The Strays

It was a cold and wintry morning.  It had snowed through the night.  Beside our house, inside the hedge, lay a mother cat and her three kittens.  She shielded them from the weather the best way she knew how.  My son, upon observing this, came into the house to get cat food for them.  We already had two cats of our own inside the house, so we had plenty of cat food to spare.  He laid food on a paper plate and placed it a short distance from them.  He knew he could not get real close since she and her kittens were wild.  This incident became the start of something that has lasted for three years now.

That mother cat and two of the original kittens have long since disappeared.  I like to think that they moved on to another home.  Only one female kitten remained from that litter.  Since then, she has had litter after litter of her own.  Unable to put a hand on any of them, we still continue to feed whatever strays come.  Even though many of the strays end up disappearing, the number of them has still increased.  We name every one of them.  This mother we call “Calico.”

There is another female from across the street that we call “Likes ‘Em Green.”  She comes over with her kittens when it is time to eat.  I never realized how many strays existed out there.  How they feed themselves is a mystery to me as they become more reliant on the food that I put out.  It has become quite an expense and there are many times when I think I will stop.  But I know that they need me.

Each day, the strays seemed to come a little closer.  But I can never put a hand on a single one of them.  I laugh in jest as they truly would bite the hand that feeds them.  I still love them, though, and think of them as mine.

One time, I saw one that I really wanted.  It was still a kitten and I thought I could probably introduce him to my two male indoor cats.  He was a gray, long-haired tabby.  Most of the cats I feed are either tabbies or calicos.  I named this one “Wolf.”  I told my son that I wanted that particular kitten, so he sneaked up behind him and grabbed him.  It scared the kitten so bad that he scratched my son several times before he let go.  That was it as far as Wolf was concerned.  He would not become anyone’s indoor cat.  But I had wished for it so.  There is an old saying, “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.”

Our garage door remained open all the time once we started feeding the strays.  We never expected one of the cats to move her kittens into the garage.  It seemed appropriate that it would be Calico who would move her kittens into the safe place.  She had been with us from the start.  She was such a pretty cat- her calico pattern was diluted.  She always had a variety of colored kittens.  We weren’t sure how long the kittens had been in there before they started venturing out.  Their little meows were weak and they came under our feet.

“But these are strays,” I said.  “This shouldn’t be happening.  Where’s Calico?”

My son replied, “She’s out there eating.”

I was puzzled.  “Why isn’t she coming to feed her kittens?”

          We knew they were hers because we had seen her with them on a few occasions.  But now, here they were in the garage and she was not making any effort to come close to them.  At night, it may be a different story since we wouldn’t be around, so we left them.  The next day, though, it was obvious that she still hadn’t come to them.  Although their cries were constant, they were getting fainter. We broke down and took the kittens to the vet before they could get any weaker.  I called the vet before we got to that point and we were assured that we’d only be charged one fee- called a litter fee.

“Why would Calico abandon them?” I couldn’t understand it.  We’d seen her with litters before.  Since then, we’ve seen her with two more litters and she didn’t desert them.

When we got to the vet’s office, she said, “These kittens are four weeks old.  She stuck a spoon with food on it to each of the kittens.  “They are starving.  You have three females and one male.  If they are given the best of care, three of them should survive.  I’m not sure if this little one will make it through the night.”

She was talking about the little gray and white female.  She was much smaller than the rest.  The vet and her assistant took the tiny kitten into another room.  I never got charged for anything extra, but I suspected that they must have given her a shot or something.

The vet returned with the kitten.  “You’ll be able to give the kittens away.  You should find homes easily, but wait until they are at least six weeks old.  Besides, you can’t give anyone a sick kitten,” she advised.  “Get them healthy first.”

We left the office with some special kitten food and formula.  We were given advice on how to care for the four.  We really had no desire to keep them beyond two weeks.  As the small one would need added attention, we were instructed to use a heating pad for them to sleep on.  We closed up our garage and made a large box to enclose them in.  We placed a litter box at each end.

They were too little for flea medicine, so we bathed them in baby shampoo and used a blow dryer to dry them.  Since they were little and learning to eat from a dish, they got filthy.  Bathing became a routine requirement.  We didn’t seem to start out as good parents.  This was all new to us. Despite our inexperience, the little gray and white kitten lived.

The time for them to reach six weeks of age came and went.  We couldn’t imagine separating them from each other, much less from us.  We weren’t sure of what a good home was.  We began to think that we would require references from anyone who wanted them.  But we had already made our first major mistake.  We had named them.  By doing so, we had made them ours.

The little gray and white female remained small, so we called her “Runt.”  The orange tabby boy became known as “Tiger.” We called the solid gray female “Blossom,” and the diluted female calico “My-a.”  My-a acquired her unusual name because my daughter wanted her. When she visited, she often referred to the cat as my-a cat.  Still, I found it impossible to give the cat to my own daughter.  She only lives across town.

          We were no longer leaning toward giving them away.  We decided that we would simply release them back to the outdoors when the cold weather passed.  But we couldn’t do that until they were spayed and neutered.  We’d have our garage door open again and they’d be certain to bring us more kittens.  At four months of age, I made appointments to have them spayed, neutered, have their shots updated, and get a general health check.  If I decided to give them away after all, they’d be ready.  However, it was the receptionist at the vet’s office that helped me make my final decision.

“You’ll have no trouble giving any of these kittens away, even at four months old.  They’ve been spayed and neutered and given all of their shots.  They are tame kittens.”  Then she added, “They’ve already got the best home they could ask for.”
When she said that, there was no more talk about giving them away.  Instead, we would go on with our plan to release them outdoors.  Spring was approaching.

When spring came, we couldn’t release them.  I had continued with feeding the strays outside.  Life for the strays was not easy.  I observed a constant turnover among the strays as some disappeared and new ones were born.  How could I release my four kittens into the wild and constantly worry which one would disappear next?

The two males that we had in the house would not accept the four.  I don’t care how many times we tried introducing them.  I had no choice but to close off the two floors.  I gave the four the house downstairs.  We put a cat door in the door going to the garage.  They could go “home” to the garage any time they wished.  The two male cats would remain upstairs.  The house was big enough that the upstairs would be more than enough room for them.  They would get enough attention from us since our sleeping quarters were up there. It was a good solution and it remains that way still.

It has been a year now and the kittens are now grown cats.  They have gotten big; all except for Runt.  They each have their own personalities.  One day, Runt brought my son a ball in her mouth.  She dropped it and he threw it.  She fetched it and has been playing fetch with him ever since.  Tiger tires easily and sleeps a lot.  We laugh at his laziness.  Blossom wants to play all the time and when we get tired, she ends up biting us!  My-a is more human than the rest.  She comes to people, always wanting to lie in their arms.  I hold her upside-down and stroke her stomach, and this makes me realize how much she trusts me.  I’m really like a mother to her.  I have never been a cat person, but I am now.