F: Felines
I’ve always liked cats, but until recent years, I preferred dogs. Those festive felines have captured my heart in the last ten years or so. We have two Seal Point Siamese, Natasha and Ajax. Natasha came to us via PetFinder in Alabama back in 2005. She’d been in foster care for two years and has some quirks. Finally, this year, I believe she’s completely relaxed being with us. That isn’t to say she loves her fellow felines, but she’s relaxed as part of our home. Ajax was adopted as a kitten in early 2006.
In the summer of 2010, a female cat adopted me. She was pregnant. We got her taken care of, fed her well during her pregnancy, and her kittens were born here in our parlor in September. Four healthy kitties. Three black and white ones and one white and gray. Three males and a female. I found homes for the mama cat and two of the black and white male kittens. We kept the black and white female and the white and gray male. They are Lady and Tarzan.
Before going on our trip to Pennsylvania last October, a little orange kitty was screaming by the heat pump. That’s when I became aware of some neighborhood ferals. When we returned from our trip two weeks later, my efforts began to limit the growth of feral cats in the neighborhood. There were three adults and four kittens. I’ve trapped and spayed/neutered two of the adults and released them. One of the adults still eludes capture, and I’m trying to capture her. I trapped all four kittens, and they’ve been spayed and neutered. I haven’t found homes for any of them.
If you’re counting at home, you know we have eight indoor cats. I’m trying to capture one more outdoor cat to keep us from getting more outdoor cats, but I fear the last girl is pregnant, so we’ll have at least one more generation to track down and get spayed or neutered. If I can catch the kittens before they are three months old, they stand a better chance of being adopted than my current batch.
I’m very lucky my husband loves cats, because eight stretches the very limits of his cat tolerance.