk up the stairs and sleep the day away under my dresser.

The mistake I made was in not separating the kittens from Tigger once they were weened, keeping them locked in my room as I did with the later litters I have socialized. I should have established myself as the one they were reliant upon.  Instead they came and went as they pleased, and ultimately could never be socialized enough to be adopted out.  That was two years ago and those now-adult cats still come and go as they please, staying the night when the weather is bad enough, other times gone for days leaving me wondering if anything has happened to them.

Of all the stresses I suffer in animal rescue, none compares to that I created by this daily situation; I hope someday to convince all my cats that they are in fact my cats. .

Bringing this back to my original subject—their father, Tim continued to show up for meals and I made a few failed attempts to trap him so he could be neutered.  One night when he was leaving my patio he was seen by a neighbor’s dog who chased him up a tree.  The dog briefly caught Tim by the neck and he received a few scratches to the neck.  They would have been minor to an indoor cat that could be treated, but for feral living in the elements they eventually proved fatal.

The scratches became infected and they, along with whatever other health issues Tim may have had, killed him.  The last time I saw him I knew it was too late to do anything even if I could have caught him.

Months later I learned the rest of his story from someone who lived in the area of my complex where I had trapped a litter not resulting from Tim. I was talking about the various ferals I have trapped and those I had not and she knew who I was talking about when I mentioned Tim.

Tim had once been a house cat but was left behind when his owners moved.  Happily for him, the new owners took a liking to the cat who came into their yard looking for food, and they took him in.  Eventually they adopted a dog who did not like the cat, and Tim was sent back outdoors.

A year or so later, they moved, taking the dog— but not Tim— with them.  Two sets of owners, abandoned by both, neutered by neither, out on his own.  It was shortly after this that he was hit by a car.  That event left one of his legs permanently disfigured, and it left him distrustful of people cementing his fate as a feral from then on.   When I walked home after hearing this story I had tears in my eyes, but they were tears of anger more than anything else.

I understand that things change.  People who once wanted an animal no longer do: it’s too much work; the animal has behavioral issues; they cannot afford it; their new residence does not allow it . . .

What I do not understand is how someone can simply dump an animal.  There are pet rescues and shelters in almost every locale (several in mine) so there is no excuse other than selfishness and cowardess not to turn over an unwanted pet to the proper agency.  It’s possible that Tim would never have been adopted out, that he would have had to be euthanized, but maybe that would have been better than living and dying as he did.

I apologize for this picture, but I am hoping someone who needs to see the result of shirking the responsibility of a pet will see this and think twice.

This was the last time I ever saw Tim.  My cat trap was not set up that morning so there was nothing I could do but feed him.  I somehow knew I’d never capture him, even if only to have him euthanized.  Instead, my camera and I captured photographic evidence of his life and his death.  The picture is disturbing or saddening to most people.  To me, it’s another reminder of why I am doing a job that quite frankly I don’t like a lot of the time.

]]> http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/tiny-tim/feed/ 1 Cat Boy tim slim tigger kittens brick tim http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/they-still-havent-got-names/ http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/they-still-havent-got-names/#comments Thu, 13 Oct 2011 04:55:20 +0000 Cat Boy http://dextershaven.wordpress.com/?p=3570 Continue reading →]]>

When they first arrived and I realized they were all girls, I thought of naming them for Little Women. I rethought that: a couple of the kittens were sickly and I was afraid to give any of them the name Beth.  In the words of my friend Martha, “Beth DIES!”

A week or so later they were on the mend, so it seemed safer to name them but I could only figure out who Amy was—the gray one, who must be the first to eat,  never stops talking, and spends a lot of time grooming herself.  Meg, Jo, and Beth didn’t reveal themselves to us.  I suggested we just pick four females names with less-defined personalities attached to them, but we never picked any.

I asked my sister to come up with a different group of four females (aside from “Sex and the City” since there’s just no call for that) for us to pick from.

It’s wasn’t a bad idea, but it has still left us wondering who is who, except, of course, the gray cat.  She is now, and will always be to me—whatever someone else eventually names her—Suzanne.

They’re not nearly as much work as I has expected.  I keep them in a cage at night and when I leave the house, but otherwise they wander free and don’t create too much havoc.  Figaro hates them, and he hates me, but he didn’t really like me to begin with so it’s not a whole lot different; he just growls at me more.

]]> http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/they-still-havent-got-names/feed/ 4 Cat Boy IMG_6431 IMG_6420 IMG_6454 IMG_6466 IMG_6473 Designing-Women http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/when-i-met-you-in-the-restaurant/ http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/when-i-met-you-in-the-restaurant/#comments Sat, 01 Oct 2011 06:09:39 +0000 Cat Boy http://dextershaven.wordpress.com/?p=3563 Continue reading →]]> [Everybody] . . . You could tell I was no debutante. You asked me what’s my pleasure . . .

I appreciate your participation.

I had two dreams Thursday night; one that made perfect sense and one that still has me puzzled.  In the first dream, I was running from the FBI, the DOJ, and super solider aliens who wanted to take my kittens because they were somehow going to lead to an alien invasion.  They would only be appeased if they got either my kittens or David Duchovny.

My kittens are a bit sickly, leaving me worried about their well-being, and I fell asleep watching season 9 of The X-Files, so this is the dream that is easily explained.

In the other dream, I was in a building with  no working elevator so I had to take the stairs.  Also taking the stairs was a sea-lion, but he was having a hard time navigating them; I walked slower than I usually do and stayed behind to make sure he made it, and I held the door open for him each time we reached the next floor and had to enter another stairwell.  Despite my being so helpful to him I kept thinking that he might bite me.  I’m not sure why I was thought he might, but I did.

This dream strikes me as being a little odd.

Despite some digestive problems they are having, the kittens are eating well and playing hard.  I offer this photo of them because it’s much easier to get them while eating than while playing.

They have been treated for fleas and tapeworms, are on an anti-parasitic that covers the most common kitten bugs, plus probiotics to build up some good bacteria.  Even so, a few still have some stomach ills, so I’m not done worrying about them just yet.  Not unlike people who diagnose themselves on WebMD, I Googled all sorts of stuff on kitten weaning and continued to read despite a paragraph that began “Aside from the first few days of life, the most critical and potentially fatal time for a kitten is when it is weaned . . .”

It’s small wonder that I ended up as Gillian Anderson in dreamland.

]]> http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/when-i-met-you-in-the-restaurant/feed/ 2 Cat Boy Sea Lions 2 IMG_6427 http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/when-viewed-through-ten-feet/ http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/when-viewed-through-ten-feet/#comments Sun, 25 Sep 2011 20:36:56 +0000 Cat Boy http://dextershaven.wordpress.com/?p=3559 Continue reading →]]> . . . Of mock orange bushes, with a row of Pittosporum on the other side, and finally a forest of about six by ten foot of junipers, with a tiny hole at the bottom to enter and exit, it looked like two kittens.

I left food out in the maze this morning so I can go back later and see if it’s gone.  You know, in case I really, really miscounted.   The buff one seems to like being photographed.

The good news here would be that the cat seen below in a cage in my yard is in fact Momma Threadgoode.  She has an appointment with a doctor next week that will change her life—and mine, for the considerably better.

You’ll notice she is wearing her mean feral look, but when she is not trapped in a cage wondering where her children are she is a nice looking cat; I think she might be a sibling to Tigger, mother to some of my own cats.   That reminds me, she hid her pregnancy from me.  I feed her nightly and had no idea at all.  It wasn’t until a week ago when she didn’t show up to eat and I went looking for her that I figured it out.

It is my own fault, no question.  I got two of the feral mothers fixed but this one I kept putting off since I was preoccupied with my last-ditch effort to find a barn for a couple of my fosters.  It’s not going to happen.  Anyway, it appears this litter is limited to just two kittens, and I have one of the two.

In more cheerful news, I have new artwork.  This picture is crap, but I didn’t want to wait to post this until I could take a better one.  These are three of the pictures (the fall series) that Michelle gave me in exchange for vintage silverware.  Again, this doesn’t do them justice, and neither do the ivory mats that came with the frames, but I will eventually cut mats for them myself—most likely a white mat with a black core.

I don’t have much else to say at the moment.  I’ve got a bit of a sinus infection which set me behind on my etsy Halloween items, but I managed to get some things made and listed.  It’s a smaller selection than I intended and there are no Day of the Dead items (which I really wanted to try my hand at) but a few of those items that really pleased me and gave me a better idea of what I’d like to be making more of.  The box with the jester cat on it (in the right sidebar) is one of those items.

Have a good weekend.

That’s pretty much the end of that and I’m sorry to anyone who thought I was going to have a great story to go along with my title.

Did I tell you that Constantine was returned to me?  Well, he was.  He cannot be socialized so I am trying to find him a barn cat situation along with Tiny Tim.  I have a “maybe” lined up.  The person doing the arranging is concerned that Tim, having a lame foot, might not be up to being a barn cat—eventually living mostly off what he can find himself with little help from his adoptive family.

I understand the concern since nobody wants to toss him out to fend for himself (there is a transitional period where the food left for them is slowly reduced), but I’m inclined to think he has a better shot being on a piece of property with only one other cat as competition, even if he does have to hunt for himself, than he would be in my complex with dozens of other cats, and one guaranteed meal a day from me.

I don’t know.

Constantine’s mother Greta is staying with us for a few days. I brought her in last night and had her spayed today.  She slept part of the night on my bed, purring when I pet her.  Why do feral cats like me better than my own cats, and why can I not socialize the kittens I bring in to adopt out, while ones I’ve been feeding for years suddenly decide they want to be pets?  Is the Universe poking me with a stick or something?

As far as I know, Edwin and Jane are doing well.  I have not heard from the person who took over fostering them since she returned Con to me, so I assume no news is good news.

I’m getting ready to begin seasonal projects for etsy.  I’m going to make things for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas, but I’m sticking with a smaller selection this year.  Based on last years sales (as well as Valentine’s Day and Easter of this year), I cannot really say that a particular type of item sells better than another, which was sort of the point in making a variety of things.

Since it didn’t end up helping me to determine my market, I don’t see it as essential this time around.  Beyond that, there are dozens of small to medium projects I need to attend to in my house and my parents’.  Rather than try to alternate between those projects and my etsy projects as summer moves to fall,  I’d rather just take 3 or 4 weeks and make everything being listed on etsy for the rest of the year and call it done.  That being the case, I think I should stick to seasonal variations of the same few items and hope for the best.

We’ll see what I come up with.

That’s all for the moment.  Take care of yourself.

PS. I got something good in the mail but I’m saving that for a post of its own.

]]> http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/its-not-that-i-find-you-offensive-its-that-i-find-you-tedious/feed/ 3 Cat Boy http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/yikes/ http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/yikes/#comments Sat, 06 Aug 2011 14:56:52 +0000 Cat Boy http://dextershaven.wordpress.com/?p=3522 Continue reading →]]> I didn’t realize just how long it had been since I visited with you all.

It’s not that I have been extraordinarily busy, it’s more about how busy I have been at the time I was most likely to write my blog—the evenings.  Dinner is somewhere between six and six-thirty, then I do the dishes.  At eight I go upstairs to feed the foster cats their evening meal and spend some time petting them, trying to bring them one step closer to being friendly, loving pets.  At nine it’s time to feed the outdoor ferals and that can take me fifteen minutes or an hour depending on whether or not the skunks and raccoons show up in an effort to thwart my efforts.

Last night there were three skunks and two Indian men, who were standing outside having cigarettes and watching the skunks.  As you know, I try to do my feeding on the sly since some neighbors labor under the delusion that if nobody feeds the ferals they will go away (these people are known as “stupid” in my world).  I casually tossed a handful of food in the direction of the skunks and started walking to an adjacent parking area; the cats are supposed to casually follow me to, creeping between the parked cars and curb in a nice orderly manner.

Instead, they all ran from under the cars where they were hidden and followed me, Pied Piper of Hamelin-style, straight through the middle of the parking lot, meowing all the way, some of them crossing from one side of the driveway to the other like it was choreographed.

Snowball, whom I am may have mentioned at some point, was smirking so I think he was the Bob Fosse of the group.  He can be a real shit-ass.  Greta, who is mother to two of my fosters, is another story.  She has suddenly decided (maybe because I have relieved her of the responsibility of children) that she likes me.  She brushes up against my leg, allows me to pet her; sometimes I can even pick her up.  Currently, she likes more than three of my own cats do.

One part of my evening scenario has now changed.  I turned the three kittens over to a volunteer with the pet rescue to finish fostering for me.  The last of the three, whom I caught a full month after the other two, might not end up as a pet, but she’s going to try anyway.  If he can’t be socialized I’ll have to put him out with the rest of the group; no doubt Snowball would take Constantin under his wing so he could be mocking me with great panache in no time.

That leaves me with the more reasonable three cats in my bedroom: Nora, Earl, and Tiny Tim; the pet rescue is trying to find a home for Earl, but it’s taking a while since he is a couple of year old and most people want a kitten; Tiny Tim is on a waiting list to be a barn cat; and Nora has to decide she likes a human being other than me or she will never leave this house.  She’s a nice cat but she keeps rearranging the desktop on my computer and doing things I don’t even know how to do (I’m hoping she can figure out why my sister’s printer won’t recognize my laptop even though they’re on the same network).

◊

I re-listed things from holidays past in my etsy shop. I’m selling things at prices that barely cover my costs, but I figured not having to store the stuff was worth it.  I’m hoping to get working on my fall and winter projects within a week or two, but still haven’t decided what I am going to be making.

◊

I guess that’s about it for the moment.  I hope I will have something more interesting to say in the near future.

]]> http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/yikes/feed/ 4 Cat Boy piper http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/something-nicer/ http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/something-nicer/#comments Mon, 20 Jun 2011 04:04:37 +0000 Cat Boy http://dextershaven.wordpress.com/?p=3485 Continue reading →]]> It’s been ten days since I wrote anything and that post was pretty rough; today I offer up pictures that are much happier .

This was Jesus, the kitten I had to euthanize.  While it was unpleasant and difficult, we were both fortunate I caught him even if only to do that: he was fortunate that his death came sooner rather than later; I am fortunate that I don’t have to spend weeks— or even months, wondering how long it took.

Figaro, being beautiful.

Brick also being beautiful, and kind of silly, too.  It was a sunny day, why he climbed under the blanket is beyond me.

Teddy making me nervous.  He has good balance, but it still makes me nervous.

Rhubarb compote with cream, fresh berries and crumbled biscotti.  A very good improvised (aside from having rhubarb compote on hand) dessert.  Naturally, I can’t eat it, but I enjoyed looking at it.

Jane and Edwin.  Edwin is the only surviving kitten of the litter Jesus belonged to, and Jane is a cousin as best as I can figure out.  Jane has a sibling who has not been as eager to walk into my trap but I haven’t given up yet.  Despite their being a good six weeks old (possibly past the point of being socialized), every indication points to their being full-fledged pets to someone.

]]> http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/something-nicer/feed/ 4 Cat Boy jesus figaro brick teddy rhubarb edwin&jane http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/05/27/its-fairly-unfair/ http://catboycharles.wordpress.com/2011/05/27/its-fairly-unfair/#comments Sat, 28 May 2011 05:35:18 +0000 Cat Boy http://dextershaven.wordpress.com/?p=3471 Continue reading →]]> This could be a really long one, but I am feeling annoyed, frustrated and wrung-out, so it won’t be.  In all honesty, I am usually annoyed and frustrated about something, so wrung-out is the only reasonable excuse among the three.

I saw a litter of five or six tonight.  No need to tell me that I recently told you I am most likely giving up the fostering end of the cat rescue game.  I have no desire to foster any more cats, let along a litter, but neither do I want to trap, spay/neuter and return to the outdoors an entire litter if they can be pets to someone.

They are young enough that there’s a better than decent chance they can be socialized, and kittens are adopted much quicker than adult cats so the amount of time I would be fostering them would be shorter. 

What about my current fosters, you might ask.  I’m down to two at this point.  Earl Grey has decided he would rather be an outdoor cat. For a long time, he was content to live in my room with Tiny Tim II and Nora, with me occasionally allowing him to go out for the day.  Last week he went out and never came back in.  He comes into the patio to eat and runs the hell out whenever he sees me so I won’t bring him in; I think he’s made his choice. 

Tiny Tim will never be a pet, so unless I can place him as barn cat, which is unlikely,  I am going to set him free.  That leaves Nora.  I am going to talk to someone with the pet rescue tomorrow and tell them if they will find someone to foster her until she is adopted I will take on the litter of six.

I don’t want to, but I don’t see as I have much choice.  I might be kidding myself, but I think I’d find this all less stressful if I was still allowed to eat gluten and sugar (I (without thinking) sampled a biscotti I was making for a gift last week and felt sick for two days, a pretty good indication that removing gluten and sugar were a good call).  I will keep you updated.

Eat sugar and starch and drink liquor for me will you.

Ironically, now that I am their once-a-day source for food (aside from any small wildlife they manage to catch on their own), they greet me with cheerful meows every night when I place piles of food in the bushes where they wait.  A casual observer would think they were pets, but to this day neither will allow to as much as touch them. 

Snowball just a day or two after I trapped him.  He was scared and sick with ringworm at the time, but today—despite being a feral, has grown into a beautiful cat.

Miss Idgie, taken at the same time; she had a serious case of mange and a serious case of missing her mother.  I tried harder with her than any of the others, but she was beyond being socialized and is much happier now that she is back to living outdoors.  Today she is still a tiny little thing, but full of pep, with a coat that shimmers in the moonlight when I see her nightly.