Monthly Archives: May 2018

More Waiting

This evening I tried again to trap one of the several black cats on the base. I was successful, although not the way I’d hoped.

First I trapped the same cat that I trapped a couple of weeks ago. I had her spayed the first time, of course, and didn’t need to trap her again. And despite her terror the first time she found herself with no way out, she went right in that trap again. “Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you?” I asked her. She didn’t respond. Too ashamed of her inability to resist tuna, I suppose.

Next the elusive cat that I was trying to trap the last time I posted sauntered coolly into the trap, gobbled up the tuna, and exited without setting it off. Again. Which is all for the best, I suppose, as I am pretty sure she is no longer pregnant. Her nursing babies are going to need her for the next few weeks. I did finally get a good look at her and she is magnificent. Long charcoal fur with a full mane.

Finally the third and fourth cats appeared. One is clearly a Tom, with the telltale fat cheeks containing all those pheromones. The other is a fairly small, smooth coated, and of course, black cat. She couldn’t resist the tuna either, but she is not so wily as the other. As soon as the trap closed, I rushed her to the vet, and he helped me confirm what I suspected: she is nursing. I took her right back and released her.

It looks like in five or six weeks I will have at least two adult females, an adult male m, and who knows how many kittens to TNR or socialize. Until then, I leave them in peace. I, on the other hand, will be diligently seeking an elusive peace, knowing that all those little souls are struggling to stay alive in a hard world. Say a prayer.

Waiting: an update

If you read yesterday’s post,  you know that I was trying to trap what I’ve been told is a pregnant cat. I did not manage to trap her yesterday but I did see her. After 45 minutes of waiting, I decided probably if I didn’t have her I wasn’t going to get her that time, so I returned to the trap.  I got there just in time to see her tail and the lower half of the body as she quickly exited the trap and slunk back under the building.  I didn’t get a very good look at her. I returned to my waiting spot and gave her a little more time, another 30 minutes or so, and after not hearing the trap, I surrendered, returning to find she had devoured the tuna I had baited the trap with and left it UN-sprung.

This is good news and bad news. The good news is I know she will go in the trap. If she will go in the trap I can trap her. The bad news is she did not look very round  to me.  If she is not round she is probably not pregnant.  If she is not pregnant and she was pregnant as her caregiver reported, then she has had the babies  somewhere.  Which means I can’t trap her now because I can’t risk leaving her kittens without their mama.

Today I went by the area, walked all around, and looked for and listened for any sign of kittens. I spoke to one of the workers. No sign of kittens anywhere. Also no sign of mama cat.  The question remainS: has she had kittens or is she still pregnant?

So I am trying to figure out if I should continue to try to trap her or if I should give her some time, and give her potential kittens some time, and try again a little later.

I would love to hear from experienced rescuers. If you are a rescuer what would you do?

Waiting

I’m sitting about 100 meters from a humane trap in which I’m hoping to catch what I’ve been told is a pregnant cat. I’m listening for that distinctive clap which tells me that the trap has sprung and the desired prey is safely inside. This is the fourth time I have set the trap for this particular cat. She’s quite wild, and she’s very clever. Perhaps she’s been listening to her pal tell her about when I trapped her and had her spayed a couple of weeks ago, a successful, although stressful TNR.

(TNR means Trap-Neuter-Release, the only option to successfully control a community cat population.)

Within the confines of the NATO base where I teach are a number of cats who don’t have family to go home to. Over the course of the last six years, on the campus of the school on base, and on the American base a few miles from here, some friends and I have trapped or otherwise assumed responsibility for upwards of 50 cats and kittens. The ones on the NATO base are primarily the cats abandoned by military members when they PCS, or are the offspring of those cats. Many of them, like the last five, have been kittens, which I and my compassionate cohorts have socialized and either found homes for or found no kill associations which found homes for them.

The adult cats have been much more difficult. Often they have become very distrustful of humans, and a few have been downright feral. The solution for those is very complicated. Some of them have been released in areas unfamiliar to them. I deeply resist that option because sometimes it turns out very badly. One such cat was kept in the ladies garage for several weeks, where the lady fed her, spoke softly to her, and even petted her some. In spite of this, when the cat was finally released, she ran off and was never seen again, breaking the hearts of her caregivers; I still worry about this cat sometimes. Obviously we don’t want that outcome. Ideally a cat who is truly wild, or who is so fearful of humans that they can’t let themselves be socialized, needs to be released where he was trapped. Luckily in this case there is a lady who has been feeding this small colony of cats and because of her, I was alerted and we are now trying to get this population of community cats TNR’d.

In spite of my repeated requests on social media for people to let me know when they’re getting ready to leave so that I can come by and get their cat or find a suitable home for it, folks continue to abandon their animals when they leave. Dogs get dumped at shelters, and cats simply get left behind. I always thought it was “those other countries ” who were doing such things, but I’ve come to learn that we Americans are just as guilty as everybody else.

Even after all these years associated with animal rescue, I still can’t understand how you can do that. How can you welcome an animal into your home without coming to love it? And how can you love anyone or anything and decide that they’re not worth taking with you when you go? Did you know that there are even people who abandon their animals when they go on vacation? They simply turn it out if it’s a cat, or if it’s a dog they tie it to a lamp post by the side of the road.

Before I became an animal rescuer I didn’t realize such things happened. I wouldn’t say that I was living in a state of complete ignorance; in fact I had spent many years weeping over articles that I read, statistics, and photographs. I belonged to the ASPCA, the Humane Society of the United States, and subscribed to vegetarian magazines. For a time I was a member of PETA until I realized that they too are simply an animal killing machine. But until I became an actual rescuer myself, I didn’t realize that our next-door neighbors and sometimes even our friends are not really animal lovers or even animal likers. Because if they were, these “good people” wouldn’t abandon their animals leaving, in the best possible situation, other people to pick up pieces.

So I’m sitting here waiting for that trap, praying that tonight will be the night that this female cat goes into it. Cross your fingers. Say a prayer.