Feral Cat PSA

Time for a little public service announcement about feral cats. Yes, Tarquin was a Mensa kitty and quickly learned to adapt to living with humans. But it's not always that easy. His sister Mimsy (not a littermate) and her son, Rory, were also cats from our feral colony on Wright Street. In their own ways, they are friendly and have come to accept humans. But they’ve never gained the confidence of Tarquin. It took me 10 years for Rory to let me pet him; I think I’ve maybe picked him up twice. Mimsy is much friendlier and lets me pet her and pick her up. But it’s on her terms. Sometimes she’s just not in the mood. And if I reach my hand out a little too fast toward her head, she cringes. 

My TNR magnet

That’s why socializing kittens at a very early age is important. Technically, Tarquin and his bunch were too old for effective socialization (getting them used to be around and handled by humans)—they were at least four months old when we trapped them. According to Alley Cat Allies, a feral cat advocacy group, kittens eight weeks of age or younger tend to be easy to socialize. Kittens between two and four months of age often take more time and skill to socialize. Basically, no Humane Society or animal adoption group will take feral cats. They just aren’t “adoptable”—people want friendly and cuddly, not surly, aloof, and antisocial. 

I googled how many litters of kittens can a cat have in one year, and I found this fun fact from the Fayette (Georgia) Humane Society:

An average cat has 1-8 kittens per litter and 2-3 litters per year. During her productive life, one female cat could have more than 100 kittens. A single pair of cats and their kittens can produce as many as 420,000 kittens in just 7 years.

That explains the large numbers of kittens we saw running about our neighborhood. After Paws Chicago neutered the five we took in, I tried to talk up at Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) scheme with the other neighbor who fed the cats. In TNR, feral cats are trapped, neutered (they will be healthier and live longer if they are neutered), vaccinated, and eartipped before being released back into their stomping ground. Eartipping involves removing a small portion of the tip of a tip of a feral cat’s left ear. This signifies that the cat has been neutered and vaccinated; this ensures that a cat who has already been neutered won’t get trapped or have to undergo another surgery. It also says: I’m a feral cat. 

Unfortunately, our neighbor wasn’t onboard with the TNR idea. She explained that she felt they were God’s creatures and that we shouldn’t interfere. Frankly, I didn’t agree, but couldn’t do much. So many cats in such close quarters meant there was a greater risk of illnesses spreading and injuries happening. And unneutered cats fight more, resulting in more injuries. Case in point: Tarquin’s mama, Greta, showed up one day missing a couple of toes and part of her tail. We figure she had crawled up into a car engine to keep warm and someone started the car, which injured her. Another good thing to keep in mind—and we did this all the time on Wright Street—is to pound on the car hood before starting it up. It’s easy and prevents mishaps. 

Finally, Alley Cat Allies and other feral cat organizations recommend that people build shelters for the feral cats. We never got that far, since we had to move when our landlord announced his plans to demolish our rental house. Shelters protect cats from the elements, helps you control their location, and possibly prevents them from hanging out on neighbors’ properties (not everyone on the block was all that fond of the incessant cat parades going through their yards). Shelters should be about 2 foot by 3 foot and at least 18 inches high. Basically you’re looking for a shelter that will allow three to five cats to huddle together. 

I must be psychic, writing about feral cats. While checking out some of the articles on Alley Cat Allies' web site, I discovered that October 16 will be National Feral Cat Day. I think I need to make a donation in Tarquin's honor. 

Lofts

I'm not a fan of lofts. However, we had one in the old house we rented on Wright Street. They had renovated the house and made a loft bedroom that overlooked the kitchen. Since the kitchen was really one big open-concept room (all the rage now, but not my cup of tea) anyone trying to rest in the loft bedroom had a tough time of it if there was conversing going on below. And all the cooking smells went up there, too.

I sure do have a lot of relatives

Another bad thing about lofts--they aren't very animal friendly. One evening Lloyd was watching TV in the loft bedroom and fell asleep. The bedroom was designed with a railing overlooking the kitchen area below--sort of an indoor balcony effect--and there was a ceiling fan and light in the kitchen/entryway area, across from the loft. That particular evening, Lloyd woke up to see Tarquin walking back and forth on the railing--"Hey, look what I can do!" Then he (Tarquin, not Lloyd) spied the fan blades (thankfully not going at the time of this narrative) across from the railing. Tarquin started the head bobbing that cats do--I think it's how they do mathematical computations to determine how fast they need to launch themselves to reach their intended destination. Luckily Lloyd started sweet-talking the cat and got to Tarquin just as he was thinking about jumping onto one of the fan blades! Maybe he thought it was a kitty merry-go-round. 

As I've mentioned, Tarquin liked to sit by the back door and converse with the outside feral cats. They'd come up to the door and there would be much sniffing and cat conversing. One day Lloyd's brother was over and for some reason, we hadn't shut the back door tightly. In walked one of the feral cats. It suddenly realized the mistake it had just made, walking into the house. It panicked and somehow managed to climb the vertical blinds by the back door, perch on the valence over the door, and then leap up into the loft.

Swell. Now we had a panicked cat swirling around the bedroom. There was much thumping and clattering up there. Lloyd quickly went upstairs, armed with a fishing dipnet, and managed to herd the cat (yes, sometimes you can herd cats) toward the railing. Then it leaped back over to the valence and over onto a ledge by some windows on the south side of the kitchen. Said windows and ledge were probably a good 10 feet or more above ground level.Well, this isn't much of an improvement, is it?

We isolated Lucy, Brilly, and Tarquin in another room of the house and then propped open both the front and back doors. The humans were leaping about, wielding dipnets, and whooping and hollering at the poor frightened cat. It finally hurtled back over to the valence, leaped to the floor, and headed out the back door. All we saw was a fluffed-up black streak heading due West.

You'd think we would have learned our lesson about cats and lofts, right? Well, not exactly. Another time Lloyd again caught Tarquin doing his Flying Wallenda tightrope act on the loft railing. Cats are sure-footed, right? Not this time. Tarquin started to slip, and it looked like he was going over the edge. Lloyd grabbed his bathrobe and tossed it toward the struggling cat. Tarquin grabbed hold of the robe and Lloyd pulled him to safety. At that point the loft became off-limits to cats. It was a shame to have to do that, as Lucy and Brilly loved to snooze in the sun up there. But it was either close off the room or install barbed wire on the railing top.