Update On The Guest Cat

He seems to have gone away.  We haven't seen him for several days.  Last Sunday hubby found him in our bedroom, and once we got him out (by leaving him alone and waiting for him to find his way out on his own) we started latching the back door.  Our cats didn't like that too well, since they couldn't get in and out at will anymore.  The orange and white cat apparently didn't like it, either.  Hubby saw him at the end of the driveway (about 1/8 mile from the house) on Tuesday, but we haven't seen him since then. 

I doubt he'll be back.  It has been our experience that the dumped cats don't stick around if they can't get at some food and don't come back once they've been gone for a few days.  I'm guessing that he's going to go check out the neighbors' homes and see if they have any easily accessible eats for him, but I don't think he'll have any luck.  I know that the neighbor to the west won't have anything for him, and the neighbor to the south has dogs that aren't fond of cats. 

I feel guilty about the orange and white cat.  I wish that there was more I could have done with/for him.  I'm feeling guilty about not fulfilling some random asshole stranger's duty to this animal.  That really pisses me off.  Whomever's pet he was cared so little about him that they dumped him out here to fend for himself, and I'm the one feeling guilty.  I'm sure that the jackass is telling his-or-herself that it was giving the cat a chance at a better life or some such nonsense, but that's a pathetic load of self-deception.  When you dump a housecat in the country, chances are it's going to die.  If it's lucky, it will be killed soon after it's dumpage by a hawk or coyote, if it's unlucky it will die slowly of starvation, ravaged by parasites of one sort or another.  Only the lottery winners, like Bucky and Boo, find a happy home.

There are some country-folk who have a shoot-on-sight policy for dealing with dumped pets.  Considering the alternatives, I don't think that is unkind.  If I'd kept all of the cats that have been dumped here over the years, I'd have a couple of dozen cats now, and my home would be a health hazard. 

I've been able to find homes for some of them.  The family on the right here is a success story.  Mom - the beautiful calico - showed up here a few years ago.  She was incredibly friendly.  She'd been dumped along with a batch of kittens - a different batch than those in the pic.  Only one of those kittens made it up to the house with her.  We had seen a few others along the road, but they apparently fell prey to something along the way.

There were a couple of dumped tomcats up here at the time, one orange tabby and one grey long-haired, and they both appear to have impregnated Mom.  The pic on the right is that litter.  The grey kitten went to a friend who tells me he is the most spoiled and obnoxious kitty she's ever seen, but she loves him just the same.  The rest, along with mom and the kittens' aunt, went to a farm site that a friend was getting ready to move in to.  The kittens had been well-socialized - my grandkids saw to that.  There was a daycare center across the road from the farm site, and the cats moved over there so that they could play with the kids.  The cats and the kids are all happy with the situation, and some other cats have moved into the farm site outbuildings to replace those that moved over to the daycare.

There have been other successes, but for every success, there have been a couple of dumped cats who have disappeared - died of disease or hunger or predation.  It irritates the hell out of me.  I was taught that taking on a pet is a life-long commitment to a living being who is depending on me.  If I get a kitten, I'm making a 15-20 year commitment to care for that cat.  If I'm not prepared to make that commitment, I don't get the pet.

What were these people who dump their pets out in the country taught? 

FT