On the collection of discards
So, the neighbors.
(Whose names I do not know, and who I would not recognize if I passed them at the grocery store, and with whom we are not on speaking terms with. Or the neighbors on the other side of us, or the ones across the street, because, suburbia.)
They have a terrier, who they'd let out of the house occasionally for brief periods to run around the front yard and ignore the property lines. (Which, I don't have a problem with, because we did the same thing with our poodle in the early 90s, living in a house in the neighborhood at the edge of the city limits with no backyard fence yet. Several of our neighbors back then did the same thing for the same reason.)
There were also kittens in the house, more rarely seen and possibly just hanging out on the porch a bit before being brought back inside. Though over the last few months, the kitties were being let out more consistently along with the dog, and I started making friends with them. Initially through the intercession of the dog, who was delighted to bounce on over and say hi. The black kitten was very unsure until the dog got petted and came away from the experience unharmed. I made the acquaintance of the Siamese later, who was willing to push his way in and crowd out the black kitten for attention.
The calico I met later yet -- I think some time after the kittens discovered that our backyard is a wonderful feline playground, with climbing trees and a catnip plant and scampering bunnies to stalk. The rabbits are less amused. The first time the kittens came to visit while the rabbits were having an outside-play morning, Amelia came running inside, looking alarmed. Stilinski kept nibbling greenery, leaping a foot into the air every time he got pounced on. Eventually he got fed up and started charging the kitties instead. This being about the point my own cats discovered the youthful interlopers, I tried gently evicting them from our backyard -- only for them to run into Ju-Ju returning from the sideyard to the back, and not remotely amused or tolerant of strangers on her turf. Also there was the thing where I had to close the door to keep the Siamese from walking right into our house. (Normally I'd have it standing about a bunny-width open, with a citronella candle burning on the windowsill beside it to discourage mosquitos, so the rabbits could wander back in when they were ready.)
So the trio and I were on decent terms when I notice the neighbors were spending less and less time at home. I might wake up in the early evening and go out to the mailbox (the mail often not having run before I get home and go to bed) and find the kittens running up to me -- with their house dark and no cars parked out front. So I fed them. I was no longer seeing cars parked in front of the neighboring house when I left for work at 11:30pm. By the time I had my long weekend for my birthday I spent enough time outside to note that there were no cars out front during the day, either -- no Mom taking the kids to school or bringing them home in the afternoon -- and the kitties were running around outside around the clock. Same deal around Halloween, and (having already stealthily bought a bag of kitten chow, which I stashed in the coat closet by the front door) I noted impending foul weather and broached the topic with Mom.
For the last few weeks, I would very occasionally see a car parked out front, for a few hours (especially on a weekend) -- but no signs of full-time occupation. Also, about a week ago I came home from work to find a city water truck parked out front of their house with a worker fiddling with their water cutoff valve. And some years ago a man rang our doorbell and gave me his business card, saying he was a repo man and asking me to call him if I noticed a particular trailer parked out front of their house -- which is evidence of some financial difficulties this family has had in the past. My suspicion is that the neighbors have left their house -- there is no "FOR SALE" sign up, but they haven't been really living there for weeks -- and are popping by occasionally, possibly to gather up more odds and ends.
This topic has been a matter of intense personal interest because they took the dog and left the cats behind. Feeding cats on the doorstep is a non-issue, and talking Mom into letting them in the house last week when we had a couple of rainy nights with lows in the 40s was easy enough. I am mainly stressing over whether I can consider these cats as abandoned because they need spaying and neutering ASAP -- the Siamese is probably around a year old, the calico old enough to go into heat soon if she hasn't already, and the black one may be eight or nine months old.
The deal I made with myself was that if the neighbors weren't back by Thanksgiving, I'd get the kitties all fixed. I have an appointment at 3pm to have them all looked over and given various vaccinations -- a thing that I won't feel guilty about having done if the neighbors turn out to have just been away from home for some reason that was worth pulling kids out of school for (some family crisis, say, which was my alternate hypothesis) or wind up collecting their cats on a future visit to their former home. But having bits removed from someone else's pets feels like a step too far if they wind up being reclaimed. And I don't want to take a little girl's kitty away from her. (I've heard her cooing as she came home to find one of them on the doorstep.) But I'm happy to give them a good home if the parents have decided against taking them along to their own new home.
I would love to have these cats. We lost Squeaky and Choo-Choo in summer 2016, and Ju-Ju seems to be in a serious decline, so we have room for three more. (The only reason I haven't been more seriously pondering the various adoptable rescue cats at the Petco when I make my weekly kitty litter run is because Ju-Ju is such psycho bitch to other cats. I've been waiting for her to no longer be around to start fights with a newbie.)
I have of course named them all. Gabe (Gabriel for long) is the Siamese -- who has white paws like a Birman, but isn't a long-hair, so I continue to describe him as "Siamese," though he's likely a mix. He doesn't seem to have the trademark Siamese yowl, either. He stands on his back legs and paws my thigh to get attention.
The calico I felt compelled to call Miss Spooky -- she's Halloween colors and being adopted around Halloween needed a seasonal name. She feels very doubtful about being in this household, as compared to the boys who settled right in. She'll run right up to me out of doors and demand attention, but she feels very iffy about walking in the door when it's opened for her.
The black one I dithered over. I wanted something vaguely surreptitiously Goth (Neil was a brief possibility, as in Gaiman), or maybe Sable for his extra-plushy coat. Shadow seemed really fucking obvious and ordinary for a black cat -- but dang it, his first day or two in the house he lurked under things, and he follows Gabe around... Ninja? No, I'm not a ninja fan... I brought it up to Mom, and she pooh-poohed Sable as "girly" and suggested Shadowfax. Which, well... we haven't had a Tolkien-named pet since Bilbo died over a decade ago, and she ought to get to name one, and of course he'll be Shadow for short...
And, okay. Time to get offline, stuff kitlings into carriers, and leave for the vet. And after I get home, I need to call Dad, pack a few things, and go visit him for a couple of nights. Happily, posting this entry is the last item on the "to do" list I was really wanting to have done before leaving...
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.
(Whose names I do not know, and who I would not recognize if I passed them at the grocery store, and with whom we are not on speaking terms with. Or the neighbors on the other side of us, or the ones across the street, because, suburbia.)
They have a terrier, who they'd let out of the house occasionally for brief periods to run around the front yard and ignore the property lines. (Which, I don't have a problem with, because we did the same thing with our poodle in the early 90s, living in a house in the neighborhood at the edge of the city limits with no backyard fence yet. Several of our neighbors back then did the same thing for the same reason.)
There were also kittens in the house, more rarely seen and possibly just hanging out on the porch a bit before being brought back inside. Though over the last few months, the kitties were being let out more consistently along with the dog, and I started making friends with them. Initially through the intercession of the dog, who was delighted to bounce on over and say hi. The black kitten was very unsure until the dog got petted and came away from the experience unharmed. I made the acquaintance of the Siamese later, who was willing to push his way in and crowd out the black kitten for attention.
The calico I met later yet -- I think some time after the kittens discovered that our backyard is a wonderful feline playground, with climbing trees and a catnip plant and scampering bunnies to stalk. The rabbits are less amused. The first time the kittens came to visit while the rabbits were having an outside-play morning, Amelia came running inside, looking alarmed. Stilinski kept nibbling greenery, leaping a foot into the air every time he got pounced on. Eventually he got fed up and started charging the kitties instead. This being about the point my own cats discovered the youthful interlopers, I tried gently evicting them from our backyard -- only for them to run into Ju-Ju returning from the sideyard to the back, and not remotely amused or tolerant of strangers on her turf. Also there was the thing where I had to close the door to keep the Siamese from walking right into our house. (Normally I'd have it standing about a bunny-width open, with a citronella candle burning on the windowsill beside it to discourage mosquitos, so the rabbits could wander back in when they were ready.)
So the trio and I were on decent terms when I notice the neighbors were spending less and less time at home. I might wake up in the early evening and go out to the mailbox (the mail often not having run before I get home and go to bed) and find the kittens running up to me -- with their house dark and no cars parked out front. So I fed them. I was no longer seeing cars parked in front of the neighboring house when I left for work at 11:30pm. By the time I had my long weekend for my birthday I spent enough time outside to note that there were no cars out front during the day, either -- no Mom taking the kids to school or bringing them home in the afternoon -- and the kitties were running around outside around the clock. Same deal around Halloween, and (having already stealthily bought a bag of kitten chow, which I stashed in the coat closet by the front door) I noted impending foul weather and broached the topic with Mom.
For the last few weeks, I would very occasionally see a car parked out front, for a few hours (especially on a weekend) -- but no signs of full-time occupation. Also, about a week ago I came home from work to find a city water truck parked out front of their house with a worker fiddling with their water cutoff valve. And some years ago a man rang our doorbell and gave me his business card, saying he was a repo man and asking me to call him if I noticed a particular trailer parked out front of their house -- which is evidence of some financial difficulties this family has had in the past. My suspicion is that the neighbors have left their house -- there is no "FOR SALE" sign up, but they haven't been really living there for weeks -- and are popping by occasionally, possibly to gather up more odds and ends.
This topic has been a matter of intense personal interest because they took the dog and left the cats behind. Feeding cats on the doorstep is a non-issue, and talking Mom into letting them in the house last week when we had a couple of rainy nights with lows in the 40s was easy enough. I am mainly stressing over whether I can consider these cats as abandoned because they need spaying and neutering ASAP -- the Siamese is probably around a year old, the calico old enough to go into heat soon if she hasn't already, and the black one may be eight or nine months old.
The deal I made with myself was that if the neighbors weren't back by Thanksgiving, I'd get the kitties all fixed. I have an appointment at 3pm to have them all looked over and given various vaccinations -- a thing that I won't feel guilty about having done if the neighbors turn out to have just been away from home for some reason that was worth pulling kids out of school for (some family crisis, say, which was my alternate hypothesis) or wind up collecting their cats on a future visit to their former home. But having bits removed from someone else's pets feels like a step too far if they wind up being reclaimed. And I don't want to take a little girl's kitty away from her. (I've heard her cooing as she came home to find one of them on the doorstep.) But I'm happy to give them a good home if the parents have decided against taking them along to their own new home.
I would love to have these cats. We lost Squeaky and Choo-Choo in summer 2016, and Ju-Ju seems to be in a serious decline, so we have room for three more. (The only reason I haven't been more seriously pondering the various adoptable rescue cats at the Petco when I make my weekly kitty litter run is because Ju-Ju is such psycho bitch to other cats. I've been waiting for her to no longer be around to start fights with a newbie.)
I have of course named them all. Gabe (Gabriel for long) is the Siamese -- who has white paws like a Birman, but isn't a long-hair, so I continue to describe him as "Siamese," though he's likely a mix. He doesn't seem to have the trademark Siamese yowl, either. He stands on his back legs and paws my thigh to get attention.
The calico I felt compelled to call Miss Spooky -- she's Halloween colors and being adopted around Halloween needed a seasonal name. She feels very doubtful about being in this household, as compared to the boys who settled right in. She'll run right up to me out of doors and demand attention, but she feels very iffy about walking in the door when it's opened for her.
The black one I dithered over. I wanted something vaguely surreptitiously Goth (Neil was a brief possibility, as in Gaiman), or maybe Sable for his extra-plushy coat. Shadow seemed really fucking obvious and ordinary for a black cat -- but dang it, his first day or two in the house he lurked under things, and he follows Gabe around... Ninja? No, I'm not a ninja fan... I brought it up to Mom, and she pooh-poohed Sable as "girly" and suggested Shadowfax. Which, well... we haven't had a Tolkien-named pet since Bilbo died over a decade ago, and she ought to get to name one, and of course he'll be Shadow for short...
And, okay. Time to get offline, stuff kitlings into carriers, and leave for the vet. And after I get home, I need to call Dad, pack a few things, and go visit him for a couple of nights. Happily, posting this entry is the last item on the "to do" list I was really wanting to have done before leaving...
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.