Sunday, April 02, 2006
Calico Joins Us
Before Missy and Feller, I had another cat live with me. As anyone who shares a home with a feline knows, cats believe the home is theirs and they only tolerate the people living there too. Our first cat choose us for her family too.
We named this cat Calico because of her obvious beauty. She was probably about a year or two old, had been blinded in one eye by something penetrating it and was pregnant. No doubt she was a drop-off.
I'll never understand why people think if they drop an unwanted animal off in a rural area, it will somehow magically be okay. The animal usually stays on the road waiting for the owner to come back. Often it gets hit by a car or attacked by another animal. Drop-off animals get hungry and have no place to stay dry and warm. Somehow Calico had survived all this.
One day she saw my son playing in the back yard and thought he looked like a family she wanted. The child and cat said meow to each other and the first thing I know, the child is standing in my kitchen with the cat in his arms and asking if he can feed and keep her. I reminded him about not touching wild animals that came into the yard. Wild animals normally wouldn't come into the yard during the day and if they did, they might have rabies. My son assured me this cat was not wild and was healthy. He just knew it. The cat in his arms purred her agreement. Of course it had no collar and no one claimed it.
This brings me to another thing I just don't understand. Why don't owners put collars on cats? They usually put them on their dogs but not on their cats. Some people say that their cat doesn't like the collar. Then try another one. Or stand your ground. I always kept a stretchable or break-a-way flea collar on my cats. It is easy for a cat to get a paw or leg through a collar and not be able to get it out, if the collar doesn't stretch or break. I also put an ID tag on this collar. Over the years, we have had many cats come by. Any of them with collars were sent back to their families. For those cats without collars and who couldn't convince us they were tame, we took them to the dog pond to be euthanized. Where I live, the correct name for the place is the animal shelter but that seems like an odd name for a place that kills diseased and unwanted animals. Feral cats carry diseases and are a danger to our pets. They breed more feral cats and kill a lot of birds and other animals.
Enough of this for now.
Before Missy and Feller, I had another cat live with me. As anyone who shares a home with a feline knows, cats believe the home is theirs and they only tolerate the people living there too. Our first cat choose us for her family too.
We named this cat Calico because of her obvious beauty. She was probably about a year or two old, had been blinded in one eye by something penetrating it and was pregnant. No doubt she was a drop-off.
I'll never understand why people think if they drop an unwanted animal off in a rural area, it will somehow magically be okay. The animal usually stays on the road waiting for the owner to come back. Often it gets hit by a car or attacked by another animal. Drop-off animals get hungry and have no place to stay dry and warm. Somehow Calico had survived all this.
One day she saw my son playing in the back yard and thought he looked like a family she wanted. The child and cat said meow to each other and the first thing I know, the child is standing in my kitchen with the cat in his arms and asking if he can feed and keep her. I reminded him about not touching wild animals that came into the yard. Wild animals normally wouldn't come into the yard during the day and if they did, they might have rabies. My son assured me this cat was not wild and was healthy. He just knew it. The cat in his arms purred her agreement. Of course it had no collar and no one claimed it.
This brings me to another thing I just don't understand. Why don't owners put collars on cats? They usually put them on their dogs but not on their cats. Some people say that their cat doesn't like the collar. Then try another one. Or stand your ground. I always kept a stretchable or break-a-way flea collar on my cats. It is easy for a cat to get a paw or leg through a collar and not be able to get it out, if the collar doesn't stretch or break. I also put an ID tag on this collar. Over the years, we have had many cats come by. Any of them with collars were sent back to their families. For those cats without collars and who couldn't convince us they were tame, we took them to the dog pond to be euthanized. Where I live, the correct name for the place is the animal shelter but that seems like an odd name for a place that kills diseased and unwanted animals. Feral cats carry diseases and are a danger to our pets. They breed more feral cats and kill a lot of birds and other animals.
Enough of this for now.
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Great story Katie.
Tigger has a microchip implanted that he got when we moved from the mainland to Hawaii. At first I hated the idea, but I've grown to feel very good about it.
My neighbors dog got out and the shelter scanned the chip, checked with the registry and called to let her know where her dog was.
Tigger wears a breakaway color, but in 11 years he only set a paw outside one time when he decided to run outside. I caught him in mid-leap. LOL.
Thanks again for starting a writing blog. It's fun to come and visit you.
Darilyn
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Tigger has a microchip implanted that he got when we moved from the mainland to Hawaii. At first I hated the idea, but I've grown to feel very good about it.
My neighbors dog got out and the shelter scanned the chip, checked with the registry and called to let her know where her dog was.
Tigger wears a breakaway color, but in 11 years he only set a paw outside one time when he decided to run outside. I caught him in mid-leap. LOL.
Thanks again for starting a writing blog. It's fun to come and visit you.
Darilyn
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