Friday Cat Blogging
Where’s The Fire?
Who is that guy?
[Editor: Three feral kittens laying in the leaves by a couple of old fire extinguishers. They are at least a month old, which makes them a month earlier than normal. Normally the first kittens are born around now. I like kittens, but I don’t need another month added to the season.]
Passings:
Take a little time to send some kind thoughts towards Scout Prime, who lost Teddy this week, and towards the owners of the pets who were poisoned by tainted food.
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Friday Ark #132…
We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….? Do link to the…
Ah, kittens! I see you haven’t yet managed to spay/neuter all the black-and-white cats in your vicinity yet. A friend of mine involved in similar efforts here would tell you that you’ll never get them all. Still, you have to admit, these kittens are lucky they live near you.
Sad to read of Teddy’s passing… and sad to think of all the cats and dogs who died needlessly due to the tainted food.
The problem is that you catch all of the dumb ones, so only the smart ones are left and they pass on their intelligence.
Life is hard, and the odds are only one of the three will make it to maturity.
Amen to that! Poor little Ginger Baker, the always alert, always curious (sometimes to the point of paranoia) — he ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to traps. Not only was he the first cat that I ever trapped, when I reset the traps to catch the rest of this herd, he was the first one BACK in the traps for the next go-round! Darling orange boy, but not MENSA material. STILL never caught his smart-assed slutty Mama, who has since dropped a litter before I could begin THIS round of TNR, so now I have to wait 4.5 more weeks for her to wean, and then another month to catch the NEW KIDS.
Up to 10 cats neutered thus far, and I’m still damned and determined to somehow, someway catch that uppity-ass smart-aleck calico hussy (also knocked-up, dammit!) before SHE pops. She actually has the overactive ovaries to prance right by me as I’m loading her boy-harem into the pickup truck, just trilling to say, “NYEH-NYEH-NA-NYEH-NYEH!!! Youuuuuuuuu can’t cattttcchhhhh meeeeee!!! They’re stupid, I’m smart, you’re screwed!!!” Uppity wench. Sometime this week, I will break her will and find SOMETHING to lure her into the trap, without her reaching through the bars and stealing all of the food AGAIN.
And those beautiful babies of yours are making my heart ache… I dunno what it is about black cats, but to me, they are the most gorgeous small hairy gawds to have ever graced us with their presence. One of the toms that I TNR’ed this week was an almost EXACT REPLICA of my Biddy cat, minus her beer gut, but the LUNGS!!! OH MAH GOODNESS THE ***LUNGS*** ON THAT BOY!!! He hollered louder than Biddy when she’s singing the “I don’t wanna go to the vet’s office blues” and Sister’s got some lung power and range when she wants it. Hell, he was yelling louder than Penn Gillette trapped in a bathing-optional hippie commune. He even let me pet him for a second before he fled that cage like a bat outta hell. I wanted to keep him so badly, but since the gorgons that run this subsidized housing plantation won’t let me have cats, he’d have had to go live with Biddy & Boy, and they do NOT play well with others, except for the occasional small, co-dependent obese Jack Russell.
*sigh*
You feel guilty because they don’t understand why you’re putting them through this hell, you feel guilty because you can’t afford to support them all, you feel guilty because you can’t give them a home, and it breaks your fucking heart when you let them go.
Well, most of the time — when the other two toms went, hissing, spitting, snarling and growling, trying to amputate my fingers and possibly my jugular in the process, y’know, for those two, I wasn’t that heartbroken. Anything that mean & vicious will do fiiiiiiiiine on their own. But I want that little black cat. He just wrapped his huge lungs around my heart and I can’t stop thinking about him.
I guess that this is when you finally give in and admit that you’ve become THE CRAZY CAT LADY!!!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“a month earlier than normal”
More evidence of global warming?
Annti, the hardest part is accepting you can’t save them all and the kindest thing you can do is give them a warm, dry place to finish their life. People think you should have the vet put them down, but the trauma of being placed in a carrier and taken to the vet is no way to finish life. If they are not in pain I have a screened frame I put over them to keep the insects away, and let them go when they’re ready.
I can’t be sure, John, but when April Fool’s Day has been the unofficial birthday of every kuddle of kittens for more than 15 years, and this year you have a kuddle getting ready to wean on April 1st, you know something isn’t right. We have some cold stretches, but they were earlier than normal, and lasted longer than normal. The climate is changing, and it isn’t just El Niño because we have had a few of those periods during the time frame.
They are sweet kittens but it does not bode well if the birthing season is a month early
Aw, those are some cuties. I agree with Steve Bates that they’re lucky to live near you. My Rocky Girl is still out, somewhere. I’m hoping she’s under the trailer. I haven’t seen her and today marks a week since she got loose this time. Annti was talking about a cat not the sharpest, well, the first cat I caught back in November, when I was trying to catch RG, was the first cat I caught this past week, too. I’m thinking I might decide to keep it in place of RG, if she doesn’t get caught and it does.
That’s my concern, Jams, that there will be another litter for every momma cat which will break the balance we currently have.
OWL, RG will be back. Ringo was gone for two months and showed up again. They understand where the food is.