She's beautiful isn't she? That's exactly what I thought too. This photos was taken with a 300mm zoom lens because this ginger kitty is possibly feral, possibly lost, possibly a runaway and highly skittish, but look at the cute little dots on her nose...you want to take her home with you don't you?
Over the last two weeks my neighbours and I have been dealing with a bit of a dilemma. This cat moved into the neighbourhood and we don't know where she came from. She doesn't have a collar and she tends to stick to the open green belt behind our apartments. The problem is that she's got this really sad "Meow" and she comes prowling at night. I think that she's hungry and looking for a home because up until the early hours of the morning she walks around the place meowling. It is such a pitiful little noise and tells of desperation and longing.
A few days ago my one neighbour and I were talking on the phone and she told me she planned to go to the animal welfare and ask what can be done or if the animal pound needs to be called, she asked if I wanted to go with her. An opportunity to see all the little cats and dogs at the welfare...I was in so a few minutes later we bundled into the car and drove there.
We explained the situation to them and while they seemed sympathetic, they told us that they didn't have any cat traps so they wouldn't be able to help us other than giving us some phone numbers of someone private who may be able to trap the cat. We were rather disheartened but we decided that we would take their advice and see what the phone contacts could do for us to help this painful sounding meowing furball.
I sent a message to the one number explaining that this cat seemed lost and hungry but very skittish and we need help in catching it so that it can be checked for a microchip, returned to it's owner or rehomed if not truly feral (I've seen even feral cats turn domestic if they are even remotely used to people which this one seems to be otherwise I doubt it would be hanging around the houses).
The response that came back was sympathetic but not entirely helpful. You see my two neighbours have made the mistake of making their houses accessible to the cat - they leave windows or cat flaps open and as a matter of course, this kitten goes inside and they don't really like that. The lady I was messaging is currently overseas and although she understood the situation and would help if she were here, all that she could do is to give advice to provide the cat with food away from the houses and keep the windows and catflaps closed at night. I left the texting conversation feeling empty-handed in terms of resources to actually deal with the situation.
I decided that I couldn't let a cat starve so the night before last I found a bowl and I put some food outside on the verandah in the hope that the cat would at least have a full tummy and therefore not sound so utterly sad.
It seemed to work as I didn't hear her all that much that night and during the day yesterday she was pretty absent so I was assuming she found a nice sunny spot to sleep and was having a good cat nap.
Last night just after dark I heard her meowing and I called her with the usual Pssshhh psshhh pshhh and she answered me. So I got out some food for her, filled up her bowl and left it out when I closed the door.
But I made one fatal error...
I forgot to close my one window and this morning I walked into the kitchen and while looking down I was shocked.
What is it with ginger cats? Why do they have to be such little shits? I don't think I have ever encountered a ginger cat that was just an average, nice ginger cat, I was hoping this one was, but I was wrong. Are you expecting the kitten curled up in a chair all snug and safe? Hmmm that I wouldn't have minded so much, but that's not what I got.
A big steaming pile of cat shit waiting in my path to the kitchen is what greeted me first thing in the morning. Clearly the food was well liked and the cat decided that it was going to come poke around for more. It wasn't impressed when it couldn't find the cat food so it decided to have a nice big dump on my walkway into the kitchen. It's as if I can hear it laughing at me...as if to say thanks for the food Miss, leave me more of that tonight or I'll shit in your kitchen again.
I'm annoyed with the cat as cute as it is, I don't like cats that come into houses and shit in them. It's unbecoming and gross. I'm just fucking glad I didn't step in it.
So now I'm not so sure I should feed this little monster or if I should try dissuade it from here as I don't really like the gesture of appreciation it left for me.
What do you guys think I should do? Look at that picture again, it looks smug doesn't it?
