Life in Cowtown

Catching the kitty that lived on my porch through -30 C (-22F)  temperatures has kind of consumed my spare time for the last few weeks. Well, that, and my birthday on Monday, and the midterm that I wrote, and the holidays of course.

But kitty took precedence. Even though he came and went a bit sporadically, he was usually on the porch waiting for his meal when I came home from work.  After watching him shiver and huddle on the yoga mat, we got smart and bought an outdoor heating pad which we enclosed in a lovely big box with styrofoam inside, and draped with a blanket to keep snow off.  Then we got a second heating pad as a side wall, and kitty moved in pretty permanently. We probably would have gotten a third and fourth heating pad as well, but finally, finally, kitty deigned to walk into the cat trap that was thoughtfully placed there by our perennial favorite cat rescue group – The MEOW Foundation.

Food didn’t do it, either. He was too leery of the trap to be enticed by food, and circled it carefully, electing to go hungry rather than chance being eaten by crocodiles or whatever his kitty imagination came up with.  Plus it doesn’t help that food freezes in about two minutes in these temperatures, offering very little in the way of temptation in a short while.  It was a healthy sprinkle of catnip that lured him in, a substance that proved irresistible. Kitty went in, the trap went slam! and a mournful meow later, we had a very apprehensive prisoner.

Of course this happened at about eleven last night, and of course the vet where we dropped him off was clear across the city, and of course I’m exhausted today, but also quite elated that kitty will spend his first warm night inside, in… forever? The vet will neuter him, and fix up any cuts and injuries, de-worm him and vaccinate him, and he will go to the MEOW Foundation to recuperate. There they will determine whether he’s fully feral, or just shy, and will decide whether his future lies in being adopted or not.

At the very least he’s warm, fed and getting used to people, and while his empty box sits on my porch I sleep better at night not worrying whether he’ll get hit by a car today, get eaten by a coyote, or where in the world his latest injury came from.

This week marked our first large snowfall of the season and the city shuddered to a grinding halt. Traffic has been increasing from bad to worse each day, and people are already swearing as they’re shoveling snow for the sixth time.  The temperature plunged to a lovely seasonal -15 or so, and the howling wind has been adding to the ambience.

The weather also brought a homeless kitty to our doorstep. Whenever I see a cat outside near our house, I immediately rush out with a bowl of food. I can’t help it, it’s like a Pavlovian reflex. Often the cat is collared and belongs to one of the neighbors.  In that case he has a snack and moves on. Occasionally it’s a stray, that pounces on the food like it’s going out of style and sometimes we even manage to get him over to the local vet which passes him on to the Humane Society.

This fluffy orange cat appeared sporadically through the summer, and has never let me approach him. Now that the weather is crap, he waits for me to come home every day and devours a whole can of wet food, and a handful of dry food besides.  He won’t get near the food if I’m outside though, he’ll just sit ten feet away and look at me reproachfully  as if to say ‘dude, my meal is getting cold’.  I’m not sure when he begins his vigil, but the snow is usually melted under him by the time I come home from work. After a meal he cleans himself, waits twenty minutes or so, and wanders off.

Now that the weather is so cold I’m quite worried about him, so tomorrow will be operation trap the cat. We’ll leave food on the porch in a cat trap and see if he bites. With any luck we’ll come home to a scared orange cat in a cage.  Then our plan is the usual – foster him and let some shelter adopt him out. He may just be glad to be out of the cold.

Here is an awful photo of my cat watchin him eat through the window. He is just a dark shadow bent over his bowl of food. What really ticks me off is that he’s definitely not feral. He seems quite cautious around me, but I’ve seen him approach local kids in  the summer, and he’s somewhat socialized.  Which means he likely had a home once.  

Do you help any critters survive the harsh winters?

I just wanted to leave you for the weekend with a few photos of my cat last night. See, every time I have a shower, he spends a few seconds walking around the shower stall because water fascinates him. Until he figures out it also makes him wet.

He always goes in first:

And tries to figure out where the spray is coming from:

And tries to catch water bubbles and droplets:

And tries to drink some water off his paw:

And finally gets wet enough to get sick of the whole enterprize.

Happy Thanksgiving and Long Weekend!!!