The Guest Cat

We have a visiting cat.  He (I think he's a he, but haven't been able to get close enough to know for sure) is in our bedroom right now.  He's a big orange and white guy.  We've propped the back door open and are hoping that he'll work his way outside pretty soon. 

He wasn't invited, and I don't think that he really wants to be here.  He's not really people-shy or he wouldn't be sneaking in the house, but he's not friendly.  He runs whenever we come near.  He looks pretty healthy and well-kept.  My guess is that someone dumped him out here. 

In the eight years we've lived out here, we've dealt with a couple of dozen dumped cats.  They were all obviously someone's pet, but not anyone around here or they'd go home and get something to eat.  I've found homes for about half of them.  The rest have been too skittish to socialize and find homes for.  They look okay when they get here, but before too long they start looking pretty skinny and scruffy, then eventually we just don't see them anymore.  I assume they get sick and die or a coyote or hawk gets them. 

My cat, Bill, pictured at left, is 17 years old.  He was an only cat for about a year after my cat, Bob, died about 3 years ago, of diabetes at age 15. 

While Bill missed Bob, he enjoyed being king of the castle after Bob passed on.  His face changed - he'd always had this sweet, wide-eyed look, but he developed a kind of regal scowl and a bit of a strut after a year of being in charge of the household.

While we love Bill and are doing what we can to keep him healthy and happy, hubby and I are way tired of the cat box and having cat hair all over everything.  On top of that, I have a mild cat allergy.  When I pet them I have to wash my hands right away.  We were looking forward to being cat-less when Bill was no longer with us. 

This was not to be.

In March of 2008, a kitten showed up on our doorstep.  I'd guess he was about 3 months old.  He was sweet and friendly, and just kept hanging around.  I tried to ignore him and rather hoped he'd just go away.  He didn't. 

One day I came home from work and he was sitting on the stairs at my daughter's house (halfway down my driveway).  It was sleeting and he was covered with ice.  I tried not to look at him, but told hubby about it when I got to our house.  He went down and picked the poor little thing up and brought him home. 

That's him - Bucky - on the right, taken today.  He's a big, sturdy, handsome boy.  He's got lovely bed manners.  When he stays in the house at night he curls up by our feet and just stays put.  He likes to lay by my feet when I'm sitting in the living room and is a wonderful footwarmer.  He helps me in the garden and accompanies me when I'm hunting wild berries along the edge of the woods.  And he's a fabulous mouser.  We got through last winter without seeing a single mouse or hearing any in the walls.  That was amazing. 

Bill wasn't too happy about it, but Bucky seemed to respect Bill's supremacy inside the house, so they reached a kind of truce and managed to get along.

Hubby and I talked about what we'd do if another cat showed up.  We had run out of homes for them, we didn't want them dying or getting killed, and we felt really bad for them.  It wasn't their fault that their owners were low-down scum, and they didn't deserve to suffer.  On the other paw, there was a limit to what we could do.  We can't feed feral cats without attracting racoons and possums, so we decided that any cat who was friendly and wanted to be part of our household could join us. 

Then we met Boo.  He showed up here a week before Halloween last year.  He was just a few months old, and uberfriendly, loving everyone and everything.  He's sable, but looks black.  A pretty boy.

He's also a huge pain in the butt.  He doesn't understand anything about social interactions in either the cat or human worlds.  When he wants cuddles, he will not take no for an answer and will cuddle up to anything with a pulse to get some loving. 

He got himself all kinds of beat up here a while back, I assume cuddling up to some critter that didn't want to be cuddled up to.  We found him covered with mud with a mangled tail and ripped up toe out on the back porch.  We cleaned him up and fixed him as best we could.  He got himself beaten up to a lesser extent quite a few times after that, coming home with gashes on one part of him or another.  Fortunately for us, he didn't object much to the application of peroxide.  Any cuddling is good cuddling in his world, and holding him down was just a snug cuddle, I guess.  He seems to have wised up a bit and hasn't been injured in a while.  I wouldn't have thought he was capable of figuring this out, but I guess he's smarter than I thought he was. 

So we're trying to get friendly with the orange and white guy before winter.  If he will get social and let us pet him and such, he'll have a home for the winter.  If he doesn't get friendly, he's probably going to die.  That he's getting skinny and keeps sneaking into the house to eat leads me to believe that he's not much of a hunter.  I'm going to work on him some, but I don't have much hope that he'll get friendly.  He's an older cat - a couple of years, at least - and they just don't form new attachments that easily.  We'll see what happens with this guy.

FT