Crazy Cat Lady

[Juniper]

Add me to that list, I'm one of those people who has a "sucker" tattoo. Of all the front doors for a cat to meow at, she has to pick mine.

Couple days ago, we had the windows open on our lower level and meooooow, Ms. Stray was having a conversation with Sterling, our indoor alpha male. Of course the kids wanted to put out food and water, and she's stayed around. She's a sweet kitty, very sociable. Calico. The kids named her Candy Corn, C.C. for short.

We already have 5 cats, we do not need a 6th. We had 4 but then inherited my mom's cat when my mom died - Tabby is 16 years old and lives in the master bathroom because she tends to pee wherever she feels like. The other 4 use a litter box in the laundry room and I've learned that a 2nd box does not help any. Sometimes they pee on the tile floor in there, but that's OK, as long as it's not carpet we're happy.

The point is that life with 5 kitties is precarious. I really don't need a 6th.

And this girl is probably preggers, too.

Now my dear daughter is having a fit over it; says C.C. has chosen us, she won't leave our front porch, she sleeps on the chairs. Sure, we could just keep leaving food for her, but that wouldn't be responsible; eventually she'll have kittens and there will be more, or they'll get run over by cars or killed by the two stupid dogs in our backyard.

Yet dear daughter says she'll "never forgive me" if I take C.C. to the shelter. ::sigh::

I just don't know what to do. She really is a sweet cat.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Make Chow Mein.

[Aliantha]

I reckon if you've already got 5 you'll hardly notice another one. Besides, it sounds to me as if you've already decided to adopt her but you're hoping someone might give you a good reason not to.

We have 4 cats and two dogs. My husband is the one that likes the cats though. He's going to be the crazy old cat man if he outlives me. I can see it now. lol

If the cat has kittens, maybe you'll be able to find homes for them. Do people just stick a sign out front that says 'free kittens' over there? That's what we do here. Usually it's not too hard to find homes for them.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Our getting adopted was simpler -- a longleggedy young black cat with a big round head began being seen around the parking lot, eating with the parking lot kitties. He looked like a feline lollipop. On account of his white chest blaze, we named him Blaze.

He found our patio door and took to raiding our first pet black cat's food dish whenever the door was open for a breeze. Screen doors, incidentally, aren't an obstacle to this cat. Just cuts his way through. All our window screens are dead, disemboweled.

Our first cat, Spooky, has been pissed at Blaze ever since.

After a week of trying to chase Blaze out with squirt bottles and hostile demonstrations, in which we once accidentally shut him in our house when we closed the doors for the night, we gave it up, got him his own food and water bowl, and feed the kitties at separate locations. Doña Spookita Gatita, Pantera de Poche y Semilla de Sandia y Patas de Peligro, is still darn annoyed he's around, female cats being more territorial and she was here first. Blaze El Tomogato, the Slippery Cat, takes a conciliatory attitude, being male and fixed. He's really rather timid at bottom, but is also too large and powerful for Spooky to take on physically -- he grew into his big round head and is now over fifteen pounds of he-cat. They scuffle some, but I notice nobody's drawing blood, and there seems to be an agreed-on ambush game and paw swats that seem more tagging than cutting.

Officially he's our roomie's cat, but he's a real people pleasing critter. Sometimes when he wants a pick-up, he'll sit up and spread his forepaws apart while looking hopeful. Irresistable.

[Sundae]

Adopt her! Like Ali says, 6 is no worse than 5 after all.
But make it very, VERY clear to the children than any other cats from now on will go straight to the shelter. Explain it is actually the kindest thing to do as they will have a chance of forever homes without other cats.

I have two cats - a work cat and a home cat.

Hely spends most of every day with me. She is friendly to the other people who work here (with a genuine fondness for the men) but if I leave my desk to go into the yard, the kitchen, the bathroom, like as not she'll follow me. If it's the kitchen or bathroom I'll find her waiting patiently outside the door when I come out.

It's been officially sanctioned by work now, although a number of people have mused about adopting her officially. I think this would be the wrong move - she has a home with HM but it's obviously me she's bonded with. It would be unfair on HM to "disappear" her, and probably very upsetting for Hely to be cat-napped with no chance of seeing me again.

Diz, my darling Diz, is finally settling into living in the pub. Oh well, he's robust enough to cope with another move! I filmed one of our play sessions last night. I try to devote an hour to him every day - being an indoor cat isn't a natural life after all. I'll post it in the Pets thread when I download it.

[Juniper]

Well, if we do take her in, she'll first have to be vet-checked to make sure she doesn't have feline leukemia - it's pretty common around here. Since my cats are all indoor, I take the cheap way out and don't get them vaccinated, so any new one is a threat. And if she's not already preggy she'll be spayed right away. Yeah, listen to me, it's a done deal and we all know it.

CC/Candy/whatever is on my front porch right now, of course. The kids put out cozy little rugs for her to nap on. It's raining and she really wants to come inside. ::sigh::

But alas, I have to go to school again...vet trip will have to wait.

[ZenGum]

You could impose a cat-cap. No more than 5 cats living in the house.
Hey, J-daughter. You want to keep that new cat? Well, okay, but YOU have to decide which old cat we get rid of.
[/mean]

Really, 5 cats, 6 cats, there won't be much difference.

[Juniper]

Surprise! We have a sixth cat.

Hubby was off work today and took her to the vet. She passed her physical and apparently has no diseases, but the poor thing is missing one of her canine teeth and has a gash on her face that seems to be healing OK. I guess her calico markings masked it so I didn't notice.

The vet said kitty was preggers but it was really early, so since there's no feline right-to-life organization, we elected to have her spayed anyway. But don't fret -- while performing the surgery, the vet found that she wasn't preggy after all, she had a cyst on her ovary. No kittens were harmed. Whew.

CC is resting comfortably at the vet and racking up yet another bill I have to pay. Oh well. We'll bring her home tomorrow and the hissing will begin.

I might add that we have a LONG history, hubby and I, of being suckers for feline moochers. CC will be the 12th cat we've owned throughout the last 18 years, and all but two of our fur-angels lived long happy lives.

[Sundae]

May she bring great joy into your life Juniper.
Now - make sure everyone knows there is a cat-cap in operation!

[Cyclefrance]

Cats are disloyal animals.

'WHAT!!!' I hear you exclaim.

Let me qualify.

We had a Siamese many years back. Always seemed to be devoted to us and our household. Never disppeared overnight, would go missing during the day, but, hey, cats explore and like to extend their territory.

By chance we happened to make friends with some neighbours about ten doors away as a result of meeting them unexpectedly on holiday one year. Some good time later, when our children were requiring a babysitter once, and we were strapped to find one, our new neighbourly friends' daughter, then turned 16, offered to help out.

She turned up and exclaimed - there's Suki!

'Huh?' Our babysitter was pointing towards Lulu, our Siamese.

Turns out that Lulu aka Suki (and probably aka a few other names with other neighbours for all we knew) was a regular visitor to them, partaking of the chicken and sardines that they would feed her when she dropped by - they even had a photo (several different ones actually) of her relaxing on their sofa.

Sometimes stray cats aren't exactly that. Since this incident we have discovered several other adaptive felines.

Nevertheless, it's good to know that there are people around like you who will take in a stray and give the cat a good home. Beware though, the possibility (as happened to my wife's aunt) of the sudden knock on the door and a distraught person standing there demanding that you let them have their cat back!

Good luck!

[Juniper]

Originally Posted by Cyclefrance

Nevertheless, it's good to know that there are people around like you who will take in a stray and give the cat a good home. Beware though, the possibility (as happened to my wife's aunt) of the sudden knock on the door and a distraught person standing there demanding that you let them have their cat back!

Good luck!

Nope, if she belongs to someone else, they can't have her back. Anybody who is too irresponsible to spay or neuter a pet doesn't deserve to own a pet.

I always wondered about that with another of our cats, Buddy. He was so sweet and sociable, I knew he had to be part of someone's family at some poi nt - cats that don't get socialized as kittens are never friendly, they're scared of people. This boy practically jumped into my arms, and actually did jump into my car when I opened it for him. We "found" him at the convenience store up the road from our house, where the employees were feeding him hot dogs. One of our beloved kitties had just died a few weeks before, so we had a spot to fill, so to speak. I put up posters, but obviously nobody called.

But we live in the country, sort of. People tend to drop off unwanted pets in places like this. This cat came to our house on Sunday evening and almost literally did not leave our front porch the entire time. I think it's a safe bet that she doesn't belong elsewhere.

[Sundae]

Same with Hely (who is under my desk right now).

The shelter picked her up from an underground car-park where she had been living for at least 4 months. A woman there wanted to look after her, but her boyfriend wouldn't let her have Hely in the flat overnight - he said she was obviously someone else's pet. I can only assume he wasn't a cat-lover, because she was so thin. I mean not even super-model thin - Belsen thin.

I think you know when a cat has been abandoned from the pattern of visits and the condition of the cat. If she came and didn't leave, she was definitely in need.

[Clodfobble]

Not only did my best friend's family, who lived across the street from us, steal our cat (whom they knew from the beginning was our cat, they were just feeding her and letting her in the house to be friendly, you know,) but when she got run over they happened to find her first and they buried her in their backyard. I was so incredibly pissed.

And then, about 9 months later, the friend tells me this hi-laaarious story about how their gardener was digging, and suddenly there was this horrible smell, and it turned out he had accidentally dug up my dead cat that they had completely forgotten they buried there! Ha ha HA!

[Pico and ME]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Sometimes when he wants a pick-up, he'll sit up and spread his forepaws apart while looking hopeful. Irresistable.

Turbo, our black kitty, will do that for food. He trained us with it.

[Flint]

Jeez, Clod, if they didn't feel like digging a deep enough hole, they could at least put a rock in the way. This is, I guess, the origin of gravestones.