So, here's the deal. Anyone who follows me on social media or who
talks with me for any length of time IRL knows that there are a lot
of cats in my life.
That's not really on purpose.
I mean, I like cats, a lot. They're definitely my favorite animal.
If I were an animal, it would be a black cat. I've had cats as pets
since I was 10.
But... this is a bit more than that. See, the neighborhood I live in
has a lot of feral cats. Probably when people moved out of houses
they left cats behind, or just dumped them in the empty lot/farm
down the street, and then they had babies, and now there are just
many cats.
We feed some of them, and several of our neighbors also put out
food, and we've trapped 7 and taken them to the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon to
get them fixed.
Here's the cast of characters:
Frankie Meowface
Frankie Meowface - RIP, bestest of cats. Frankie showed up several
years ago, and, unlike everyone else in the neighborhood, she was
definitely a stray, not a feral (that is, she was super into humans;
feral cats have not been socialized with humans). She pretty quickly
learned 1) that we were suckers, and 2) how to get into the house -
including via the skylight. And then she determined that it was
definitely her house, and we were her people. But she was also a
sweetheart to everyone and maybe a bit of a party girl - she would
hear clinking of bottles at our neighbor's and run across the street
to join the party. One neighbor called her the "neighborhood
strumpet." Devastatingly, Frankie was hit and killed by a car in
April, 2017.
Willa
Willa's been around for awhile, probably the longest of the
current roster of cats. Originally known as "Leroy's girlfriend"
because she would follow Leroy (the giant orange feather duster who
eventually moved away) around the neighborhood. Sometimes she'll see
us coming around the corner and will follow us home and then ask for
headbutts - we put our hand out and she butts her head up against
it. And then sometimes she gets feisty and instead she whaps at your
hand with her paw. Her ear is tipped, so at some point someone must
have gotten her fixed.
Gremlin
Gremlin was very grumpy, kinda gross (or at least a
gross eater),
and a reluctant mother. She had two adorable tuxedo kittens, Muffin
and Mogwai, somewhere near our backyard, and we saw her
watching
over them several times back there. Once they got old enough
to eat dry food, she showed them the food on our porch, and then not
too long after that she took up residence on the office chair on the
front porch, and got really annoyed when the kittens still tried to
follow her around. Unfortunately, the FCCO discovered that the wound
on her face was really an infected tumor, and so they put her to
sleep.
Mogwai
Little asshole cat. Has the best faces - mostly of the grumpy and
"ohgodohgodohgod" variety, with occasionally very cute but totally
begging. She rules the porch
Muffin
Most adorable little tuxedo kitten and I love her so much
and I just want to be her friend! She seems to be permanently catten
(somewhere between kitten and cat) size. She follows Zero-Day around
and it's so cute. Sometimes they
eat from the same
bowl. She's pretty bad at eating - when she was a kitten and
we used to put out food in tupperwear containers she would push the
container all across the porch (which is why we finally got some
ceramic cat food bowls). Sometimes we don't see her at all for a few
days, and then she'll show up again and meow for food (which is so
cute omg).
The story of the three identical black tomcats
So alright, when we first decided to catch some feral cats and get
them fixed, we only thought there was one black tomcat. We called
him Glitch because if you saw him out of the corner of your eye you
thought he was Frankie. Our cat-catching goals were to get Gremlin
and the kittens, with a stretch goal of getting this tomcat Gremlin
was hanging out with. Our first night of setting the traps, we
caught Glitch and the two kittens, but had no luck with Gremlin. But
then while the three of them were at the FCCO having their
operations we put out more food for Gremlin... and A SECOND black
tom showed up with her. Thankfully we managed to catch both of them
(or so we thought) and take them to the FCCO to get them fixed, but
then while MissingNo (the second black tom) was cooling his heels in
our basement (i.e. recovering from surgery) we put out food and A
THIRD black tom showed up (we knew it was a third cat because he
didn't have a tipped ear). Goddamnit. We named him Zero-Day, and we
realized that he was probably the cat we had been seeing with
Gremlin all along, because the kittens seemed to be familiar with
him (and Muffin still follows him around). We finally managed to
trap him and get him fixed summer of 2017.
Glitch
The first of the 3 identical black tomcats. Very skittish, although
sloooowly becoming less so since he was fixed. He mostly hangs out
on the porch across the street, but he's been coming over a bit more
reliably, and he really seems to have chilled out. He can now
sometimes be found flopped out on the porch stairs across the
street. He's identifiable by his super pointy ears.
MissingNo
2nd of the identical black tomcats. Named after the most famous of
the Glitch Pokemon. We caught him second (or so we think? honestly
who knows - he was one of the first two, with Glitch). We haven't
seen him since (unless we have?) - we think he was just wandering
through and had a really bad day.
Zero-Day
Big big big sketchy boy. A bit less skittish than Glitch, with less
point ears and a wider face. Very big and very sketchy. He's got
some scarring on his face from getting in fights. Often naps on our
back picnic table; it took us a long time to catch him because he
didn't often come by for food, just to sleep on the table. Muffin
follows him around - she loves him soooo much and he seems to
tolerate her. We finally trapped him and got him fixed summer of
2017. (And we didn't manage to get him the first day; we trapped
Bruce and then didn't trap Zero until the next morning and had to
make another trip to the FCCO for him).
Bruce "Wipeout" Jones, III
Sketchiest cat; giant grey and white fluff. So named because one day
we were walking home and he was up on the porch eating. He saw us
and ran off to the side of the porch as we climbed up the stairs...
but then he realized he was too big to fit through the porch
railings so he had to escape past us down the front steps. He
Tokyo-drifted down the first set of stairs then launched himself off
the landing and onto the street. He's just this big ball of grey and
white fluff! He was getting less sketchy but then in July of 2017 we
finally trapped him to get his balls chopped off at the FCCO and
we've only seen him a couple times since then.
Eclipse (Fluffy Cat)
A new edition, summer of 2017. Super fluffy and pretty! We don't
know her story yet, but we think maybe she was someone's cat and
they dumped her, but now she's been on her own for a while and so is
pretty skitty. We might try to see if she'll become a people-cat
again.
The Skunk
Okay, not actually a cat, and probably there's more than
one, and we try not to feed it, but sometimes it gets food anyway
and then seriously what can we do, it's a skunk. TBH it's pretty cute
though.
