Shortly after moving to our new house on the mountainside we were adopted or at least visited by several stray cats. One of these cats became a regular. She would show up covered in dust or worse soaked to the bone in rainy weather. We started to feed her and let her wander the house.
This is our feline visitor whom we named (after not finding a tag or collar), “Binah”
Binah has never used the litter box we have bought. She managed to meowl at the door when she wants to come in. She had managed to time her morning visits as I was leaving for the office. Eventually this became moot as she apparently has decided to openly exercise her power of particle transportation by mysteriously appearing on our back porch without getting let in the house. We believe she is either climbing over the house or making a roughly 15′ leap from the side steps to the landing.
Sadly, this past week, Binah showed up with a tag. The tag has a phone number on it and the name, “Raisin” (Note, this cat hasn’t been tagged for at least 4 months) The back of the tag had a piece of paper attached to it stating something to the effect that “I am 4 years old. Please let my cat Raisin come home” This is annoying to me because we haven’t exactly trapped or kept the cat. It really wanders where it will. We’ve just opened our house and fed it. Over the last two weeks its taken to sleeping on our bed.
My take was, if I didn’t see a tag by the end of January (4 full months I think), I was gonna take her into the vet, check on shots and tag her. To let people know at least someone was looking after it. None the less, I’m still going to call and comment about the shape that the cat has shown up in and try to verify that the cat at least has had its shots and perhaps has been broken. (I hate the term fixed. They never work the same way after the operation)
While doing some work in the den last night I heard some strange noise back in the dining room. It was sort of a rustling as if some paper was being thrown around. When I went back to the living room we found the results of what could only be defined as a scuffle. (A note about the picture. You’re looking at the feathers strewn on the floor, not the special advance preview of the latest creation of shimmeringjemmy which is called Raven’s Light. Yes, I will pimp her work at every opportunity I have.”)
Well the feathers led to a reasonable assumption. We have a bird feeder outside our bedroom window. There is a large planter under the bird feeder. Binah likes to hide there. Apparently, last night… she got lucky. We scanned around for our mighty nimrod’s prize carcass. (Nothing beats the smell of decaying dead bird in the morning)
While an initial scan of the living room yielded no luck. The realization that perhaps Binah (as a good loving cat would do) might leave her prize in our bed or somewhere similar as a gift (which is actually a cat’s way of saying, “Here stupid, here is how you kill.”) The bed had other feathers in it (ick) but no bird. Then Heather pointed it out to me. Either stunned or dead the bird was perched on the bookcase in the bedroom under the window sill. Out of this photo is the cat on the floor looking up at it.
We went and retrieved a latex glove from the kitchen (I keep them for cleaning, people.) I figured, I’d pick up the stoic carcass and deposit it out the back off the porch. As we got closer Heather noticed what I feared. It was still breathing. (sigh) I tried to gently usher it onto a piece of matte board so I could set it gently outside. The bird promptly proved it wasn’t exactly scared or non-mobile. It flew straight up, buzzed the bedroom and hid in the opposite corner. That corner of the room fortunately has a closed up pet access door. I opened the door and with much effort ushered it out.
I went around to the outside to see how it was doing. It was far more lively now. I didn’t want it to stay on the porch because Binah would eventually find it and probably have her way with it. I tried to pick it up to take it away from the house and it ran off the edge of the back porch and fluttered clumsily down to the next floor. I figure: out of site, out of mind… into LJ.
So later today I will call the ‘owner’ of “Raisin” and comment about their cat and the fact that it is killing birds on my property. Personally, I’m going for the spin that they’ve done a really poor job of taking care of their cat. Personally, as a cat person; I’m pleased with the cat’s conquest. But I would like to make sure it has had its shots and is properly neutered.
Edit: I fixed the article to point out that it was Heather’s innate cat-sense that first located the bird and picked up on the fact that it was still alive.
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Tell them you’ve been feeding and caring for this tagless, bedraggled cat for four months and that she freely enters your home. Bitches.
*heh*
Don’t sugar-coat it. How do you really feel?
(I’m with you 100%)
Re: *heh*
Yeah, I know- I’m too vague, too diplomatic. š
I think that at the very least they need to explain why a bedraggled cat has been nosing around your place for food for four months. A four-year-old is not capable of caring for an animal; is the family treating the cat as the kid’s toy without proper (adult) maintenance?
Gods, what a gorgeous cat!
Frankly, after 4 months of it showing up, bedraggled and wet, that cat is yours by default…de fault of de previous owner.
I’d send a little note on the back on the cats collar telling them that if it’s their cat, that perhaps they should take better care of it so it won’t keep coming to YOUR house. Clearly, they’re so deficient as cat owners that it’s coming to you for proper care. Of course, you’d have to write really tiny to get all of that on there. Might just be easier to tell them via phone. Or tie a note to a rock and throw it thru their living room window. That’s a tried and true method of getting someone’s attention. Spray painting it on their car also works.
The bastards.
That’s too bad about Binah. I’d slip my own tag on her though considering she’s not really going to stop coming around anyway. Just cuz. 8)
Either way, there are lots of kitties out there at the local Petco adoptions.
I don’t understand people like that who won’t care for their animals but I suppose some modicum of naivete makes me want to look for possible explanations other than “Very bad pet owner with snide attitude”.
It’s very possible that the cat does in fact roam and tends to move in with people for a while. It’s also possible the cat could have ditched its original identification.
I have a cat like this and when we were living in the apartment complex, he got out. He also had a doppleganger in the form of someone else’s cat. We had each other’s cat at separate times for days on two occasions. Both times the cats had ditched their collars. We finally came up with the idea of pinning a note similar to the one you found on it.
Even so, one wonders why the cat seeks other homes (mine just got confused, yours doesn’t appear to be). If they’re a responsible cat owner then they should be backpedalling like crazy about the bird being killed in your yard. I’ll wager instead that they hurriedly offer to give the cat up or get rid of it before you become irate over the loss of birds.
A note of interesting irony: I detected Bast statue in the background of the first picture of the bird. I can’t believe it landed there, of all places.
Binah, the mighty wanderer, the mighty huntress: She Who Cannot Be Controlled!
Hmmmm. Maybe they’re “bad owners”…but maybe they’re not. Cats are their own people, and some of them like to wander, beg to go out, shed their tags repeatedly, stay out in the rain, roll in dust of their own accord, and go round to LOTS of people’s houses, staying at the places where they get the best treats and the love they like. This week.
I’ve been on both sides of this equation – I’ve had a wandering cat that I assure you I took very good care of that met all the above specs – and I’ve taken in a cat that ended up belonging to a neighbor, similar deal. Lived with me two years, had two litters of kittens in my closet (one of whom, Yukio, lives with me today), then moved on to another neighbor (who eats more meat than I do).
The owners may not realize that their cat wanders volitionally, hence the note about “let Raisin come home.” Maybe it’s a new habit; it happens. Cats are their own creatures, that’s for sure.
If it were me, I’d talk to the owners and ask those questions, but without an attitude. You have something in common – you care for the cat. Start there and hopefully this will work out well. It sounds disappointing, but like a bride, the cat will choose unless it is compelled to stay indoors. And say, was that a statue of Bast in that picture? (smiles)