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Meet Mint: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maggiet...7626438453590/
I first saw Mint one afternoon a little over a week ago while I was sitting in the living room. She was on the windowsill outside one of the living room windows, and jumped up onto the top of our fence from there. I peeked through the blinds at her, and she saw me and jumped back down into our back yard. She "followed" me around the house as I made my way through the kitchen to the back door, where I opened the blinds and got a look at her.
She was little, but didn't look starved, and seemed friendly. She and our youngest cat, Pluto, struck up an instant friendship. I grabbed a bowl, put some cat food in it, and opened the back door to set it on our patio. She ran away when I started opening the door, and I didn't see her again until much later that evening.
I was cleaning up the kitchen a bit right before bed, when I heard Pluto rattling the blinds to the patio door. I asked him (jokingly) if his friend was back, and was surprised to see her on the other side of the glass when I approached. The food bowl was empty, and she and Pluto were batting at each other through the glass of the back door. She didn't run when my husband and I approached; in fact, we could see her meowing, as if she wanted to come in.
I continued to feed her for a week and she continued to hang out near our patio. By yesterday morning, she had figured out that when I open the blinds to the door, I'll be bringing food out; she came running less than 20 seconds after I slid the blinds open, hunkering down in a bush next to the deck, waiting for me to fill her food bowl.
But this time, we got her in a feral cat trap. We had talked to our vet and wanted to get her checked out. It took her a couple of hours to approach the trap, even with the food in it, but by mid morning, we had ourselves a kitten in a box.
She didn't like being in the trap, and was even less happy when the vet tried to handle her. He had to sedate her to perform an exam, suggesting that she was at least partial feral, contrary to what we had thought judging by her meowing and kneading at our door like she wanted to come in. The vet examined her and determined that she was unspayed and, in fact, recently pregnant. If we kept her, and did nothing, we would have a litter of kittens in a few weeks.
It was a hard decision, one that we didn't like to make, but with both our vet's recommendations, we decided to have her spayed. The vets were very good to us, agreeing to spay her on the spot and working through their lunch hour to do so. We don't have the time, money, or assistance to take care of a mother and litter of kittens, as well as our own cats, and no shelter or rescue group in the city would take her since there are so many unwanted cats already. Plus, she is very young (the vet thinks around 7 months) and having a litter of kittens so young is not healthy for her.
She is also feline leukemia, AIDS, and heartworm negative, and the vet said, for a feral, she's actually rather sweet, so there's a good chance we could domesticate her, with enough time and effort. We had her vaccinated as well as spayed, and took her home in the same trap we brought her in. We kept her in there, on our patio, over night, to give the incision a little time to heal. She cried, but did not attempt to bolt when we opened the trap to give her food and water. We did cover part of the trap with a towel, to give her a sense of privacy and security, and she actually somehow managed to drag both her food and water bowls across the cage under the covered part. It was pretty cute, actually.
We let her out a few hours ago, and she took off across our yard to hide under a bush. We removed the cage, leaving the food and water bowls on the patio where we had them before we caught her. Now we have to keep our fingers crossed she doesn't freak out and decide she hates us, and will come back. Even if we can't fully domesticate her, we'd like to at least continue feeding her and keep her around the yard.
I first saw Mint one afternoon a little over a week ago while I was sitting in the living room. She was on the windowsill outside one of the living room windows, and jumped up onto the top of our fence from there. I peeked through the blinds at her, and she saw me and jumped back down into our back yard. She "followed" me around the house as I made my way through the kitchen to the back door, where I opened the blinds and got a look at her.
She was little, but didn't look starved, and seemed friendly. She and our youngest cat, Pluto, struck up an instant friendship. I grabbed a bowl, put some cat food in it, and opened the back door to set it on our patio. She ran away when I started opening the door, and I didn't see her again until much later that evening.
I was cleaning up the kitchen a bit right before bed, when I heard Pluto rattling the blinds to the patio door. I asked him (jokingly) if his friend was back, and was surprised to see her on the other side of the glass when I approached. The food bowl was empty, and she and Pluto were batting at each other through the glass of the back door. She didn't run when my husband and I approached; in fact, we could see her meowing, as if she wanted to come in.
I continued to feed her for a week and she continued to hang out near our patio. By yesterday morning, she had figured out that when I open the blinds to the door, I'll be bringing food out; she came running less than 20 seconds after I slid the blinds open, hunkering down in a bush next to the deck, waiting for me to fill her food bowl.
But this time, we got her in a feral cat trap. We had talked to our vet and wanted to get her checked out. It took her a couple of hours to approach the trap, even with the food in it, but by mid morning, we had ourselves a kitten in a box.
She didn't like being in the trap, and was even less happy when the vet tried to handle her. He had to sedate her to perform an exam, suggesting that she was at least partial feral, contrary to what we had thought judging by her meowing and kneading at our door like she wanted to come in. The vet examined her and determined that she was unspayed and, in fact, recently pregnant. If we kept her, and did nothing, we would have a litter of kittens in a few weeks.
It was a hard decision, one that we didn't like to make, but with both our vet's recommendations, we decided to have her spayed. The vets were very good to us, agreeing to spay her on the spot and working through their lunch hour to do so. We don't have the time, money, or assistance to take care of a mother and litter of kittens, as well as our own cats, and no shelter or rescue group in the city would take her since there are so many unwanted cats already. Plus, she is very young (the vet thinks around 7 months) and having a litter of kittens so young is not healthy for her.
She is also feline leukemia, AIDS, and heartworm negative, and the vet said, for a feral, she's actually rather sweet, so there's a good chance we could domesticate her, with enough time and effort. We had her vaccinated as well as spayed, and took her home in the same trap we brought her in. We kept her in there, on our patio, over night, to give the incision a little time to heal. She cried, but did not attempt to bolt when we opened the trap to give her food and water. We did cover part of the trap with a towel, to give her a sense of privacy and security, and she actually somehow managed to drag both her food and water bowls across the cage under the covered part. It was pretty cute, actually.
We let her out a few hours ago, and she took off across our yard to hide under a bush. We removed the cage, leaving the food and water bowls on the patio where we had them before we caught her. Now we have to keep our fingers crossed she doesn't freak out and decide she hates us, and will come back. Even if we can't fully domesticate her, we'd like to at least continue feeding her and keep her around the yard.
now I have to stop myself from thinking of dead baby cats.
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