Tales of the Feral Cats: Oreo’s Story

Today we reach the final day of the year in an adventure that has gone on for over three and a half years thus far. A lot has gone on over that time – some of it still feeling very surreal. Some things have changed, some things have remained very much the same, and all those usual tropes people throw around this time of year. One thing for me that has always remained constant is something that began over 45 years ago for me, when our family got our first dog as a pet – my love of animals. And so, with that love we have allowed quite the troop to become a part of our lives over these last three years, and this story is about the final member of the magnificent clowder of seven – Oreo.

Oreo is a bit of an enigma as we don’t really know when he started showing up. As I may (or may not) have mentioned in Tux’s story, we didn’t realize that there were two different black and white cats in the group until months after they started showing up and only after more attentive observation. So it could very well be that Oreo had been showing up before Tux, or they could have been together all along, and we just assumed they were the one and same cat. It was well into the first summer that I started to have questions about the wandering Tuxedo. At that point, neither one was particularly friendly and they always kept their distance. Of course I can go back and look at the few rare photos I managed to get of them and easily tell who is who at this point, but back then, it only started with a feeling that something didn’t look right one day when “Tux” was wandering through the back yard. At this point all the cats were making regular use of the ditch the groundhogs had dug under the back side of the fence, so we would routinely see them wander from the front, into the back and under the fence through the ditch. At one point, when watching the black and white cat, I noticed he had a black spot on the back of his left hind leg. Then another time, when he was wandering through, the spot wasn’t visible. Then there were a couple of times where I noticed the face, and one time the white came up to the chin and around the right side of his mouth. The next time, the face appeared all black, and looked a little more rounder than it had before.

So I got suspicious and started looking for these tell tale signs a little more closely. It took a few more weeks, as they tended to be a little more elusive and weren’t visiting at regularly convenient hours like the Orange Trio. But eventually, I was able to determine that indeed there were not one, but two separate Tuxedo cats. Tux had the white patch running up to his mouth, with his black and white hind feet sporting no distinctive spot, whilst Oreo had the rounder, all black face, and that spot on his hind leg. The confirmation was cemented one evening when they both happened to be wandering the street at the same time. They didn’t interact with each other, and each as more wary of the other than anything. One of them headed off past the neighbor’s house where the Orange Trio usually stayed, while the other eventually gave up his stalking and headed through our back yard. At that point, we had already been using the name of Tux, so we kept that for Tux and now had to come up with a name for the second Tuxedo. I had bandied about with Tux II and Edo in my head, but tossed those out in favor of the much better Oreo – for obvious reasons (the original Oreo cookie, and not all these other colors and flavors they have come out with since, of course).

Now that we knew there were two, we were able to make better observations and notice that Tux was definitely coming around a lot more than Oreo, at least during the times we could be home to observe the clowder, naturally. Neither Tux nor Oreo seemed to make use of the food and water left in the business parking lot, or at least not as much as the Trio and Midnight were. We presume they were making their home base in the junk yard, or the woods at the end of the street. I wonder now if they were part of a group or spawned from a group of Tuxedo cats from further down the main road. I just happened to notice a group of three or four of them wandering around a dirt side road one day while driving back to the house. I also wonder if Cookie also didn’t come from this group. Anyway, we were able to spot Tux at least a few times throughout the week while Oreo might be once or twice at the most. After the first winter, and as we entered the second year of watching after the group, I started making notes on the calendar every day we would see the cats. This gave us a broad indicator of their habits and allowed us to track them a little bit. I did it primarily because, as I mentioned in Patch and Scruff’s story, we didn’t see Patch at all for most of the winter, so I wanted to keep some record of when we last saw any of the cats, in case more of them pulled a disappearing act. It also became useful to make note of when other ferals came by, and we were able to pin down a few other very semi regulars.

But Oreo was just the occasional wanderer until we had our sunroom constructed in March and April of ’22. Once that had all wrapped up, Oreo wandered by one day, and hasn’t left since. He took up residence underneath the sunroom, and has been essentially a mainstay with the rest of the household. Once in a great while, we saw him wander off into the woods – usually to chase after one of the other cats, but he had pretty much made our back yard his permanent home. This has allowed me to get him to trust us more, but he is still very defensive and aside from Scruff, is the only one we have not been able to pet on a regular basis. While Scruff just maintains his distance, Oreo will bring out the claws and give a swat if a wayward hand or foot gets a little too close. He will scamper away if we keep approaching, but at this point, he does show more bravery than poor Scruff, and will tend not to scamper too far. For the most part, he stays put when he knows the food bowl is coming. While it’s comforting to know that Oreo is in a safe place and shows no interest in being anywhere else, there have been a couple of drawbacks to this situation.

First and foremost, he definitely has become territorial over the yard and will chase anyone else who wanders into it. He also has had a nasty habit of watching for anyone through the gap in the fence wandering through the street, and will come up to the front porch to stand guard, and eat the food we leave out on the porch for Patch and Scruff. Which brings up the second issue – he’s gotten to be a fat cat, quite literally. To us it seemed to happen overnight, but looking at a few pictures during the summer last year of Oreo handing on the steps of the sunroom, he blew up over the course of the fall and winter. At this point, we have limited how much we feed him to essentially a normal indoor cat portion, but we have to keep careful eye on him when he starts to head up front. He hasn’t been quite as bad as at the beginning, but he knows the food is out there for the all the other cats that come throughout the day. We do get a laugh or two out of it when he assumes the Jabba the Hutt position to do some cleaning, or rolls around like a barrel when we toss him a toy to play with. Which brings up something very interesting about our boy Oreo – he very much wants to be an indoor housecat.

During the Autumn last year, after it was clear that Oreo was a permanent resident under the sunroom, I set up one of the shelters we had made on the left side of the room, opposite the outdoor entryway, and positioned it so he could go in and out from under the sunroom. I remember thinking it was quite remarkable that it turned out that the elevation of the room above the ground was the perfect height to allow easy access to the hole in the shelter. Then I nailed up some extra siding we had left over from the unexpected project of having our house resided, around the three sides of the room to give Oreo a bit more privacy and protection (and to also prevent him from seeing anyone coming through the back yard from the ditch and  wood’s side of the house). So the big boy has his own little slice of territory to call his own. However, during one particularly cold spell last winter, I felt bad for him (especially since his size made it a struggle to through the hole in the shelter), so I let him into the sunroom, which was kept warm by a table top space heater we had bought. Turns out that good ole Oreo had no problems making himself quite a home inside. He quickly learned that a chair cushion was much more comfortable than a pile of hay, and he had no issues with figuring out what a litter box was for. As a result, we would let him in on stormy and cold nights for the rest of the winter and early spring. It got to the point where the first thing he would do when coming in would be to play the with toys we had in the room. He would even sit by the kitchen door and observe our indoor crew coming and going. At one point, they all would come and sit by the door with Oreo on the other side and just hang out, watching each other.

It got to the point where Oreo got so comfortable being inside, I started to wonder if he just hadn’t been an indoor cat prior in his life who had just escaped the house. It took some effort getting Tiger to use the litter box normally, whereas Oreo took to it on the first night. Aside from his defensive swatting, you would never think he was an outdoor cat during those times he was inside. Heck, I often had to coax him out with the food bowl just to get him back outside. Unfortunately, the side effect of having Oreo share the sunroom with the rest of the troop has been trying to fight the massive flea infection we inherited this past summer. Without being able to interact with Oreo physically, we can’t give him monthly treatments of flea medicine, so unfortunately, we can’t bring him in the house any more. I wish I had more time and ability to work with him because I think with more interaction, he will eventually drop that defensiveness and would be able to be a normal housecat and companion as some point in the future. But those pitiful meows he utters when on the sunroom landing and we are just hanging out together are hard to resist. He definitely wants to be inside. I have been contacting every shelter and rescue that I can since Cookie arrived to try to find one that has room for fostering cat, but so far, no one can take any more animals in, and I certainly don’t want any of them going from the freedom of being outdoors to sitting in a cage for who knows how long. I am hoping to make a connection at some point with someone who can take the big boy in and give him the love and care that he needs to become the healthy and happy housecat he deserves. In the mean time, we will be doing what we can for our standoffish, but lovable barrel roll, because at the end of the day, he has really become as much a part of the family as Tiger, Tux, Midnight, and now Cookie have become.

Tales of the Feral Cats: Midnight’s Story

Well, if you haven’t guessed by now, we have used a rather simple naming convention for the clowder of boys who have called our street their territory. So I guess it would come as little surprise how the last member (thus far) of the original group to become house broken got his name. And that leaves only one more fella to talk about from the originals before we reach our grand (almost) finale with Cookie – who we are still fundraising for by the way! I just want to send another thank you to everyone who has made a donation to Cookie’s fund over the last few months. Every single bit has helped us keep Cookie, and all the cats sheltered, fed, and healthy.

Midnight, the lone black cat of the group, though he does have a few white hairs dispersed about his coat here and there, with a group near the lower part of his throat – not enough to be a patch, but enough to be noticeable, so it seems there might be a Tuxedo in his heritage. So we had a couple of names for him, the first of which Abby came up with was Shadow. But since I already had a black Shadow in my past who was another rescue too, via my brother when he was working as a school janitor. Hmm, perhaps we might have an extension to our Tales stories at some point in the future. But anyway, Shadow as a name was out, so the next option that popped into my head was the one we went with. While his name may not be all that unusual, Midnight himself did turn out to be unique among the group. He was the only one who, from the outset was brave, or friendly, enough to allow us to pet him. Turns out it seems black cats tend to be more friendly, at least according to the vets when they were at the house for Tiger’s and Tux’s check-ups over the summer. While Hershey and Cookie observed from a distance, Midnight had no problems coming up to investigate and demand some attention. Of course he learned his lesson when we needed to make an emergency trip to the vet with him not too long afterwards. But yes, he would come right up to us for some attention and a good back rub before chowing down or moseying along his way. He did the same for the employees of the business behind our house. He spent a lot of time back there along with Patch and Scruff, since as mentioned, they had also set up food , water, and shelter for the strays. We would look out of our back windows and often see him wandering about the parking lot, greeting the workers as they came and went around the building. I imagine that they must have considered him a mascot at some point as it was pretty much a daily occurrence.

As I might of mentioned last month with Tux’s story, both Midnight and Tux seemed to have started coming around  about the same time, a couple of months after the initial trio were making their daily appearances. So at this point, we had confirmed five “little” ferals, and all but Tux we were able to somewhat confirm as boys throughout that time. And like Tux, Midnight wasn’t ear clipped like the trio was, so we assumed that neither one had ever been caught. With his friendliness, we wondered if he just happened to be an outside cat that had expanded his territory now that there were no dogs on the street, or perhaps someone who had originally been a housecat and unfortunately became a lost boy. At one point, after I was able to get him used to coming into the house to eat, we tried looking up some lost and found sites on the web to see if we might be able to track down an owner, but of course being an all black cat, actually trying to determine if the pictures on the web were a match for Midnight was a difficult task. We actually did find one spot that might have been a possibility and had sent an e-mail though the site to the person who had listed their cat as missing, but unfortunately, never heard anything back, so here he remains.

Looking back at that first year now, I take an interesting note that even with five strays hanging around the street on a daily basis, that they kind of did their thing in shifts. The orange trio always tended to come around together, eat, do whatever it was they did as they wandered around for a bit before heading out, then Midnight and Tux would put in their appearances and do the same. So we really didn’t have to worry about any cat fights and such. Though one early morning I did hear a scrap take place and later on that day, discovered a cut on Tiger’s ear. So it appears he did end up getting into a tussle with either Tux or Midnight at that time. Probably Tux as Tiger seemed more wary of him than Midnight once we started having the three of them in the house on a more regular basis. Midnight didn’t hang around Tux like the trio hung around with each other, but they at least seemed on friendly terms – that is “I won’t bother you if you don’t bother me type terms.” Although, once I started giving them wet food for the dinner time feeding, they actually ate together quite well.

Now during the first year of everybody coming around it appeared that Midnight generally kept to the junk yard between the business lot and the forest that ran along between the river and residential and business areas of our end of the town. We would see him most frequently coming from the field at the end of the street, and upon investigation found a couple of holes dug under the fence allowing small animals to come and go from the junk yard as they pleased. During the second year, all the cats seemed to come and go from that yard at one point. We could see trails in the grass from the field between the lot and our fence that lead from the hole under our fence to a hole under the fence to the junk yard. By this time Midnight had gotten used to the sound of my voice so I was able to call to him from over our fence and, if he was out in the lot, he would come running for feeding time. If he wasn’t, it only took a few minutes before he would pop up from the hole under the fence and be ready for food.

So it was during the second summer, with Tiger newly established in the house, that I thought I could at least get Midnight to make a conversion. So he and Tux also started getting the “good stuff” with dinner time, and like Tiger, I slowly acclimated them to coming to the back yard, then getting closer to the kitchen door. Eventually they were able to start coming in and get used to being in the house. Surprisingly though, despite his friendlieness, Midnight would come in, eat, and rest for a few hours but just didn’t want to stay in the house, so he would always beg to go out, and out he went until breakfast time. But he was quite generous with the “gifts” he would bring us during the time, and have him show up with a mouse in his mouth, or opening the door to find a present waiting for us started to become a weekly occurrence. He got quite used to the regular feeding time, so would always be waiting by the door in the mornings – during the winter, he would come in to eat, then head back out with me as I went to work. In the evenings, he would be waiting at the end of the street, and come running when I opened the door and called to him. One of these times, when I called and he came running into the house, I didn’t notice he had brought his own snack with him that day. So he came into the house, plopped himself in the middle of the living room and dropped a live mouse from his mouth. Of course that sent Shannon and the girls scrambling from the room in terror, allowing me to have a chuckle at their expense – after I scrambled to grab a paper towel and rescue the poor critter from his eventual doom. Midnight didn’t seem pleased with my decision, but all was forgiven once the food bowl made its appearance. Of course, it wasn’t too long afterwards that another gift was left on the front porch for me to clean up before the women of the household had to see the remains of a Midnight snack.

So that’s pretty much how the second year went with Midnight. Tiger had settled in quite comfortably. Tux was getting used to luxury of being an indoor cat, especially once winter rolled around, while Scruff, Patch, and Midnight continued their daily outdoor activities, which involved coming around more often and thusly encountering each other on occasion. This of course includes Oreo since we had identified him by this time as well. They seemed to generally keep their distances from each other, however it seems that Midnight or Oreo did eventually chase Scruff and Patch from their roost next door as this past year they were hanging around the business parking lot much more often and would be seen coming and going from the junk yard on occasion. They tended to favor playing on a back hoe that was parked next to the food bowl and home made shelter. Midnight was getting more comfortable in doors and, since this past winter, was more willing to stay in overnight and head out in the mornings when I went to work. He also started coming back in the afternoons by this time as well, just to hang out, grab a mid day snack, and maybe cat nap for an hour or two before heading out again.

One afternoon as we he was going out, he spotted a baby Blue Jay at the end of our walkway, and began to stalk it from the porch. I noticed Mama Blue Jay was hanging around up on the telephone and electrical wires up above the yard, keeping on eye on her baby. Fortunately, the youngster already knew how to fly, so was able to escape when Midnight made his move. Mama remembered him though, and Midnight began to pay the price afterwards. There were a couple of times when I happened to spot Midnight sitting under the neighbor’s pick up truck at the end of the street, and called him over to come in the house. As he got out into the open, away from any potential shelter, Mama Blue Jay would suddenly come sweeping down from wherever she had been perched and would dive bomb poor Mids until he finally made it to the porch.

By the time this past summer rolled around, the third since the ferals first appeared, I resigned myself to the fact that Midnight simply would be an Indoor/Outdoor cat, but not long before our annual vacation, there were a couple of instances where he never came back for dinner, which of course sent me to worrying about him until he finally reappeared in the morning to grab breakfast. I was also concerned that something could also possibly occur since there was a few days that Vultures had taken up roost in a tree at the edge of the field, and didn’t want him becoming someone else’s snack. There was also the issue of he and Tux occasionally getting into a sibling rivalry scrap every so often. It wasn’t one of those knock down, drag out cat fights, but just one of those wrestling type matches much like my brother and I got into as kids. Shannon’s father decided to keep him in the house for the week, just to make it easier on him with the feeding schedule since he would be taking care of the group while we were gone. We kept our fingers crossed and hoped for the best. Turns out, Midnight accepted it pretty well, and now he is finally a completely indoor cat – except for the occasional escape trick if we are not paying attention, and he happens to see Patch or Scruff outside of the door.

Not long afterwards, however, it must have been during one of these tussles that Midnight got a bite or scratch on his neck that then became infected. I noticed a slight bump forming just behind his left cheek. We kept an eye on it, but it just kept growing. I was hoping it would just resolve itself since, by this point, money was getting tight due to my medical bills, and the vet bills that started to accumulate because of Cookie. Unfortunately, after a few days, the abscess burst, and it was off to the vet Midnight went. Fortunately, a week of antibiotics cleared it up, and he’s been good ever since, but he did need to be a conehead for a week and it seems he is determined to pay us back for it. He has developed this annoying habit of jumping up on to our headboard in the wee hours of the morning when he wants our attention – particularly when he thinks it’s breakfast time. He also has gotten into the habit of clawing at the pictures and artwork by Abby we have (or had at this point) on the wall above the bed. A habit that Tux soon picked up on as well after we took away the mirror on our dresser that he had a tendency to paw at in the middle of the night. Despite this, Mids has settled in quite nicely, and doesn’t even beg to go out any more. Slowly but surely it seems he is starting to be a cuddler as well, often finding a favorite spot on the bed between Tiger and Tux to curl up into. So while it took longer than I would have thought, Midnight has become another official member of the family.

Tales of the Feral Cats: Tux's Story

Now that we have told the tale of the original trio, it has come time to move on to the next member of the clowder. By this time, we were fully in the grasp of the pandemic, but for our family work life continued almost as normal. It’s the unfortunate fact of living in a retail life. Plus we now had to juggle Erin doing remote learning for the remainder of her Freshman year of High School coupled with Abby’s day care being closed. If we could find positives during this time, it was the fact that we didn’t have to deal with a lot of traffic on the roads any more – it was almost like one of those post-apocalyptic movies, but the joy of having to deal with less idiots on the road was real. The other side benefit appeared to be an offshoot of that in that with less people out and about other wildlife began to roam around more often. For about a year after the pandemic started a few whitetail deer began roaming the street, and even nibbling on our bushes in the front yard. Even today, they still pop in now and again down by the field and the woods at the end of the street. We’ve had foxes and maybe even a coyote or two come around, which of course certainly made us nervous for the ferals’ safety. There was one time that I was investigating some noises outside by the field, and Tiger snuck out on Shannon when she opened the door to check on me. I was sweating bullets trying to coax him back into the house, but fortunately, he exercised the better part of valor and came back in for the evening.

I debated on whose tale I should tell this time around as it starts to get fuzzy on who made their presence known in exact chronological order, but I felt it might be more appropriate to go with who decided to become the next in line to join the indoor family following Tiger, and that would be Tux. Now in terms of who started wandering the street more and more around the spring and summer of 2020, it could be a toss up between Tux and Midnight. It seems they started coming around about the same time, a month or two after we fully identified the Three Amigos. The one difference was that Midnight was much more friendly (which we found out from the vet seems to be a tendency with black cats), while Tux was certainly more cautious and wouldn’t approach too closely, much like Scruff. We tended to notice Midnight more not only because of this, but he also seemed to hang out at the commercial business behind the house, along with Scruff and Patch. The three of them became such regulars back there that the employees created a make-shift shelter out of an Igloo cooler and also began to leave out food and water for the strays. But I think we can save more of that story for next time.

Yeah, let’s get back to Tux, shall we? Now one of the first things we noticed about Tux, and Midnight, were that they were not ear clipped, so we assume they were not caught by the local TNR program. So we thought they may have been more feral, even with Midnight’s friendliness, than the Trio. As for naming, well, it simply looked like Tux was wearing a tuxedo – he was mostly black, except for his paws, and a nice white patch that ran up from his belly to the bottom of his chin, which went slightly higher on the right side of his mouth. So, probably not the most original of names (I sometimes wish we named him Oreo instead – but we save that for Tux’s perhaps-brother), but it certainly fit. We didn’t even realize at the time that tuxedo was actually the official name for that pattern of coloring for cats. That I learned by another google search later on. But for the most part, we tended to see Tux and Midnight at the same time. It didn’t seem they quite hung out together like the Trio did, but they at least seemed to tolerate one another and would sometimes be hanging around the house at the same time, which of course usually was feeding time. While Midnight would come for a quick pet, Tux would always keep his distance and run off if any of us got too close. They weren’t showing up as often as the Trio were; by the late Spring into Summer, we were seeing the orange boys practically every day while we would see Midnight off and on – sometimes on the street and other times over in the business parking lot. Tux however seemed to be a once or twice a week at this time. He would come grab some kibble, maybe plop in the street for a few minutes then wander off again and we wouldn’t see him for a couple of days. But like the others, once he knew this was the prime spot to go for a regular meal, we could count on him making a regular appearance.

So over the summer, any time he came out to grab his breakfast, lunch, or dinner (since we were leaving the food out all day), I would take the opportunity when I could to go out and observe from a safe distance and talk to him. I did that for all the boys so they would get used to the sound of my voice and associate me with the good stuff they were there to get. All it takes is a lot of time and some patience. With Tiger, Patch, and Midnight, it was a lot easier as they seemed to trust me quicker than Scruff or Tux, but at least I was able to start developing that bond with them. Towards the end of the summer, Tux was comfortable enough that he would lounge about in the driveway or chill in the back yard. As the summer gave way to the fall, and I got the homemade shelters up and in place, it seemed Tux and the rest started hanging out around the house a lot more. I suspected that Tux and Midnight set up their overnight accommodations in the field behind the business parking lot where there were several trailers and other equipment about that could offer shelter from the storms and the predators. But once they discovered the cozy little hideaways I made, they started to make use of those. Tiger would take one I set up in the corner behind the shed. Another I kept in the front, at one point next to the porch which Patch had used a couple of times. I eventually made a total of four and shifted a couple of the shelters around trying to find the best spot for them to accommodate everybody. One I had on the other side of the shed from Tiger’s shelter, near the ditch they would use to get in and out of the back yard. Midnight seemed to favor that one. It wasn’t until one night, however, when I was bringing food out to put by the swing set that I finally discovered Tux had set up in the one by that corner. Naturally, he got spooked when I got close (not realizing he was in there), and took off running. But at least I knew he had found a nice cozy spot he could use near the spot where food was plentiful.

The only problem was that if cats get spooked while in the shelters, they’ll tend to avoid them. So I tried to be cautious when approaching any of them to avoid that scenario. Naturally, I still ended up spooking Tux a second time in that shelter no too long afterwards. That was the last time I was able to witness him using one of them. I eventually got the idea to rearrange the hay during the day, and then would check back on each shelter a few days to a week later to see if I could discover the telltale signs of someone sleeping in them. Sure enough, there would be a depression in the hay that indicated they were still being used. At least that put my mind at ease for the remainder of the winter, which was a good thing too. Since that first winter of 2020-2021 saw us get a good bit of snow. It at least made it easier to track the clowder’s comings and goings as I could see the imprints of little cat paws in the snow around the yard, and leading up to and away from the shelters.

We pretty much continued on this way throughout 2021 as at that point I was already working on getting Tiger to be more comfortable in the house, so the rest of the boys were still regulated to staying outdoors and just hanging around during the days, eating and catching mice at their leisure, many of which were left by our front door and walkway as signs of their affection. We would also occasionally see the remains of a bird every now and again, so had to take extra precaution with the Robins that would make nests in the trees around the driveway and back yard. There was more than one occasion we had to rescue a young fledgling that had fallen out of the nest. So when the summer of 2022 rolled around, and Tiger was celebrating his first year of being an indoor lap cat, I started to try to work on the next likely candidate. I thought maybe Patch and Scruff since they were more regular than any of the others, but it turns out that it was Midnight and Tux who became the unlikely volunteers.  At this point they seemed to hang around each other a bit more – not quite like Patch and Scruff, but enough that they would end up getting fed together. At this point I realized the drug that captures any outdoor cat is the almighty canned wet food. It was just the enticement that got Tiger inside, and it worked wonders on Tux and Midnight as well. Even so, I just never expected Tux to be as accommodating as he turned out to be.

It started one day in the driveway. Tux must have been especially hungry that day as he got fairly close to me as I brought the bowl of food out. I squatted down with the bowl to try to coax him closer, and to my surprise, he came close enough for me to reach out and give him a quick rub along the back. He scooted away immediately, but couldn’t resist the lure of that bowl of kibble. So I set it down where I was and he came over to eat. I didn’t want to push my luck any further, so just backed away and let him chow down. Of course, a day or two later, when I brought out a plate of the good stuff, I had him hooked. One whiff of that, and he no longer feared being so close to my presence. I would lead him to the back door, and give him a quick pet before setting the plate down on the grass next to our pebble walkway. Midnight soon caught on and would regularly join Tux in having a luxury outdoor dinner.

Once they were comfortable enough with that, I was able to do the same with I did with Tiger, bringing them closer towards the house and the back door which lead to the kitchen until such a time that I was able to entice them enough to take a few steps inside and eat from the plates on our kitchen floor – with the door still open right behind as a means of reassuring them that their escape route was open and available at any time. Over the course of the next couple of weeks I was able to lead them further and further into the kitchen until they were eating from the usual feeding spot, and I was able to keep the kitchen door closed. Tux especially was still quite a bit nervous, running for the door at any loud sound, but he eventually was able to understand that he was in a safe place, and would come in on his own for both breakfast (on my days off), and every evening for dinner. Like Tiger, he still wasn’t quite ready to stay indoors for a full night, but he no longer ate and ran either, he would actually stay a bit longer. It also helped that we had the sunroom completed that Spring, so they had a place that was like outdoors, without having to actually be outdoors to hang out.

It was at that point, that we noticed that both he and Midnight (who also hung inside a bit more often) would have coughing spasms on a regular basis. I worried that it might be something to do with heartworms, so I figured we needed to get Tux a vet appointment, just to make sure he was healthy, and to ensure that he could not increase the feral cat population while he was outside. So in late July of last year, I made an appointment for him and off he went to the Vet. Fortunately, it turned out that both Tux and Midnight didn’t mind being picked up and held, so it was easier to get him into the carrier and take him to the vet, instead of requiring a house call like Tiger did. Sure, he still wasn’t entirely happy about the experience, but it made my life a lot easier (and a bit cheaper). As it turned out, we lucked out again, as like Tiger, Tux was in pretty good health and there were apparently no worries about him procreating. He had either been neutered in the past, or had a condition that prevented him from being able to sire offspring. The coughing turns out to be cat asthma, which could require some potentially expensive treatment. Since it wasn’t immediately life threatening, we decided to wait on that and see if it became worse. In the meantime, he got his shots and home he came. The vet recommended we keep an eye on him for 24 hours to make sure there were no adverse reactions to the shots. So we decided to keep him inside for the next day, which he didn’t seem to mind too much. The day after, while I was at work, Shannon texted me in the afternoon to see if she could let Tux out, since he was sitting in front of the door, just staring at the outdoors. I told her it should be fine, so she slid opened the door and … Tux just sat there, looking at her. It seemed like he was quite comfortable where he was and really didn’t feel like going on a journey at that moment. So I came home, and Tux has been an indoor cat ever since.

Tux’s conversion has been the most surprising since he seemed to be the most standoffish and feral like of all the regulars. I never would have figured he would be one that we could get to be an indoor lap cat. But that’s exactly what he has turned out to be. Not too long after he made the decision to stay inside, I was sitting in the chair in the living room. I think I was watching TV or trolling people on a gaming forum through my phone, but Tux came over to the chair, gave me a quick glance, then hopped up and plopped himself into my lap. I was completely taken by surprise, since he hadn’t shown signs of that much affection up to that point in the slightest. But after a couple of rubs along his back, he buried his face in my stomach and purred himself contentedly asleep. So now, a year later, both he and Tiger have to contest with each other for lap time, and they both have their favorite spots to curl up on the bed at night. Never would have believed it in the proverbial million years, but he has been such a loving rascal that we can’t help but think our lives are a bit better because of him. Of course that is despite that rascal personality he has shown to have – like the time he snuck out on Erin when she opened the door to let Midnight in for dinner and he was gone most of the evening while Shannon and I were at Abby’s school for a parent/teacher conference. Or this annoying habit he started of standing up and clawing at the bedroom mirror in the middle of the night – every night – until we removed it from the dresser, only to promptly have him do it to the wall anyway … and the living room TV. But that’s our Tuxy boy and he certainly has made our lives interesting.

Tales of the Feral Cats: Patch and Scruff’s Story

First thing’s first this month: Cookie is doing good, though we are fighting a major flea infestation with the clowder right now. Most likely brought in during the times over the last year  that we let Oreo into the sunroom, and enhanced by Cookie’s arrival. The old guy is hanging in there, though, and as always, any donations towards his fundraiser so we can continue to pay off his medical bills and afford his ongoing care is greatly appreciated!

Moving on, a couple of things that somehow slipped my mind during Tiger’s story last month, starting with that unusual gait of his. It gives him a tendency to “Flop and Plop” or “Plop and Flop” as we interchangeably call it. Instead of that graceful, flowing movement from a standing to a laying position you would imagine cats to have, Tiger pretty much, well plops down and flops over. It’s more or less like a toppling over with style, though he hits pretty hard, so we’re glad the house is mostly carpeted to avoid any unnecessary bruising the boy would give himself. Tiger is also the only cat I have ever had who not only tolerates belly rubs, but rolls over like a dog and demands them during petting sessions. Once in a great while, if we do it long enough, that instinct will kick in and grabs and mouths our hand, but that’s rare. We kind of think he may have been raised by a pack of dogs at one point, because it’s just something I never witnessed myself in a cat.

With that out of the closet, we can now move on to Tiger’s two siblings, with whom he comprises the original trio of street wanderers that came into our lives. Thus we have Patch and Scruff. Of course we assume all three are siblings, because … well why not? At least in the case of Patch and Scruff, it seems most probably true. They share the same unusual eye color which is more of a greyish green, and have been pretty much inseparable over the course of the last three and a half years. Like I mentioned in Tiger’s Story, we aren’t really sure at this point who we spotted first, or who was who whenever we saw one of them wandering around in the early days. But through our observations, we were able to finally see enough features to distinguish the three of them apart. Tiger was the more timid soul, without any major distinguishing markings on his orange and white fur. Patch, like Tiger, favors more of the orange hue to his fur, but also has a distinct white patch on his chest and more white on his paws, hence his name. Scruff is more tan in color, like my good ole Willy was. Scruff also tended to look a little more worse for the wear, his fur more ruffled and less groomed that Tiger or Patch, and more of an unkempt appearance I would call it. In essence, he was a scruffy looking street cat.

This was when I also noticed that all three had the tips of their left ears missing. I had noticed Tiger’s first since we was more willing to get up close to me, and it wasn’t long before he came running for pettings every day after I got home from work. But as Patch and Scruff got a little more trusting, and wouldn’t just scurry off when I came by, I was able to see that they were missing their tips as well. When it was just Tiger, I had thought it may have been the scar of an old fight, but when I confirmed it was all three of them, and it was the same ear, my curiosity was piqued. So after a quick search of the Internet, I found out about TNR programs, and how they would snip off the tip of an ear to give a visual clue that a cat had already been trapped by the program and undergone the examination and neutering, so that they wouldn’t be caught again, and could go on with life as usual – minus the ability to make more street cats.

While Tiger is timid, he certainly showed more interest and bravado, I would say than either Patch or Scruff when it came to interacting with me, and so it became much easier to gain his trust and finally get him in the house than either of the other two. Patch and Scruff would always keep more of a distance, even after a summer of feedings. At that point, the feedings were becoming a wee bit interesting as we would fill up a dog bowl of kibble in the mornings and I would return home from work to find it empty in the early afternoons. Of course, it seemed natural at the time, considering there were three cats picking from the bowl, but it didn’t take long to figure out that we had other critters taking advantage of the offerings as well. It was the birds by day, and raccoons at night, with the occasional opossum and skunk sneaking in every once in a while as well. It got to the point where we had to chase off the raccoons not long after sunset. They then got in the habit of waiting until after I had refilled the bowl in the morning as I left for work in the wee hours.

That lead us to moving the bowl around quite a bit to try to find the most protected spot. For a while, it seemed we had found some protection from the birds by moving the bowl to under the elevated deck of the swing set in the back yard, but it wasn’t fool proof once the birds learned of the new location, and of course it did little to discourage the other wildlife. Ants started to be a problem as well as I would often come home to find a colony of them going after whatever scraps were left. But Patch and Scruff seemed to take it all in stride, and they seemed to be trusting me just a little be more as the summer began to wane. There was one point where I brought the bowl out for dinner one day while Patch and Scruff were waiting by the swing set and put it down near the slide while I just sat there, calling for them. Patch finally got enough gumption (or hunger pains) to finally come over and start eating from the bowl, just out of arm’s reach. But it was progress. Scruff not a chance of course. I had to walk a couple dozen paces away before he felt it was safe enough to begin eating.

Poor Scruffy, to this day, he is still too skitterish to let me come close, but I am gaining his trust little by little. Compared to where he was three years ago, and now, where he will almost come close enough to touch every once in a while, it’s a big difference. But it seems he hasn’t had the easiest of lives. He got his name because he always looked like he had just gotten roughed up in  a back alley, but at one point it also looked like he had gotten an eye infection in his left eye. For a few days, it looked a little swollen, not unlike the time half of Tiger’s face got puffy from what I assume was a bad encounter with a bee he was probably chasing one summer day. The swelling eventually went away, but the eye never looked right (no pun intended there), and there always seemed to have a squinty eyed pirate look about it. Even to this day, I can definitely see a difference in the pupils, where the bad eye doesn’t constrict in sunlight like the good eye does. I wouldn’t doubt that he might even be partially blind in the eye at this point. He also gets a swelling in his upper lip on that side at well on occasion. It doesn’t seem to affect his ability to eat, but it’s just another thing that poor Scruffy has to deal with on a regular basis. He does remind me a lot of Willy, who also had his share of issues for the 18 years or so I had him.

 

That was pretty much how the summer and fall went with Patch and Scruff. They would wander by whenever they were getting hungry and sometimes would even hang out a bit – playing and chasing each other around the yard. They did make one of the trees in the back corner of the yard their personal scratching post. Once in a while, we would find Patch chilling out on the deck of the swing set, from which the slide started, and was only reachable via a series of wood slats that formed a steep climbing ramp enhanced by those plastic stone things you see with indoor rock climbing walls. They certainly knew they had a safe place to hang around. However, I was starting to worry about how things would go over the winter. At this point, we really didn’t know how old any of the cats were. Just from their initial size, I estimated that they were at least full grown, they were certainly older than that cute, but awkward, teenager age and size. So I figured they were at least a couple years old at that point, and had seen at least one winter out on the streets, but I wanted to make sure they had more than just food and water, especially since the winters seemed to be getting colder around here.

So another Google search taught me how to make some cheap and easy cat shelters to put out around the yard to give the guys some shelter from the storms and the impending winter. I ended up making two to start off with, figuring that Patch and Scruff could at least share one of them. The only question was where the best spot around the house would be for them to go. Since, at the time, it seemed they were mostly hanging out under the stand alone deck of the neighbor’s, I could put one in the grove of bushes and trees that separated their property from our driveway, which is also where we usually put the food. The other I put out behind in the corner of the fence behind the shed, since they would also use an old groundhog access ditch to get under the fence and back to the fenced in industrial property behind our other neighbor’s house, which seemed to be the other regular spot for them, and the rest of the neighborhood wanderers.

Tiger took to the shelters right away and throughout that first autumn and winter, would see him regularly coming from the direction of the shed where the more secluded shelter was located. After Midnight and Tux started coming around on a more regular basis, I built two more shelters to ensure there were enough for everyone. At first, I ended up with two behind the shed, the one in the grove, and finally decided to put the fourth next behind the flowers and bushes of our front porch since, it seemed a little secluded there as well, and we had moved the food bowl there as well to try to keep the birds at bay. A couple of the shelters moved from time to time as I ended up startling Patch in the one by the front porch one day in the winter. That one I ended up moving to the corner of the yard near the swing set, and naturally ended up startling Tux a couple of times in the morning when he was in that one. But that at least gave me comfort knowing that all five of the cats were using them as some point over the winter months.

I don’t remember exactly when it was, but it was at some point during the winter that we didn’t see Patch as much as Scruff, and eventually it got to the point where we didn’t see him at all. This was very unusual since we almost never saw them apart when they came around. I always imagined that Patch was the older brother, looking after his younger sibling and giving him the comfort and protection Scruff needed. So I was quite worried when the days turned to weeks, and the weeks eventually added up to a couple of months through the course of December to February where we did not see one sign of Patch. Being street cats, you always have to wonder what kind of fate can befall your feline friends. I think it was that year that we had a couple of good snowfalls as well, and those little paw prints in the snow leading to and from the shelters was comforting evidence, but without visual proof of the cat in question, my mind always tended to fear the worst. I felt like I failed Patch and Scruff by not being able to care for and save the both of them, and I wondered how Scruff would get along without having his brother there to protect him.

Relief came one day in March, not too far from the year anniversary when we had first seen the strays and started putting food out for them that Patch made a reappearance on the front porch, looking for the bowl of food. At that point it had been about three, if not almost four, months since we had the last confirmed sighting of the little runaway. But he was back with the neighborhood family once again. I still wonder where he was and what he was doing all that time. I kinda figure he had to be coming by at some point, it’s just that we weren’t there to see him, but we’ll never really know for sure. Naturally, it wasn’t long after that Scruff seemed to pull a disappearing act of his own. I don’t think it was quite as long though. For the most part, ever since then, both boys have been making daily appearances. With rare exception, they’ll be out there in the wee hours of the morning waiting for breakfast, and then be back after I get home for work, eagerly awaiting dinner.

Their home base seems to have shifted over the last couple of years. They stilled seemed to be keeping house under the neighbor’s deck for a while after Tiger started staying inside with us, but I think Midnight, or one of the others ended up chasing them out of that spot as they started appearing more regularly from the groundhog ditch under the fence in the back yard. We would often see them roaming and playing out in the parking lot of the business behind our house. They, and Midnight, were such regulars there that the workers eventually started leaving out bowls of food and water for them every day, and one even converted an old igloo chest cooler into a makeshift shelter for them. So it seems they tend to hand out around the fenced in industrial yard for the most part nowadays, but also spent a lot of time lounging around on our front porch. Some days they are hanging out there all day.

The best news is that within the last couple of months, and partly in thanks to being home for two months during the Spring because of my heart attack, I was able to spend a little more time with the pair, and gained Patch’s trust enough to let me pet him. So now, when the food bowl comes out, he’s there waiting for some rubbings, and there’s days in the morning where I’m late because he insists on getting a good-bye pat on the head before I head off for work. They both did give us a scare last month when they stopped showing up for almost a week. We still have no idea why, but I suspect it might be because they ended up getting spooked by the new neighbor’s puppy while they were out there one day. They have another access point to the industrial yard in the neighbor’s house which they use now since Oreo has set up his fiefdom in our back yard, so the dog was probably out there when they were making a crossing one day and got chased off. Ever since then though, they are here faithfully every day. My hope is to eventually be able to get them inside and get them into a foster home that will keep them together, as they should be. But right now, with the addition of Cookie, and the fleas, we have quite the gaggle to deal with as it is. But hopefully, sooner rather than later, Patch and Scruff can finally feel what a joy it is to be safe and sound indoor cats. The fact that we were able to convert Tux and Midnight gives me great hope. But those are stories for another time.

Tales of the Feral Cats: Tiger's Story

Now that I’ve gotten myself to sit down and focus on our tales again, I was debating on who to start out with. I considered starting our adventures with the latest addition, Cookie, since he is the one we are fundraising for to be able to continue to keep up with is care. But I opted to start at the beginning, with the first feral who decided to join our ranks – Tiger. I thought it more apropos, plus I can keep mentioning Cookie in every episode anyway until we get to his part in the tale, so it all works out in the end!

As I mentioned in the introduction, it was right around the time the pandemic was taking hold of the world that Tiger and what we presume are his two siblings, Patch and Scruff, began to make themselves noticed on our little cul de sac. It started out with spotting one of the orange boys walking through the neighbor’s bushes across the street, or popping out from the grove next to our driveway. Of course, how could we resist leaving a plate of food out for the poor little guy (or gal, as we just didn’t know at the time)? It’s strange how things tend to work out. Had Marley not passed away a few months before hand, we probably never would have had the opportunity to see the ferals at this point, if at all, and have the extra bowls laying around to use to supply them with the food and water. One of our other neighbors had mentioned seeing kittens roaming around the back of her house when they had moved in a few years beforehand, and we all started to wonder if the orange one we were seeing could have been part of this litter. At this point, what we thought was the one we were seeing appeared to be a full sized cat, so that would have put their age at around two or three years old, so the timing could have fit.

Anyway, it was maybe a week or so after we started putting the food out and keeping a closer watch to see when he would come by to eat that we noticed the lone orange wanderer had a friend. I remember looking out of the kitchen window checking out the bowl were we normally left it – at the edge of the grove next to our driveway and seeing the orange cat eating. I don’t recall if we had named him at this point or if it wasn’t until after we confirmed the presence of all three. But Patch was the one eating at the time, so as I observed him chowing down, I noticed a face peeking out from the bushes a few feet away from Patch and the bowl, and this turned out to be Tiger sitting there, waiting his turn. I did a double take because I wasn’t sure if I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing. But sure enough, there were two orange cats. I called the family over and they confirmed I wasn’t imagining it. Then as we were staring, we spotted a third guy back in the shadows next to the fence for our back yard in the grove.  So it was that we had a trio of orange wanderers gracing us with their presence.

By this point, we ended up naming all three of them as over the course of the following days and weeks, with more careful observations, and the bravery from the trio as they learned they had a safe place to wander and keep the bellies full with easy pickins, we were able to distinguish the three of them apart. Abby decided on the name for Tiger because, well, he looked like a miniature tiger, so it seemed to fit him perfectly. I came up with Patch and Scruff as the former had a distinct patch of white on his chest, and the latter seemed like he had been roughed up a bit every time we saw him, so had a very scruffy look about his face and fur. But it ended up being Tiger that seemed to hang around the most, and seemed to have more than a passing interest in me other than knowing that the food bowl came from my hand. He would often be waiting in the grove for the time I would come out in the morning to fill the bowl up before work, and then be there when I would refill it after coming home. He was still cautious, not leaving the security of the prickly bushes until I had stepped back a safe distance before coming out to eat. But over time, that safe distance began to grow smaller and smaller. It got to the point to where I was almost close enough to touch him when he was in the bushes without him running off when I got too close. One time, while I was in the backyard, Tiger came around into the yard through a gap in the fence from where a panel had fallen during a storm and we just left it to lean against the rest of the fence. He started to approach me and see what I was doing. The family were out sitting on the patio furniture, watching as he was approaching me. I sat down on the grass and he just came over and plopped down about a foot away from where my feet were resting. And there we sat for while just hanging out together.

The turning point occurred a few months later, during the summer when I had brought the bowl out one morning on my day off. All three were out in the grove waiting for the food quite impatiently as they were used to the normal very early AM feedings five days a week, so a late morning feeding was very late indeed for them, but sometimes I do get to sleep in once in a while. So I come on out and head over to the grove. By this time Patch and Scruff had begun to trust me a little more as well, but still not quite as much as Tiger. But they must have been especially hungry that morning as all three of them came out of the bushes when I put the bowl down and only took a step or two back to let them have at it. Patch and Scruff immediately jumped in, leaving Tiger to try to force his way into the bowl, but he was the less aggressive of the three, so kept getting pushed out. So he stood there, with is back to me, just looking on as his two brothers chowed down, and probably wondering if there would be any food left for him by the time they were done.

I felt bad for Tiger of course, so while he was unaware, reached down and stroked him along the back, telling him it was going to be OK. He jumped a little bit when I touched him, then looked back up at me as if to ask what had just happened, unsure of what he just felt. I told him it was OK again, and gave him another gentle stroke. At that point, Patch and Scruff, after having filled their bellies a bit, realized that I was still right there and that something was going on, so backed off into the grove again, and Tiger eagerly jumped at his opportunity. But that was all that was needed. After that moment, Tiger realized that I was someone he could fully trust, and get some good feels from as well. He and his brothers seemed have made a home underneath the elevated deck the next door neighbor to the grove had in their back yard, and every day after I got home from work, as soon as my car beeped when I locked the door, Tiger would come running around the corner of the fence, from the neighbor’s yard, through the grove and rub up against my legs and plop down for his daily petting.

It was also at that point that I really noticed that he had a strange gait when walking, and running especially. And when he would plop to the ground, it wasn’t this gentle sit to laying down motion, but one where his hind quarters would literally just fall to the ground and the front quarters would follow. It almost seemed that he didn’t have complete control or coordination over his back legs and hind quarters. When he would run, his gait would look almost like the back of a car skidding out on a patch of ice. I had recalled that there was some condition or disease that cats could contract that would cause this kind of disability and had looked it up at one point, but can’t recall it now off of the top of my head. I still wonder if this is the cause of Tiger’s unusual movement, but over the years, it doesn’t seem to be much of an issue otherwise. He still has no problem chasing the other invaders off of the bed at night, nor being able to jump up on the table or counters in search of more exciting things to eat.

Anyway, the daily pettings carried on from the summer into the fall, as Tiger showed more of his gentle and playful personality. Throughout September, he would always follow me to the back door that led to our kitchen, so I would sit on the steps after work as he would climb up to the top stop and plop for pettings. After the September chills started coming around, he began to just plop in my lap and wouldn’t move until I absolutely had to get up and get in the house for dinner. One time, he got so cozy on my lap that he fell asleep. I sat there watching him breath, and noticing a paw twitch with a dream every now and again. It was at that point that I was so grateful that he was there, and was something that made me feel good deep down inside, especially after what we had gone through for the last six months. Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t because of Marley, looking out over the rainbow bridge guiding the ferals and us together, knowing that we would need each other to help us through this time in our lives.

Not long after that, I started introducing Tiger to the kitchen door and Hershey, as she would always be on the other side, meowing as if I betrayed her. After a few weeks, as Fall really started to take hold, Tiger would be brave enough to come inside and hang out around the door, and even let Abby come over and pet him. He also started to get fed while inside as well – and not just the dry kibble, but the good stuff out of a can. Tiger realized pretty soon that being indoors was a good place to be, especially when it was raining or cold outside. But he still had that outdoor cat itching, and would always be waiting to go out after dinner. One day, when Shannon was coming home from work, a flurry had started up and the ground had a slight dusting of white upon it. As she got to the back door, she noticed Tiger off in the corner of the yard, where it was sheltered by an overhanging tree. She called his name, and he came running as she opening the door to go in. In he came, and he hasn’t really left since. That was the first time he stayed in the house overnight, and went out as I went to work in the morning. That became the ritual through the winter, and after one occasion where there was a slight drizzle one morning, he opted to stay in during the bad weather as well.

There was, however, one incident in early November, before Tiger got really comfortable staying too long in the house where Hershey must have smelled something strange on him and turned into Crazy Cat. She would do that every once in a while with Marley, and with me on one occasion after I had come in from mowing the lawn. She would just turn insane and growl like she was ready to commit murder. She did tear up my leg pretty badly that one time. I don’t know what it was, but she gave that growl after sniffing Tiger, and you could see the fear in his body. Then she went after him. The only thing I could do was open the door and let him run for his life. That was a bit of a set back as it took two weeks before I could finally coax him back into the house, and that was only after I had locked Hershey up in a bed room. Fortunately, there were only one or two other times where she had gone Crazy Cat on one of the ferals. After we finally got her spayed (because of all the spraying she did in the house after more of the ferals started showing up) she calmed way down – but that perhaps will be for a story of her own in the future.

That’s the way it went through the Winter and Spring. Tiger would come running when I got home from work, would come inside for dinner, then settle down for a cozy overnight stay – even going as far as picking out his favorite chair or spot on the bed. Then Summer came along and our annual vacation, which included a week’s trip to Hershey Park. I was in a bit of a quandary because Tiger was used to the routine of coming in and heading out on a daily basis, and he was pretty insistent on going out unless there was a pretty significant downpour going on. I didn’t feel real good about leaving for a week and having him just stay outside for that whole week. Normally my parents would come over and take care of Marley and Hershey during our vacations, but the pandemic had changed those plans, and there was no vacation away from home the summer previous because of that. By that time, I had made Tiger’s first vet appointment for the week prior to our vacation. Despite him having become a cuddly lap cat, he was deathly afraid of being picked up. So this appointment was going to be a house call. So at that point, I determined that we were just going to keep him inside to see how things went. First of course, he needed to stay in so he would be around for that appointment, but us being home for a week would allow for more observation and control of being able to keep him inside.

So Tiger was kept in the day before his appointment. He didn’t seem too upset about it, though we had to be very careful going in and out of the house as he would bolt for the door when he saw an opportunity. The appointment went well, though he was none too pleased of course. He got his shots and the vet recommended he stay in for observation in case there were any reactions, which worked out with our plans anyway. After the first couple of days, it seemed like Tiger settled into the fact that being a completely indoor cat wasn’t so bad after all. He survived the week, and both he and Hershey got used to the fancy new automatic feeding bowls I bought them for our time away. Since then, he has been a loving, and often entertaining, member of the family. I am so glad for that, and for the effort I made to be a companion to him. I think Tiger saved my life as much as I may have saved his.

Tales of the Feral Cats: The Beginning

 

Before I get started, I need to do some begging and pleading for one of the fellas that will be part of this ongoing series in the blog. Cookie is the latest addition to our clowder. He’s a senior cat with some health issues. Unfortunately, due to a couple of expected large bills, and then a few unexpected ones, our financial situation has made it difficult to be able to take on more expenses for the kitties. So I have started a GoFundMe to help us take care of Cookie’s medical needs. Please help us out in any way you can with a donation, or via picking up some merchandise in our Design by Humans store. Thank you!

 Sometimes fate has a funny way of working things out. Feral cats and dogs can be found in pretty much any community. Over the years in our little neck of the woods, we would see a few street wanderers out and about on occasion. However, they knew to stay well enough away from our cul de sac due Marley and the dogs of a couple of our neighbors. But within a relatively short span of time, the neighbors either moved, or the dogs passed on, like our beloved buddy, Marley. Not seven or eight months later, in the late vestiges of winter and early peeking of Spring 2020, we noticed some new neighbors wandering the ‘hood. They came in the form of three orange tabbies. It seemed that they made their appearance at just the right time, as just a short while later, the world changed.

 It began with the occasional glimpse of an orange tabby walking around the bushes around the houses on the street, and in the copse between our driveway and the neighbor’s house to the left. After careful observation, it appeared that they may have been taken up residence over the detached deck the neighbor had in the backyard. Underneath was the perfect spot to hide and stay relatively dry from the rain, and cool from the sun. At that time, Hershey was the last of the pet family left for us. Willy and Flash, my cats from before I met my future wife, has passed away a few years beforehand, shortly after Hershey was brought to us by our then brother-in-law on my wife’s side. She was a runt, at the end of her kitten years he had found in the warehouse where he was working at the time. She was a small package with a big attitude. Anyway, we made use of Marley’s food bowl, and Hershey’s spare kibble and started putting food out for the tabby just on the edge of the copse. A few days later, upon checking through the kitchen window, we saw the tabby at the food bowl, chowing down on the morning meal. After a minute or so, we finally noticed another face peeking out from one of the bushes. It appeared that there were not one, but two orange tabbies to contend with.

 The first tabby was christened Tiger by our then 5 year old daughter, Abby, because he looked like, well a miniature Tiger. The other tabby we named Patch as he had a large patch of white fur on his chest. It wasn’t long afterwards, on a day we say Patch at the bowl that yet another tabby made his presence known. This one was more tan than orange, and reminded me a lot of Willy with his coloring and what turned out to be skittishness. He got the name of Scruff because he looked a little more worse for the wear than Tiger and Patch, like he had been roughed up a bit. Over the course of the next few weeks, we noticed that Patch and Scruff tended to hang out together more so then either one of them with Tiger. We also noticed they had the most striking greyish-green colored eyes, so made the assumption that they were brothers. Tiger’s eyes were a piercing yellow, but he could very well be from the same brood as well, but Scruff and Patch certainly seemed to have more of a close bond and relied on each other much more. Tiger also seemed the more daring of the trio, tending to stick around a bit longer to investigate us when we were outside, and tending to come a little closer than either Patch or certainly Scruff were willing to venture. It was then I noticed that Tiger had the tip missing from his left ear. At first I thought he just had been on the wrong end of a cat fight in his past, until closer observations of Patch and Scruff revealed the same thing. I thought it was a very odd coincidence that all three would have a tip missing from the same ear, so did a little investigating on the Internet and learned about the concept of TNR – Trap, Neuter, and Release, which is a program that will trap street cats to be taken to a vet for a health check and neutering/spaying. Afterwards, they are returned to their home turf. It aids in keeping the stray cat population in check, and helping to ensure that the kitties remain as healthy as possible. The “ear tipping” is an easy means of identifying which cats have already undergone the process so they are not trapped again.

 

My First Two - Gandalf and Tigger

 As Spring crawled along, and we drifted our way through the early weeks and months of the pandemic, another stray made his presence known. This one was an all black tabby. He also seemed much friendlier than the orange trio as we noticed him going up to several workers in the parking lot of the business that butted up against our backyard fence. He would also approach us and let us pet him when he was wandering down our street. It seemed to us that Midnight would be a fitting name, plus Abby’s first choice of Shadow had already been taken up by another one of my previous cats from years before. By that point we assumed that word was getting around the Meowing Chain that there was a good, safe spot to get some grub as along with Midnight a black and white short haired tabby also started showing up on a regular basis. He received the name of Tux due to the fact that he looked like he was wearing a tuxedo. It wasn’t until later that we found out that Tuxedo was also the name for that particular coloring of domestic short hair, but the name was stuck by that point. Occasionally, we would see a few other stragglers – a tortoise shell we named Brownie, a grey and white short hair we called Stormy, and another all black tabby we called Ebony. But they weren’t as regular as our pack of five, and over the last couple of years, we still only catch the occasional glimpse of Brownie every couple of months or so. Within the last few months, a black and gray striped tabby started showing up at feeding time every day. We started calling him Smokey. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen him in the last few weeks as one of the neighbor had their daughter’s family move back in which included two large dogs. So since Smokey tended to come from the direction of their house, across the street from ours, we think the dogs have been keeping him away.

 But the stories I will be relating here over the course of, well however long I keep at it in this blog, will be focusing in on what we have considered the six “lifers” of the street. The ones who have been around the longest that we have seen, and are the ones we see on pretty much a daily basis. Which reminds me, we still have one left to introduce – that would be Oreo. He was the last of this six to make an appearance, and it took a while for us to realize that he was indeed a sixth kitty. You see, he also was a Tuxedo who happened to have his coat pattern very similar to that of Tux, so we are pretty certain we confused him with Tux in the early going. It wasn’t until I started paying closer attention to their faces, and the back of their legs that I finally spotted some differences between Tux and Oreo. The former had a more angular face with a stretch of white running up the left side of his chin to his mouth. Oreo’s face is much rounder, with no white around his face. I was also able to discern that Oreo had more white running up his right hind leg, with a nice black spot on the back. Tux’s hind legs just blend from white to black with no spots.

 And so that’s how our clowder of street cats came to be. It began not a moment too soon or too late, I think. Because, over the last three years, I think they saved us, and me in particular, as much as we have done to save them. And so, this is where our tales will begin. I hope you all will enjoy these stories. And please, if any of you can help us out with the latest addition, Cookie, with a donation it would be much appreciated.